Let’s face it: if we’re going to save this planet from ourselves, we have to develop cleaner technologies. And here what will be the future, when we move to a high tech world with a low carbon content all in a row. Our world, however, gradually and steadily moves to a low carbon economy. And it’s not just climate change. Among other reasons the growth of energy consumption, global population growth, the rapid rise of security issues and the expansion of global economic activity.
Looking ahead, it is difficult to say with certainty what will be low-carbon or “green economy” when we going to get to it, but we can be sure that the transition from our current, unstable, dependent on the carbon economy will be very massive. Perhaps we will never fight carbon emissions, but will strive to achieve carbon neutrality. However, because our habits of consumption are unlikely to change, requires a substantial investment and technological ingenuity.
Futurist Ramez Naam explained to Gizmodo: “Speaking of energy, food, transport, homes and the like: a very small part of our progress will go through a voluntary desire to consume less. People desperately resist. If we are to succeed, we need to provide more clean, non-polluting, climate friendly options all of it.”
A modern example
Fortunately, achieving a low-carbon state of the world is not beyond our capabilities. According to the futurist Madeline Ashby, we have a real example: Iceland.
Icelandic IDDP-1, the world’s first geothermal system operating on the magma
This tiny Northern nation already generates 85% of its energy stable, although not entirely carbon-neutral way. More than 65% of Iceland’s energy comes from geothermal sources, most of which provide the country with heat and electricity.
Ashby said that most of the other energy sources in Iceland rely on hydroelectric. Hydroelectricity makes up 72% of total electricity generation in Iceland, so it maybe a little to sell — that is, found a way to convert green energy into a profitable and viable industry.
In Iceland there are essentially only four industries: fishing, pastorello, energy and tourism. Ashby notes that with a population of 330,000 people and with limited space for development, “they were supposed to be best in all these things.”
In the retail context this means that their stuff is worth the money. “In Iceland is expensive, says Ashby. — Sweaters of wool handmade for $ 250. Bowl fish stew — $ 40. A pint of local beer — $ 14. Shot of local gin? $ 7. The gas? Gasoline costs as much, how much should they cost gasoline — in a world addicted to oil, the Icelanders put on gasoline cocaine pictures”.
Ashby said that cheap there is only cheap Chinese imports — just the type that turns into absurd amounts of carbon during production and transportation — and “trinkets for the tourists.” Local production is also present, but Icelanders live like white people — and sweaty workers from Bangladesh is not — so the prices reflect the cost of living. And people pay. Because in a stable economy you pay people exactly what they want, so they can support their families, says Ashby.
Samoraspadayutsya resources
Another well-known example of the real world — what science fiction writer and futurist Karl Schroeder calls samoraspustitsya resources; this flow becomes stronger with the development of “Internet of things” and bloschanevych technologies like Etherium.
Bixi Bike Share in Toronto: the more, the less carbon in the atmosphere
Schroeder points to Uber as an example. Although we used to consider Uber the company, he said that it is rather a mediator between people and small resource use: cars. “There is nothing that would prevent connected [to the Internet of things] vehicles and potential drivers to agree among themselves, without a mediator — and this applies to all other resources.”
Another example is the humble household drill — the tool that we use on average a few minutes throughout their life. Schroeder believes that “instrumentation cooperatives” can be a potential answer to the underutilization of these wonderful things, but that will not stop.
“Imagine a connected drill, says Schroeder. — If it is not the case, it can offer its services to trusted neighbors — with their permission — and to deliver themselves together with the drone in the hands of those who need it, in a matter of minutes. As a result we will have less drills, but done more with them.”
The power of this approach becomes evident, until we start to enumerate all the excesses around him. At the same time, it is not necessary to take superebony approach or to abandon ownership of our things. Share does not mean to refuse.
Looking ahead, he thinks we don’t have to own so many things, “but the effects will be the same as if we owned them; and our desire to share will stay private, from hand to hand and completely voluntary — and a lot less carbon”.
I think, in this article you will find many derived from the words carbon, which previously was not the case.
In search of low-carbon energy
To share resources and live happily ever after, of course, is good and fun, but to save our world from dependence on carbon, you also need to find a better way to get energy.
“Today, electricity is overwhelmingly derived from fossil fuels, says Ramez Naam. — If we want to overcome climate change, have to change it.”
600-megawatt wind farm Fântânele-Cogealac in Romania
According to Naama, we have four main technologies to move forward: solar, wind, nuclear and energy storage. “Solar energy has crossed the point, providing 1% of global electricity, he says. — Storage behind solar energy for 20 years. But this sector has the advantage of keeping prices down quickly and there is active development”.
Wind (from the point of view of energy) is already less than natural gas in most countries (in which the wind blows) and continues to fall in price. The sun is more expensive but dropping in price even faster and eventually will cost two to three times less than fossil fuel from the point of view of electricity. The key to development is energy storage. With cheap storage, we could store energy from the sun and wind until, until it gets dark and the wind dies down. And the price of energy storage is also rapidly reduced.
As for nuclear energy, it provides a safe carbon-free electricity 24 hours a day 7 days a week, but is in trouble. “Partly it’s because the fear of disasters led to the closure of some reactors, and in part because our policy doesn’t offer nuclear energy as a carbon-free alternative. In addition, the nuclear industry watches a rise, not a fall in prices. They can’t find a way to carry out innovation in the name of lower prices. Therefore, we can only hope that they will work well together and will make some small modular reactors that can be assembled on the conveyors. But for now, the future of nuclear power seems to be vague”.
Another question, when it comes to energy, it will affect the overall economy and individual businesses and homeowners adapt to a changing technological landscape.
According to Patrick Hanna, consultant Enshift Power and IGES Canada Ltd., in the near future the focus will be on efficiency (efficiency), because today it is the most cost-effective strategy for implementation. “From this position until we move to micro – or public approaches to generating and storing energy, we will take the necessary steps to control wasted resources,” he explains.
The question remains, will we move toward a massive Central plants, either proceed to bezdetochnaya energy models. “The intriguing part for me is, will the future of renewable energy depend on our large-scale projects and rely on the current network infrastructure or will we choose microlevel approach, says Hannah. — In the case of the latter we get a solar company that will produce and store their own energy and not be powered from the grid, or fully Autonomous generation and storage”.
Nonvolatile cabin
Hannah says that this will be addressed, while industry, governments and consumers are fighting for energy dominance. In the end, this industry will be made — and lost — a lot of money depending on the chosen direction. Energy suppliers will resist. Solar companies can make themselves masters, or to enter into partnership with local communities.
Bright (literally) future
Naam and Hannah both worry that solar energy will play a huge role as we transition to a low carbon economy. This trend is well implemented, and around the world is taking a giant initiative. All this points powerfully in the direction of what will be the future energy.
Solar farm on the outskirts of Dunhuang in the northwestern Chinese province of Gansu
To take the first large-scale power plant of China, which is currently being built in the Gobi desert. This solar farm stretches for many miles, it can be seen from space, and it is three times what it was three years ago. NASA explains that this means from the point of view of capacity additions:
“According to reports China Daily, the installed solar power in Gansu province in 2014 reached 5.2 gigawatts. Clean Technica reported that the national energy administration of China has set a goal to increase the capacity of the province for an additional 0.5 GW in 2015.
Across the country total capacity installations in 2014 amounted to 28.05 gigawatts, according to PV Magazine. Of these, more than 10 gigawatts have been recently added to power in 2014, which led to a 200 percent increase in kilowatt hours of electricity produced by solar farms in comparison with the previous year.
China added more than 5 gigawatts of new capacity in the first quarter of 2015. It happens within the huge plan of the country for care away from coal towards renewable and more reliable energy sources”.
Same thing happens in the U.S., including the Topaz Plant with 9 million panels, with an area of 9.5 square miles (slightly more than 15 sq km) and a capacity of over 500 megawatts, and 579-megawatt Solar Star project. Stations like these would be used as desalination plants producing copious quantities of drinking water.
Actually, The Topaz Plant
Speaking of the middle of the 21st century, we can assume that we will produce solar energy in space. Prospects of space solar outlined in the 1960-ies; some experts believe that they have the potential to solve all our energy needs.
This movement is headed by Japan with its system of SBSP. Its space Agency JAXA hopes to obtain a fully functional system until 2030. Once in place, the system will work on a stationary orbit at 39 000 kilometres above the equator, collecting solar light. Then she will send the energy to Earth using laser beams, with efficiency of conversion of solar energy into a laser of about 42%. Each extracting energy of the satellite will send energy to three-kilometer diameter of the receiving station, capable of generating gigawatts of electricity — enough to power half a million homes.
The concept of space solar panels
From small to big
Not everyone agrees that solar energy is the future. Expert on nanotechnology J. Storrs Hall looks skeptical that wind or solar farm would ever be expected to cover a significant percentage of the energy we need, arguing that both technologies contrary to the historical trend, which reduces, not increases the traces of production.
Instead, he points to nanotechnology, which it describes as “the expansion of biotechnology through other means”.
“It is most likely that we will have a table, if not pocket, synths that will replace most of the centralized factory production and transport systems that we have now,” says Hall. He speaks of molecular assemblers, mini factories — the Holy Grail of technology.
Table molecular assembler the eyes of an artist
“It will be similar to how personal computers replaced centralized mainframe computer centers over the past decade, says Hall. — The only thing to worry about is that personal synthesizers you will be removing too much carbon from the air”.
Hall said that with nanotechnology we will be able to get a completely carbon-free fuel system. For example, we could get the ability to handle ammonia as a fuel, compared to not-so-easy-to-use hydrogen. Once such fuel nanoelement can be done, it will produce water vapor and nitrogen. Such development as will reduce the carbon dioxide emissions that occur during transportation, which will reduce emissions of all greenhouse gases by 14%.
Nanotechnology alone will be sufficient to implement most of these transformations, according to Hall, but ultimately the gold standard for carbon-free energy will still be nuclear.
“To understand why, it helps to remember that nuclear fuel is a million times more energy than chemical, he says. — A million times less than resource extraction, a million times less handling and transportation, a million times less ash. For the same energy produced by the reactor will require less fuel than a windmill — oil for lubrication, what could be more appropriate?”.
Hall says that our nuclear technologies are still in their infancy, which can be compared with tube computers.
“Apply nanotechnology to different manufacturing problems, and you’ll get exceptionally clean and very cheap energy base, he says. — Add manufacturing capabilities of nanotechnology and you get a revolution in each economic sector, comparable to the one we saw in the world of information technology. This means personal synths, flying cars, commercial space travel and personal immortality. If you want”.
How to change the growing of food
After the production of electricity and heat (25% of global greenhouse gas emissions) is agriculture, which cuts off the next largest piece of the pie at 24%.
According to the sports Development, “the production of food to eat, this is the most destructive action towards the environment, which is made by people”. This action overshadows climate change from the point of view of the damage caused to our planet. According to Naama, 85% of deforestation is caused by agriculture and over-fishing in the ocean leads to the collapse of almost every kind of fish that we eat is destroying coral reefs and the shelter they provide.
The only way to move forward is to intensify agriculture. “It means more food on the same or on a smaller piece of land, says Naam. — We can do it”. But to come to this, we have genetically improved crops.
“The right genetics can allow the cultures to get by with less amount of pesticides (or even to refuse them), it is more efficient to use water, fertilize themselves with nitrogen from the atmosphere, efficient use photosynthesis to include more sunlight into food and more. It is a huge deal for every country, but still more formidable in developing countries where crops per square acre is much lower because they don’t have tractors, artificial fertilizers or irrigation systems. So I think that GMO is very useful for us, especially in the poorest parts of the world.”
AeroFarms is building the world’s largest vertical farm in Newark, new Jersey
Another potential solution comes in the form of agriculture controlled environment and related practices of vertical agriculture. It’s not perfect, but it can solve many problems associated with traditional methods of agriculture. The President of IGES Canada Ltd., Michelle Alarcon explained to io9 resource that agriculture controlled environment has a number of serious advantages:
“Compared to conventional farms (depending on the exact configuration and used technologies), they are 100 times more efficient from the point of view of space usage is 70-90% less dependent on water and leave less carbon dioxide. Food is grown without the use of pesticides, rich in nutrients and free from chemical contamination. And because they can be built almost everywhere, such farms can provide society with food that they normally don’t grow.”
Patrick Hanna, working with Alarcon, believes that at some point we will need a stronger link with our suppliers of food, which would mean, most likely, the transition to small-scale farming approaches, and the society will be working on local production and livestock initiatives. “Hopefully, everything will go the way, when people will work together to feed each other and the entire planet, he says. — I feel that this will lead to the fact that we will not treat healthy food as something taken for granted”.
Hanna foresees a low-carbon future in which every average person lives in a high-tech, but entirely functional house system — in which vegetables are grown right at home in a fully automated smart system. Plants you can grow and collect in stages that will provide freshly picked vegetables and fruits every day. Each house is like a miniature ecosystem.
“The houses will be fully Autonomous and have the means to re-use and recycling of water as it moves through the house; water from showers, sinks, toilets and greenhouses will be fully cyklinowanie and re-used with minimum waste, says Hanna. The building will capture rainwater and include in this system.”
On a larger scale Hanna predicts that each community will have the means to grow fruits trees or grazing animals to trade with other local communities, just as it was in the past. But recognize that most of the work will be fully automated or be driven by the form of artificial intelligence.
“With rainwater harvesting and the incorporation of intelligent power systems with local energy production, people will once again be in charge of their own food and energy products. Fully automated smart system will pave way for us into the future, and we in return will give her some of their respect, as it did in the past.”
Meat
Another major shift, according to Naama, will take place in the field of aquaculture, or fish farming. But when it comes to our insatiable desire to eat meat, this moment will be marked the most major change. “Eating animals is extremely inefficient,” says Naam, but consumption “continues to grow around the world.” That means we have to grow more food on the same land, if we want to continue to eat meat.
“I see no real way to solve this issue in the near future. We have to increase the yield per acre, in large part because these crops will increasingly turn into meat.”
As a solution to Naam again points towards genetics. “We know that some mammals produce less methane than cows and pigs, he says. — Namely, the wallabies, which live embolicescie stomach bacteria that consume methane. Whether direct input of desired intestinal bacteria or direct modification of genes of cows and pigs, I guess I’ll have to do something — to find a way to absorb the methane and not release it”.
Another option is meat from a test tube. Although this sounds awful and does not cause appetite, the prospect of artificial meat more than real, and few major enterprises are searching for this product. Not only will this eliminate the mass slaughter of livestock, but it is infinitely more ethical.
While it remains a challenge to reduce the cost (currently one cake for the hamburger, done in such a way that costs 330 000$) and to find quick and effective method of production. And, of course, to make it tasty.
Hope on the verge of despair
This is just a small example of what you would expect in the coming decades.
You can also expect different efforts from the side of geoengineers and attempts to link carbon to reduce the effects of global warming. Maybe our politicians and leaders of industries, finally, they agree and establish an efficient and effective restrictions.
In the end, despair is not worth it.