Emerging Technologies to Tackle Climate Change
By Daniel Wellers, Michael Rander, Emily Acton, Fawn Fitter, and Lauren Gibbons Paul
Literally and figuratively, Mother Earth is feeling the heat. NASA data confirms the last 10 years were the hottest on record, and NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies reports that July 2023 was hotter than any other month in the global temperature record. The need to find ways to cool our planet could not be more urgent.
Some good news: researchers are tackling climate change in many inventive ways. New technologies are making it easier to identify emissions sources, stop further damage with greater energy efficiency and lower-carbon alternatives to fossil fuels, and even remove excess greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. Many of these are far from routine. For example, scientists are looking into the possibility of launching a massive sunshade into outer space and using it to block a small but critical amount of solar radiation. If this technology works, the theory goes, it could be enough to counter the effects of global warming.
In another innovative experiment, scientists shot salt aerosols into the air to change the composition of clouds above the earth’s oceans to push some solar energy back into space.
It seems no promising idea is off limits. Such is the need.
Want a quick overview?
Read the roundup of tools that will be used to slow or reverse climate change.
Identifying problems
The first step toward fixing something is determining where it’s broken. We know what the problem is: excessive carbon emissions that are raising global temperatures. But where are those emissions coming from?
Pinpointing global emissions hotspots with machine learning-powered satellites
In March, the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) launched MethaneSAT, a satellite that tracks emissions of methane, an even more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Data is expected to be available later this year. This data, combined with Google’s AI and infrastructure mapping, will create a better understanding for how to mitigate methane emissions, especially those that derive from oil and gas infrastructure.
Spotting global supply chain emissions through AI
Businesses that produce and process oil, gas, minerals, and other raw materials are responsible for half the world’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Climate TRACE is a Google.org-funded nonprofit coalition that tracks and analyzes carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from power plants, factories, controlled burns, cargo ships, and other human sources using satellite imagery, infrared imaging, and nitrogen oxide sensors. The nonprofit intends to analyze that information with machine learning to create a publicly accessible source of real-time emissions data. Governments and other groups worldwide could use this independently collected data to spot illegal polluters, verify compliance with international climate change agreements, and manage carbon cap-and-trade markets. Climate TRACE has published a database of 352 million GHG sources.
Measuring digital carbon footprint
The digitalization of the economy helps the environment by reducing GHG emission. But its impact must still be measured. The manufacture of computing devices, the raw materials used, and the energy consumed comprise the so-called Digital Carbon Footprint, which corresponded to 2% of total global emissions in 2015 and 4% in 2020, according to Enel, a power company that is now dedicated to green energy. Toward the goal of measuring an organization’s digital carbon footprint, Greenly’s app lets businesses from all industries do just that.
It’s especially important to monitor carbon footprint as the rise in AI use drives massive increases in the use of electricity and water in the data centers that power AI. In just a few years, it is estimated, the power usage associated with AI will rival that of a country such as Argentina, according to data scientist Alex de Vries, whose analysis was published in The New York Times.
Stopping further climate damage
Once you know that something you’re doing is creating a problem, the next step is to do things differently. With regard to climate change, that means developing lower-carbon energy sources and finding more efficient ways to use the energy you generate.
Lower-carbon energy is all around us, and researchers are finding ingenious ways to tap into it:
Reducing and repurposing food waste
A staggering one-third of food produced is wasted or lost, according to United Nations estimates. This is especially tragic given that 800 million people worldwide do not have enough to eat, according to the UN World Food Program. At the same time, agriculture and food production are among the top contributors to GHG emission. In fact, rotting food in landfills contributes 10% to global GHG emission, according to the UN.
New digital technologies including digital twins can help rein in food waste by monitoring and modeling food freshness, extending shelf life, and selling food priced more attractively close to expiration through apps. For example, Freshspire is using cloud computing to reduce food waste at the point of production, providing order management, vendor management, and data analytics solutions that connect small and mid-sized farms with grocery stores, restaurants, nonprofits, and other customers to whom they can sell food that might otherwise be wasted. And an academic-high-tech partnership at Princeton University yielded wireless technology used to sort fruit quality to decrease the number of fruits that are sent to the landfill.
Composting food waste once it gets to the point of spoilage and transforming it into plant feed is a fairly simple solution that avoids sending food to landfills. A host of startups, including Full Harvest, Hungry Harvest, and Imperfect Produce, are deploying technology aimed at improving the appearance of produce to meet consumer expectations, helping to avoid it being wasted for cosmetic reasons alone.
Agricultural waste can be used for other purposes as well. Strawcture Eco, for example, turns farm byproducts into sustainable construction materials. (See the story of its founder Shriti Pandey in our Roads to Renegation series of short documentary films.)
Solar-powered fabric
What if you could charge your phone or laptop with the shirt on your back? A new polymer that collects solar power can be applied to textiles, creating the possibility of shirts, pants, and other clothing that double as mobile energy supplies.
Surfing 21st-century waterpower
Water droplets
There are many promising developments in harvesting energy from rain drops. Researchers from City University of Hong Kong have developed a generator that can turn rain (or a leaky faucet) into energy at 140 volts a drop – enough for a single drop to briefly light up 100 small LED bulbs. Researchers in China and the UK have developed a technique for harvesting low-speed wind energy using anchored ionic droplets. The method – which taps into winds that are too weak to drive a turbine – could be used to power small electronic devices.
Researchers in Florida are testing how well turbines that are anchored 80 feet below the ocean’s surface can capture the steady flow of the Gulf Stream. And a new 4D-printed generator shows the potential to draw even more power from droplets of water or other liquids.
Tidal energy
Tidal energy production has the potential to provide vast amounts of clean energy, utilizing predictable tidal currents through methods like tidal streams, barrages, and tidal lagoons. The technology is in its infancy, with first projects planned in the U.S., in Washington state and Maine. The City of Liverpool, England, has announced plans to build the world’s largest tidal power generator on the River Mersey; it could power more than 1 million homes for 120 years or longer.
Wave energy
Wave energy converters could harvest 29,500 terawatt-hours of renewable electricity from the ocean every year. The technology is making a comeback after the failure of a major project in 2008. The rough waters off the coast of Aguçadoura in Northern Portugal still provide the perfect proving ground for new wave energy converters, and the Swedish firm CorPower Ocean has just finished testing the viability of its new 60-foot-high commercial-scale C4 buoy generator there. Portugal is the site of another promising wave energy technology called the Wave Roller. U.S. experiments with wave power have been limited and cited high costs. California leadership has directed state agencies to study the technology and report back in 2025 as to its feasibility.
Using carbon-storing sea creatures
Scientists at Ohio State University are among a research team zeroing in on the virus species in the world’s oceans to identify those most likely to combat climate change by helping trap carbon dioxide in seawater.
Elevator generators
Power-generating brakes are familiar to anyone who drives an electric or hybrid car. How about installing them on other things that stop frequently – like elevators? A new generation of elevator technology incorporates regenerative drives, which produce energy when the elevators are being lowered, particularly when they have a heavy load, according to Propmodo. Regenerative drives can recover up to 30% of an elevator’s total energy consumption. The Empire State Building in New York City was an early poster child for this technology, and as of 2022 claimed to host “the largest wireless battery management system in the world.”
A case for carbon accountability
Learn how a leader’s climate wake-up call led to the formation of a group helping companies demonstrate carbon neutrality
Other innovative technologies and efficiency boosters
To reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, we also need to increase energy efficiency. Here, too, new developments are promising:
Batteries
A host of battery advances are coming, according to Topspeed, including:
- silicon anode lithium-ion batteries, where the silicon enables much greater capacity;
- solid state batteries, which overcome the traditional limitations of lithium-ion batteries;
- and NanoBolt lithium tungsten batteries, which are expected to provide longer charge times for electric vehicles.
Transparent wood
Well-designed windows help moderate a building’s temperature and power use, but conventional glass production is carbon heavy. Transparent wood, a new material made almost entirely of fast-growing balsa trees, is a sustainable alternative that’s also five times more thermally efficient than glass. Use in cell phones is also envisioned.
Power-saving programming
Web designers are exploring ways to reduce load time and otherwise make sites less power-hungry and more sustainable with techniques like optimized resource consumption, cloud storage, caching, mobile-first design, and carbon-neutral hosting. There’s also a wider move afoot to make software engineering more sustainable through energy efficiency, hardware efficiency, and carbon-aware computing.
Mitigating building inefficiencies through sensors, analytics, and AI
For years, facilities managers have been using data analytics and sensors to promote energy efficiency. Now, AI is getting into the act, revolutionizing how facility managers approach decision-making and operational processes. For instance, AI can analyze historical energy consumption patterns to identify waste areas and recommend energy-saving measures and proactive asset management. And running AI/machine learning against large data sets generated by Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) sensors yields useful insights much more quickly.
Regeneration: reversing existing damage
Given the rapid decline in key measures of our planetary health, typical sustainability efforts, focused on reducing the emissions, waste, and inequality intrinsic in our economic system, are now table stakes. It is now imperative that we put in place systems that reverse damage, along with business operations that heal and regenerate our natural resources, such as:
Carbon capture and utilization
Direct air capture technology is a form of carbon dioxide removal that takes CO2 from ambient, or still, air. The separated CO2 can then be permanently stored deep underground, or it can be converted into products – an example of the circular economy principle of finding uses for waste and byproducts.
Biochar for soil restoration
Made from heating wood and other biomass at high temperatures with no oxygen, biochar is coming on strong as a means for sequestering carbon – removing it from the atmosphere by locking it into solid forms. Mixed in soil, biochar increases its fertility and ability to absorb GHG emissions. There are many promising agricultural applications as well as a market to sell biochar carbon credits to corporations.
Alternative uses for mushrooms
The scourge of packaging materials like Styrofoam peanuts is being answered by alternatives based on mushrooms and organic plant waste such as hemp and corn husks. This offers a safe and home-compostable alternative to plastic foams. Beyond packaging, fungi come into play for meat alternatives and as a means of cleaning up oil spills – magic mushrooms indeed.
Regenerative agriculture
It is imperative that farming practices go beyond sustainability to healing the earth, leaving it ready to flourish again. While achieving carbon neutrality involves balancing emissions with removals, regenerative practices actively contribute to carbon sequestration and storage in the soil. The “net positive” effect is to actively reduce atmospheric carbon levels and reverse climate change. Private equity firms are investing in regenerative agriculture ventures.
3D-printed coral reefs
Funded by an National Science Foundation (NSF) grant, University of Texas researchers aim to build 3D-printed artificial reefs that replicate Roman concrete, which stood up to seawater remarkably well. Another 3D-printed coral reef project in Florida saw the sinking of 25 concrete modules to the Gulf floor, creating new marine ecosystems at depths ranging from 60 to 90 feet.
The climate emergency remains urgent and imminent, but it also remains solvable. These are just a few of the technological innovations giving us hope to go beyond simply averting catastrophe to building a world that’s more livable.
New possibilities, ideas, and technologies continue to emerge; the world needs a combination of approaches tested, refined, and deployed to combat global warming.
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