SUSTAINABILITY THE NEW INNOVATION FRONTIER
Bacteria that secret diesel, an open air theatre that produces enough fresh water for a city and solar power stations in space; these are just some of the exciting new developments being explored by companies and governments in the effort to create a more sustainable social and economic order. Sustainable technologies are indeed the new innovation frontier.
The idea for the Water Theatre was born when British Designer Charli Paton was on a train journey in North Africa. Travelling through a thick coastal fog by night, he awoke to find that the towel he had been using as a pillow was completely soaked. Through a natural process of evaporation and condensation, sea water is continuously being turned into fresh, potable water using only the energy of the sun. The Water Theatre is Charli Paton’s attempt at recreating this natural process in a way that not only produces large quantities of water, but also does so without the need for fossil-fuels.
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The structure consists of tall vertical pipes through which cold seawater is pumped. Moisture laden sea breezes blow across the pipes causing the moisture to condense and run down the length of the pipes to be collected below. The pumps are powered by either solar panels or ocean waves and can produce enough fresh water for medium sized cities. Moreover, the entire structure serves as a functional public space of striking architectural beauty.
In California a company has managed to genetically engineer bacteria that convert cellulose (plant material) into a range of chemicals, including diesel fuel. The final products are excreted by the bacteria and then float to the top of the fermentation vat before being siphoned off.
The effort by the company LS9 is part of an increasing push by bioengineers to bring down the cost of biofuels by developing microbes that can turn biomass, such as switchgrass and agricultural waste, into fuels without any additional processing. Microbes can typically complete only part of the conversion, requiring post-processing to convert the chemical precursors made by the microbes. Head of Research and Development at LS9, Stephen Del Cardayre says the company has tested the diesel-production process at its 1,000-liter pilot-scale plant in South San Francisco using sugarcane as a feedstock. The company will scale the process to a commercial level at a 75,000-liter plant this year.
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It may sound like something out of Star Trek, but a number of companies and national agencies, including NASA, are already exploring ways to develop solar power stations that would orbit the earth, using lasers to send solar power down to earth. In space, of course, the collection of solar energy is unaffected by the day/night cycle, weather, seasons, or the filtering effect of Earth's atmospheric gases.
Japan has announced plans to launch a small satellite fitted with solar panels in 2015 to test beaming electricity from the outermost layer of earth’s atmosphere. The government hopes to have the solar station fully operational in the 2030s.
In the U.S., NASA and the energy department have spent $80 million over three decades in sporadic efforts to study solar generation in space. In Europe, the region’s biggest space company, EADS Astrium, plans to put a solar power satellite in orbit to demonstrate the collection of solar power in space and its transmission via infrared laser to provide electricity on Earth. CEO of Astrium, François Auque, said the system is at the testing stage, but that a viable system for collecting and transmitting power from space could be within reach soon.
This is just a small sample of the exciting ideas being explored by the private sector, often through innovative partnerships with universities, research institutions and national governments. For more information you can visit any number of sustainable technology websites, some of the best are:
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