In a new book, two technologists paint a rosy portrait of our future, describing how cutting-edge technology could benefit large industry–as long as humans don’t muck it up in the mean time, that is. Called “Resource Revolution: How to Capture the Biggest Business Opportunity in a Century”, authors Matt Rogers and Stefan Heck have written a veritable guide for technology optimists. Manufacturing companies could use information technology, biotechnology, and nanotechnology to their great advantage, they argue, creating a technological revolution akin to the invention of the airplane.

Rogers and Heck assuage the creeping feeling many have that Silicon Valley has run out of big ideas. While Apple and Amazon seem content to sell us new iterations of established products, Google hires code writers by the droves to better serve us advertisements. By combining big business with Big Data and cutting-edge science, we might improve on goods that have remained static for decades. The automobile is definitely one such good.

“After housing, cars are the second-most-expensive goods most Americans buy. Yet most of us buy vehicles just to park them; on average, cars are moving during just 5 percent of their lives. When we do drive our cars, we often do so alone. Worse, most of the energy in our gas tanks is being wasted by the inefficient internal combustion engine.”