Weak signals from the future

A cornucopia of climate solutions, or a tangle of unproven techno-fixes? As part of a series of visions for the future, ‘Weak signals’ tunes in to the debate over geo-engineering.

On the pulse

Digital devices to monitor your body and its surroundings could be the next must-have gadgets. Among them is the Body Check Ball that picks up data – about body fat, bone density and muscle ratios – via electric currents as it lies in your palm. Others include a blood-pressure cuff that plugs into your iPhone, and a wireless Bluetooth sensor you can clip onto your clothes to keep a check on local air quality and noise pollution. All that remains is to integrate this sensor into a GPS system for cyclists and you could soon be choosing your route for maximum fresh air.

Solar soak

The next generation of solar cells – dubbed ‘organic’ because of their carbon compound base – will be more affordable thanks to a low-cost manufacturing process that avoids metals such as lead and mercury. Made using solutions like inks and paints, they can be ‘washed’ onto flexible films and fabrics over large surfaces, turning anything from your television screen to your t-shirt into a PV cell. Until recently, this ‘flexibility’ had also been their flaw – with weakly linked molecules prone to drift apart – but a team from France’s national scientific research centre (CNRS) has found a way to restructure the cells, making them less vulnerable to daily wear and tear.

In the fast lane

The US is leading the way with a high voltage superhighway to bring electricity from energy rich backwaters to buzzing metropolises. The 765 kilovolt (kV) Green Power Express will bring up to 12,000MW of power from wind farms in North Dakota to load centres like Chicago. The project’s costs top $10 billion, but if it succeeds it could be a model for other long distance, high capacity connections – of the sort that would be needed, for example, to bring power to northern Europe from vast desert solar stations in the Sahara. Such developments could even challenge the cherished pursuit of ‘energy independence’.

Read Peter Madden’s views on the extent to which geo-engineering should shape our future here

 

9 September 2009

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