Berkeley Lab Director Steve Chu wrote the following predictions about what science, and in particular the state of energy supply and resources, will be like in the year 2031, when the Lab reaches its Centennial. His thoughts, and others submitted by Lab employees, will be included in a time capsule that will be dedicated and sealed at Founders Day, the 75th anniversary of the Lab, on Aug. 26, 2006:

We will have discovered a serious breakdown of the "Standard Model" in high energy physics, and the theorists will not yet understand the new phenomena discovered at the LHC and the ILC.

High temperature superconductivity will be understood. Commercial superconducting transmission lines at room temperature will not be achieved.

We will have developed a physically-based, mechanistic understanding of many biological systems, and can design and synthesize complex systems for energy, medical and environmental applications. Synthetic and systems biology will have been “industrialized.”
 
Significant clinical applications of stem cell research will be in practice.

The average consumption of energy per person in the U.S. will have decreased by ~ 20%. Most of this savings will come from better building codes, higher mileage standards for transportation, and improved industrial efficiencies.

Bio-fuels (not necessarily ethanol) based on ligno-cellulose material, including bio-wastes, will have displaced ~ 25% of the amount of oil we use to produce gasoline. 

The cost of photovoltaic solar cells will have decreased, in inflation adjusted dollars, by at least a factor of 4. New commercial and residential buildings in sunny areas of the U.S. will be required to install solar electrical generation.

There will be a significant development of HVDC transmission in key areas in the U.S. and the rest of the world to distribute wind-generated power, nuclear power, and fossil fuel power plants that capture and sequester carbon.

The world, including the U.S., China and India, will have a carbon cap trade policy and other fiscal and tax policies in place in order to decrease the amount of carbon emissions. As a result, the rate of worldwide carbon emissions will have begun to be stabilized. The plateau will be projected to occur in ~ 2050. 

Only half of these predictions will come true.

I will have missed at least 3 major technological breakthroughs at the level of the invention of the transistor, laser, integrated chip, the internet. I will have missed at least 3 major scientific discoveries/developments at the level of the discovery of parity non-conservation, the development of structural biology, or the discovery of the cosmic microwave background and dark energy.