3 technologies that will disrupt climate change.

            Disruption is by now a commonplace occurrence in the technology world.  It means when a new technology or business practice comes around and changes things in a revolutionary, rather than evolutionary way.   For businesses, to be disrupted may mean that they can no longer compete in the same way with new contenders that are using this disruption.  We haven't had any major disruptions in the fight against climate change.  Yes, we are making great strides, but for the most part our wins have been incremental - solar panels getting a little more efficient every year, wind turbines deployed more widely - those kinds of changes.

1.  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

   2.    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.

      3.    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).