What would climate change disruption look like?
In this article, we're exploring five technologies that are on the verge of disruption, that may remake the landscape of energy consumption and provide a radical, revolutionary change in our battle with climate change. Hold on to your hat, here we go.
Google's prototype self-driving electric car (credit: Google)
Autonomous electric vehicles
Transport makes up to 15% of manmade CO2 emissions, and it's not just personal cars we're talking about, freight trucks and buses are up to 18% of vehicle pollution. Although we've seen incremental changes in the way we consume energy when we drive, thanks to electric cars like the Tesla, a radical disruption in the transport space would look very different. The first step in that direction, may be a fleet of small electric autonomous cars like the ones unveiled by Google. The diminutive autos are the opposite of high-performance, a small battery-powered electric motor pushes the cars to a top speed of 40 kilometers an hour. If you are a car-enthusiast and you're shaking your head at this, keep in mind that there is also no steering-wheel. These cars are all about getting from point A to point B, without all of the car culture trappings that you would expect. In fact - it's unlikely that anyone would own these cars, instead - they would be called up, on demand through your smart phone whenever you need a ride.On the freight side, you may have seen Amazon's recent move into "drone delivery vehicles". Deliveries to the home may soon be accomplished by flying or driving autonomous vehicles bringing you exactly what you need when you want it. Roads and increasingly the airspace over our heads may be seen more as a circulatory system moving people and goods around in a coordinated, automated fashion. In this scenario, there's not much room for the car enthusiast. Motor fans may find that they only get to practice their pastime on closed tracks, much in the same way that horse riders are not allowed to gallop down freeways.
Cree 200 lumen per watt white LED technology (Credit: Cree)
LEDs taking over how we light the world
LED lights have been around since the 1960s but it's only in the last 10 years that white LEDs have started to take over from traditional incandescent and fluorescent type bulbs. This takeover has been accelerated by government programmes encouraging, and sometimes forcing consumers to make the switch. The reason are stark. Typical usage of a 6 - 8 watt retrofit bulb is only US $1.10 per year, where a corresponding 60 watt incandescent bulb would be US $10.95 per year. That's a 10X savings.Lighting makes up 6.5% of the world's energy consumption, The Economist warns us that in the past when we've switched lighting technologies (say from gas lights to bulbs) all that has happened is that we've used more lighting and the world has gotten brighter - but to make a real impact on energy consumption and climate change, we'll need to make sure that our switch to LED corresponds with real conservation as well. Smart lights are the way we'll make this happen. We need lighting that knows when humans are in the room and turn on and off as required. Have a look at this great Kickstarter video for a project that does just that.
A simple diagram showing how BECCS works (credit: Global status of BECCS projects 2010)
Bio-energy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS)
BECCS is a technology that produces negative emissions. That means that it actually removes CO2 from the atmosphere while making energy instead of creating pollution. The way it works is that trees and crops are grown for use in generating power. These crops, through their growth, remove CO2 from the atmosphere and incorporate the carbon into plant biomass. The harvested plants are then used for fuel. If the plants are just combusted, that results in a "net 0" CO2 level, the CO2 captured in the plants would leave the generator as exhaust -- but if carbon capture technologies are used to trap the CO2 on combustion, that's when the negative emissions are achieved. As a final step, the CO2 is then stored geologically, deep in the earth's crust.BECCS has been called out (PDF link) by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as a "key technology" to help the world meet it's climate change targets. Decarboni.se has a lot of information on bio-energy with CCS which you can find here. (full disclosure: Decarboni.se is backed by the Global CCS Institute)
The largest solar plant in the world, Agua Caliente Solar Project (Credit: First Solar)
Near exponential growth in PV panels
When discussing disruption in technological innovation, it's often paired in the same breath with Moore's Law. This is the famous axiom coined by Gordon Moore, the founder of semi-conductor company Intel. It states that the number of transistors on a computer chip doubles approximately every 24 months. This has held true since he made the statement in 1965 until the present. Does the same rule hold for solar PV panels? At first glance they would seem to be a comparable technology; wafers of silicon made in high-tech factories to exacting specifications. Moore's law however, is all about "die shrinks" - that means fitting the same amount of transistors on an ever smaller wafer of silicon. Photovoltaic cells however, are limited in how much they can shrink - they need to be big enough to receive the maximum amount of sunlight possible on their surface area. Instead of Moore's Law, solar panels are said to be governed by Swanson's Law - really just an observation made by Richard Swanson, CEO of PV manufacturer SunPower. Swanson's Law states that PV prices drop 20% for every doubling of manufacturing capacity. Although it's not exponential growth like Moore's Law, it does mean that the price per watt of solar energy gets cheaper as economies of scale kick in.
Source: The Economist
What does this mean for the future? The jury's still out on whether Swanson's Law will have the longevity of Moore's Law. A great deal of the capacity for PV comes from Chinese companies subsidised by the government to produce panels at a very cheap price. It's unclear whether this practice will be sustainable for the long term. The future is also hazy around technological improvements that will allow panels to produce more watts for less money. Some look to concentrated solar power paired with PV panels as a way to amplify the energy potential of the sun and keep Swanson's Law going. For a more in depth look at Swanson's Law and solar panels I have a blog post that focuses on it here.
One person who is very optimistic about the disruptive power of solar panels to serve all of of our energy needs is Ray Kurzweil. He's an inventor, futurist and now heads up Google's artificial intelligence lab. Watch this short video if you'd like to hear a bright, sunny view on where solar energy could be heading:
Nuclear fusion: an energy revolution waiting to happen
Nuclear fusion seems like a clean energy solution that is perpetually 20 years away. Breathless articles tell us that it's very near and yet -- we're definitely not there yet. In our recent interview with Focus Fusion board member Dennis Peterson, he compared the work being done on a fusion energy to a computer:If commercial fusion does arrive in the next few decades, it has the potential to radically disrupt how we use energy. Here's Dennis again:
The most ardent supporters of fusion even say that it could usher in a post-scarcity economy - that is, a society where the system of trade for energy, goods and services is no longer based on the scarcity of those items. Is this the sci-fi fever dream of a scientific fringe? - only time will tell, but the science behind fusion power is real, and getting closer every year.
I hope you enjoyed this look at 5 technologies with the power to disrupt climate change - this is certainly not an exhaustive list and I'd love to hear your ideas on disruptive clean energy tech. Drop us a line in the comments section below or leave a comment on our Facebook page.
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