Technology fighting climate change

TECHNOLOGICAL advances have caused a lot of our climate woes, but could they also be part of the solution?

While politicians argue about what climate change is doing, what to do about it and, depressingly, if it’s happening at all, the world’s scientists are more resolute.

Climate change is here, and the consensus is that it’s probably best to do something about it.

Technology will play its part and here are some current developments

ROBOTS
“Our company is called BioCarbon engineering, says CEO Lauren Fletcher, whose simple mission statement belies a rather more complex reality.
Deforestation on an “industrial scale”, is responsible for clearing trees covering an area equivalent to Panama every year, and the loss of trees and their valuable work absorbing carbon dioxide helps drive global warming . “industrial scale reforestation.”

BioCarbon’s solution “industrial scale reforestation.” with

quad-copter drones. The automated aviators will fly over land to be reforested, producing 3D maps to assess an area’s suitability for planting. Then the drones will use a canister of pressurised air to fire a pellet containing a germinated seed and a sac of nutrient-rich gel into the ground.A fleet of drones could be capable of planting up to 36,000 trees per day according to BioCarbon.

NASA is also launching drones, in the name of research. Its huge Global Hawk UAVhas a wingspan of 35 metres, a range of 11,000 miles and can fly for up to 30 hours. It operates at altitudes up to 65,000 feet, making it perfect for weather and climate research.

BETTER ENERGY
The problem with renewable energy: it spends a lot of its time generating energy when you don’t want it, and a lot of time not generating energy when you do. Enter, battery enthusiast and “futurehead” Elon Musk. Tesla is currently hard at work building the Gigafactory, a $5 billion installation that will build more lithium-ion batteries on its own by 2020 than were manufactured worldwide in 2013. Enough batteries, in fact, to power 500,000 Tesla cars, some ten times what it managed in 2014.

If it falls short on car deliveries it will always be able to catch up on Powerwall, Tesla’s wall-mounted, lithium-ion battery units that are designed to provide crucial backup in an emergency, or store energy from renewable sources for use when you actually need it.

The Powerwall will be available in 10kWh and 7kWh variants, and can be chained together to provide enough oomph for larger homes. Less than a week after the Powerwall announcement, the company received 38,000 reservations. If they all become sales, Tesla will be t busy making Powerwalls until the middle of 2016.

The argument is that storing renewable energy will allow more people to live independently of the grid, and that communities shut off from mainstream power will benefit.

Those on the grid could see a benefit, particularly in the US with a vast amount of land too hot and dry to grow anything on, which is why it has eight of the world’s top ten solar power stations. Top of the pile is the Solar Star field north of Los Angeles. Capable of generating 579 megawatts. It will produce power for over quarter of a million homes.

In the European Union they are aiming to create 15% of all energy needs through renewables by 2020,

London-based company Pavegen’s brainwave is to use the collective pounding of feet on British pavements to produce power, using its 450 x 600mm floor tiles to convert downward kinetic energy into electricity. Its tiles currently generate power in London Zoo, while its largest project was covering a football pitch in Rio de Janeiro and using the resulting impact from players to run the floodlights.

BETTER FUEL
The perceived wisdom is that the electric car is the future. But, you cannot beat the energy density of gasoline. Kilogram-for-kilogram you’ll go further.

Audi’s E-Diesel, saw the road-going diesel fuel vehicle working from nothing more than water and carbon dioxide. Renewable electrical energy powered the process. The Sunfire plant that produced the first batch of Audi’s superfuel is currently limited to making 160 liters per day but the company is on the cusp of industrial scale production.
Toyota’s Mirai – on sale in limited numbers in California later this year for $50,000– is an electric car that mixes a tankful of hydrogen with oxygen to produce DC electrical power. The Mirai has a range of 300 miles and the only thing coming out of the exhaust pipe is water.

The Mirai can be replenished with hydrogen in five minutes, on-par with a normal gas station fill-up.

The current issue is fuel availability: hydrogen is notoriously difficult to transport and store. It needs to be pressurized all the time, and public perception is hard to overcome: Americans may find it hard to accept a car with backseat passengers are sitting directly over a tank full of flammable hydrogen at 10,000 psi.

BETTER PLANTS
Spmetimes Nature needs a hand, and it’s coming from scientists like those at Columbia University Lenfest Center for Sustainable Energy.

Carbon capture is something that happens naturally: plants and trees absorb carbon dioxide and convert it into breathable oxygen. But they can only do so much, which is why carbon capture to convert harmful, greenhouse gasses into something more helpful – is coming of age.
Lenfest has developed a resin that absorbs carbon dioxide when it’s dry, and releases it when it gets wet. It could remove billions of tonnes of CO2 every year.

NEW FOOD
Raising, sustaining and killing livestock for food accounts for 18% of global greenhouse gas production – more than the entire efforts of the transportation industry. It pollutes water and uses a vast amount of land.

Beef production is a problem: cattle are a notoriously inefficient way of turning feedstock into food for humans. An individual cow produces more methane per year than the average car. Methane is 20 times better at trapping heat and warming the planet than carbon dioxide.

So the planet’s carnivores will need to get their protein elsewhere. There are plenty of options: tofu, rice and beans all have their place alongside meat substitutes, but, science could have the answer. In 2013, scientists from Maastricht University performed a biopsy on a cow and grew, in vitro, a 140 gram burger. The result: a burger that required a fraction of the land and resources as the real thing. The scientists described it as “a very good start”. Researchers hope to have a product on the shelves within five years..

Tthere are also billions of tiny, multi, multi-legged creatures on which are incredibly nutritious – per 100 grams they have almost the same amount of protein as red meat. They’re also very sustainable: you don’t need much space to rear a kilogram of insects,

The problem is the “yuck factor”. Around 80% of the world’s population practices insect eating, but convincing your average household that deep-fried crickets are an alternative to sausages will take some doing. But, the march of the insects could be underway: earlier this year diners at top Mexican restaurant Wahaca were invited to try chapulines fundido, or deep-fried grasshoppers baked in cheese. The dish was rated “very popular”