Last week, we ran an experiment. We hosted a gathering, called “Solve for X,” for experienced entrepreneurs, innovators and scientists from around the world. The event focused on proposing and discussing technological solutions to some of the world’s greatest problems. Discussions began last week with this small event, and now we invite others to join the conversation on our website and our Google +page.
The Solve for X gathering, which we co-hosted with Eric Schmidt, is a place to celebrate a concept we champion internally and that we believe will inspire many others: technology moonshots. These are efforts that take on global-scale problems, define radical solutions to those problems, and involve some form of breakthrough technology that could actually make them happen. Moonshots live in the gray area between audacious projects and pure science fiction; they are 10x improvement, not 10%. That’s partly what makes them so exciting.
“The answer, in the peer-reviewed study of the online habits of girls aged 8 to 12, finds that those who say they spend considerable amounts of time using multimedia describe themselves in ways that suggest they are less happy and less socially comfortable than peers who say they spend less time on screens.”
I owe my livelihood to technology and I love the raw capability it offers us as a tool, but I fear it a bit more than most people do. It’s a tool, but it’s not quite a hammer, because a hammer doesn’t seduce you into sitting around lonely in your underwear for 6 hours at a stretch clicking on youtube videos and refreshing Twitter. I fear technology because I fear that bad feeling I get after a three day XBox binge I go through every year around the holidays. I fear technology not because I think it’s evil, but because it’s too easy to start clicking and never stop, even if the stream of data starts to go from meaningful to useless after the top 5%.
I am fascinated by this study because everything I have been doing in the last year professionally and personally has been to reduce the overage of technology and noise in my life and it has increased my happiness by many fold.
But the really interesting development in Australia looks to be a ‘real estate grab’ for the infrastructure required to recharge the huge Lithium ion batteries that power EVs.
BetterPlace will install charging units in homes, office carparks, outside train stations, in shopping centre car parks and curb-side on city streets, but plans to retain ownership of the units.
Its Australian infrastructure competitor, ChargePoint Australia, by contrast, plans to sell units to customers who will then onsell the electricity to EV drivers at whatever price they deem appropriate.
The limiting factor for both firms is real estate.
SuperFreakonomics was a good read and was my first ebook. I read it on the PC and iPhone using Amazon Kindle.
Their chapter on Global Warming had some interesting solutions from Intellectual Ventures on climate change. Here is the idea.
1. What is geoengineering?
“Geoengineering” describes how the earth’s systems can be influenced by engineering solutions. There are many historic examples of how humans have used technology to change geological systems. From using fire to drive game to building irrigation for agriculture, seeding clouds during droughts, reversing the Chicago River to building the Hoover dam, the term can encompass all sorts of ideas. Today, options discussed often include large-scale engineering of the environment in order to combat or counteract the adverse effects of human-induced changes in the atmosphere and climate.
2. Why is Intellectual Ventures researching geoengineering technologies?
Intellectual Ventures looks at hard problems facing the world and brainstorms ideas and technologies that can lead to better solutions. Global warming is a very significant problem, but it won’t be solved with old ideas and old technology alone. We believe that the solution to this crisis will involve new ideas and new technologies.
Intellectual Ventures recognizes that the process of bringing new global warming ideas to the surface can be challenging and controversial. But as an invention company, we believe research needs to be done now, rather than after the full complications of global warming are upon us.
3. What makes Intellectual Ventures’ approach to climate change different from the research that is already being done elsewhere?
Some people think that global warming can be solved purely by policy means: taxes, renewable requirements, or cap-and-trade systems. While such moves may be helpful, we are not convinced that they are sufficient for several reasons.
The first is that current climate science cannot say with certainty what level of CO2 can be tolerated by the climate system without severe consequences. Some scientists believe that even the current level of CO2 is dangerously high, while others are relatively comfortable with far higher levels. This matters because the more sensitive the climate is to CO2, the quicker and deeper cuts in emissions must be in order to avoid harmful environmental changes. We may be lucky, and the climate system may be relatively tolerant, or we may be unlucky and find that the necessary cuts must be deeper, or occur quicker, than the world can manage to do.
Second, there has been more talk than action. The world has made little progress in curbing large scale emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases. In order to make meaningful cuts in CO2 emissions there would need to be comprehensive and effective international agreements in place. So far, these have proven elusive.
Third, the task of retooling our energy infrastructure away from fossil fuels is a massive task, which is going to take a long time to accomplish. Indeed most of the world has not even made a meaningful start. New technology will speed the transition to a carbon-free energy infrastructure, but it is hard to estimate or have confidence in that can be accomplished quickly.
Fourth, and perhaps the most important, by the time if we should discover that the factors above are not favorable – and serious environmental harm starts to occur, it will be too late for conventional approaches to work. Once there is too much CO2 in the atmosphere, even if you stop emissions entirely, you will have problems for many decades to come. It is possible that this unhappy situation will not occur, either because the climate can tolerate a lot more CO2, or because the world achieves very significant emission reductions. However, if we do find ourselves in a bad scenario, geoengineering is one of the few alternatives for reducing harm to both human society and the environment.
Pure water is one of the world’s most precious natural resources. With much of India’s population denied access to safe drinking water, the delivery of safe, convenient and affordable water purification is one of the biggest social and technological challenges in the country today.
Responding to this challenge, Tata Chemicals today unveils ‘Tata Swach’ – a unique and innovative water purifier. Requiring no energy or running water to operate, an early version of the product first saw the light of day as part of the Tsunami relief efforts. Today, the replaceable filter-based product, which is entirely portable and based on low-cost natural ingredients, delivers safe drinking water at a new market benchmark of Rs30 per month for a family of five.
Speaking at the launch, Ratan Tata, Chairman, Tata Sons, said: “Safe drinking water is the most basic of human needs. The social cost of water contamination is already enormous and increases every year. Although today’s announcement is about giving millions more people affordable access to safe water, it is an important step in the long-term strategy to find a solution to provide affordable access to safe water for all.”
Tata Swach is the result of years of collaboration between several Tata companies, including TCS, Tata Chemicals and Titan Industries. Based on an innovative concept developed by the TCS Innovation Labs – TRDDC, the Swach technology combines low-cost ingredients such as rice husk ash with superior nanotechnology. The efficiency of the product has been rigorously tested to meet internationally accepted water purification standards.
Water-borne disease is the single greatest threat to global health, with diarrhoea, jaundice, typhoid, cholera, polio, and gastroenteritis spread by contaminated water. According to a 2007 United Nations report, half of the world’s hospital beds are occupied by patients suffering from water-borne diseases. In India, such diseases cause more than 1.5 times the deaths caused by Aids and double the deaths caused by road accidents.
Audi’s latest clean-diesel sedan, launched in the United States just last month, was named Green Car of the Year at the Los Angeles Auto show on Thursday, upsetting Toyota's popular Prius hybrid for the award.
The Audi A3 TDI, a premium hatchback that gets 42 miles (67.6 km) to the gallon on the highway, is the second clean-diesel vehicle in a row to claim the prize bestowed each year by Green Car Journal magazine. Last year's winner was the Audi A3's corporate cousin, a Volkswagen Jetta. Volkswagen AG (VOWG.DE) owns Audi.
Other finalists for this year's award included the Volkswagen Golf TDI clean-diesel, the Honda Insight hybrid, Ford's Mercury Milan hybrid and the Prius.
Simon Hackett rode the Tesla pure electric roadster across Darwin to Australia, more than 3000 kms. Here are his results.
How would you like your car to achieve the equivalent of 1.6 Litres per 100 km (US 150 MPG)?
Would you like to do that while paying between AUS$69 and AUS$126 for your energy costs (including a surcharge to buy 100% GreenPower), to take you 3147 kilometres from the top of Australia to the bottom?
(or to put it another way: between 2.2 and 4 cents per km over that entire distance using GreenPower)?
We’ve just demonstrated that its possible – if the car is a pure electric vehicle.
Simon said he would put the Tesla through its paces in the six-stage journey, covering distances from 300km to 700km per day. “We’re simulating the recharging infrastructure by putting a generator on the back of a truck and sending that out ahead of the car to be at the recharge point we want,” he said.
“The idea is to demonstrate that if you have the appropriate recharging infrastructure on the highway system, you can drive at normal highway speeds and treat it just like any other car. We’re asking that if the recharging infrastructure is available, can the car cut it? Can you drive one from Darwin to Adelaide and make it? My aim is to prove that point – and this is the perfect event for it. This event is about proving whether you can do that with alternative energy cars.”
Simon Hackett, as he sets off to break the world distance record for a production electric vehicle
And he has put in an innovative way to track the real time progress of the car.
To my mind, the Green path forward begins with environmentalists realizing that nuclear power will grow no matter what we do. Our customary opposition would make it grow badly – slowly, expensively, unsystemically, and with dangerously poor overall coordination. But if we encourage it in the right way, nuclear energy growing well would mean that it minimizes humanity’s carbon-loading of the atmosphere; that it collaborates well with other carbon-free or superefficient energy forms; that it helps generate other Green services such as desalination or hydrogen . . . that it helps eliminate nuclear weapons; that it securely energizes cities and thereby helps to reduce world poverty . . .
In his lecture at the Longnow Foundation (from Fora.tv) he explains how slum dwellers in Dharavi, Mumbai, India are the greenest people on earth who live on very less energy and resources and recycle everything. However, this is possible because they are some of the poorest people on earth. And, they do not want to be like that.
From one of his TED talks
Here is the biggest paradigm that the developed world does not want to understand.
You cannot be rich without abundant and cheap energy.
How do you become rich and have low per-capita emissions? – Nuclear Energy, Geothermal and Hydro.
LightBucket has some fantastic analysis in this regard.
Table 1 shows the energy mix and carbon emissions data for the so-called “developed regions” as defined by the UN Statistics Division [1]. I’ve highlighted some of the stand-out numbers, both highest and lowest, and I’ll discuss these below.
Table 1. Energy mix, energy use and CO2 emissions by GDP and by population
Country
Energy Mix
Power/
Capita
CO2/GDP
CO2/Capita
fossil
nuclear
renew-
ables
other
kW/capita
tonnes CO2/
US$10000
tonnes CO2/
capita
Luxembourg
92%
0%
2%
6%
13.9
3.4
26.5
United States [6]
86%
8%
6%
0%
10.5
5.2
20.4
Australia [7]
97%
0%
3%
0%
7.9
5.1
19.0
Canada [8]
67%
7%
25%
0%
11.2
6.4
18.5
Estonia
87%
0%
10%
3%
5.0
16.3
14.3
Finland
59%
16%
23%
2%
8.9
3.5
13.2
Czech Republic
79%
15%
3%
3%
5.9
10.8
12.5
Belgium
75%
22%
2%
1%
7.2
2.8
12.2
Ireland
97%
0%
2%
1%
4.9
2.3
11.1
Netherlands
94%
1%
3%
2%
6.7
2.4
11.1
Germany
84%
12%
4%
0%
5.5
2.9
10.7
Denmark
85%
0%
14%
1%
4.8
2.2
10.2
Japan [9]
83%
12%
5%
0%
5.5
2.7
10.1
Greece
94%
0%
5%
1%
3.7
3.7
10.0
Norway [10]
37%
0%
60%
0%
9.2
3.4
9.6
Austria
77%
0%
21%
2%
5.5
2.4
9.4
United Kingdom
89%
9%
2%
0%
5.2
2.7
9.4
Italy
90%
0%
7%
3%
4.2
2.6
8.5
New Zealand [11]
71%
0%
29%
0%
5.5
3.2
8.4
Poland
95%
0%
5%
0%
3.2
12.2
8.3
Spain
82%
12%
6%
0%
4.4
3.2
8.3
Slovenia
69%
19%
11%
1%
4.9
5.0
8.2
Slovakia
72%
23%
4%
1%
4.6
8.6
7.9
Iceland [12]
28%
0%
73%
0%
16.3
1.7
7.8
France
52%
40%
6%
2%
5.8
1.9
6.9
Bulgaria
71%
22%
5%
2%
3.4
17.5
6.8
Portugal
83%
0%
15%
2%
3.4
3.3
6.3
Sweden
37%
37%
26%
0%
7.7
1.5
6.2
Switzerland [13]
63%
24%
13%
0%
4.8
1.1
6.1
Hungary
81%
12%
4%
3%
3.7
5.6
5.9
Romania
84%
4%
12%
0%
2.3
12.0
5.4
Lithuania
50%
37%
7%
6%
3.3
5.9
3.9
Latvia
60%
0%
36%
4%
2.7
5.2
3.2
World Mean [14]
87%
6%
6%
1%
2.4
5.6
4.0
Data are sorted by descending order of CO2 emissions per capita;
Units of CO2/GDP are metric tons of CO2 per US$10,000 of GDP;
Units of CO2/Capita are metric tons of CO2 per capita per annum;
Units of Power/Capita are kilowatts per capita. Power refers to Total Primary Energy Supply;
There are small rounding errors in some of the percentages;
Data are for 2004 except where noted;
Data are for “developed regions” as defined by the UN Statistics Division;
CO2/capita data are from ref [1];
CO2/GDP data are calculated from refs [2] and [3];
Power/Capita data are from ref [4];
Energy mix data for EU nations are from ref [5];
Remaining energy mix data are from refs [6] to [14], and are noted in the table.
What do these numbers show?
Four developed countries have emissions intensities below 2 tonnes-CO2 per US$10,000 of GDP. They are France, Iceland, Sweden and Switzerland. These are working models of low-emissions, high-income industrialised economies. How do they do it?
Iceland has the highest per capita energy consumption of any country (it’s the cold winters), so one might expect it to have high carbon emissions, yet it is among the very lowest carbon emitters – how? It’s thanks to its very large geothermal and hydroelectric resources, sufficient for its small population. Iceland’s energy mix has the highest fraction of renewables of any country (geothermal 56.0%, hydroelectric 16.6%) [12], giving it the lowest emissions intensity of any “developed region” nation that doesn’t use nuclear power.
France has the highest nuclear fraction at 40% – about 80% of its electricity is nuclear-fuelled – and Sweden is close behind with 37% nuclear energy. Sweden’s mix of hydroelectric and nuclear power, and France’s heavy use of nuclear power, give both of them very low emissions by population and by GDP.
The best performer of all by emissions intensity is Switzerland.
Switzerland has by far the lowest CO2 emissions per unit GDP of any developed nation, and the third lowest emissions/GDP ratio of any nation at all (only Chad and Cambodia have lower emissions intensities). This isn’t just down to its very high GDP; Switzerland also has the lowest per capita CO2 emissions of the western economies (four eastern European nations have lower per capita emissions).
How does Switzerland do it? It is a very wealthy nation, which certainly explains one side of the emissions-to-GDP ratio, but that doesn’t explain the emissions per capita ratio, which is also among the very lowest. Its electricity generation is almost entirely hydroelectric and nuclear. These are the two low-carbon energy sources available in quantity. Coal use is confined to two specific industries, foundries and cement factories [15]. These are the factors that combine to deliver Switzerland’s very low emissions figures.
At the other extreme, the U.S. stands out as a poor performer in every respect. It’s not just that its per capita emissions are the second highest of all (after Luxembourg), it also performs poorly on the economic measure of emissions intensity. Also noteworthy are Australia and Ireland, two economies almost entirely reliant on fossil fuels. Ireland has high per capita emissions despite low energy use, while Australia combines a high-carbon energy mix with high energy use to end up with the third highest per capita emissions of all. Given its low population density and natural advantages, it’s an extraordinary position to be in.
Cleantech is the biggest potential for Australia to take part of the low-carbon future and enable production in the country rather than consumption.
My friend, John O’brien is doing is bit to popularise clean tech. He is the MD of Australian Cleantech and has been running a very successful networking event in Adelaide. Now he has taken it to the big boys in Sydney by recently launching the Sydney Cleantech Network where he reports that about 150 people attended.
John provides examples of the companies which gave a 2 minute presentation.
Five companies then did ‘two minute pitches’ explaining their products and services and detailing their upcoming funding requirements. The companies were:
- CMA Corporporation – A leading integrated Australian-based recycling group that provides products and services to customers across three continents.
- Acoustica – Commercialising the world’s best “Green” Noise Barrier – Quietwave® Captive Membrane Technology.
- T3Energy – Developer of both a solar space heating and super-insulated building technologies will reduce energy consumption in homes by up to 80% while offering a competitive and compelling alternative to conventional homes.
- Azure Energy – The Azure Energy ALI system produces seven forms of energy from Solar Energy, in all weather conditions
- Universal Power Storage – Universal Power Storage (UPS) has the only invention in the Massive Electrical Storage (MES) space that can potentially deliver the largest scale electrical storage system in the world: rectifying the largest market failure in the electricity market – base load storage.
Companies need money and expertise to develop in Australia and then conquer the world; if not Australia will lose valuable people and future jobs to other countries.
