Technology alone will not save humanity from the climate, environmental and social crises we are struggling to solve. A critical mass of people must shed selfish attitudes, consumption-oriented lifestyles, and an endless desire for more. Only then will we be able to successfully create a better world.
Awareness of the need for this type of social transformation is growing, and technological progress is not leading the way. Technology is just an indicator of where we are going, like a person pointing to a destination on a map.
Everyone notices how quickly technology changes, but more experienced individuals have the advantage of watching these changes over decades and the progress becomes even more surprising from this perspective. More importantly, these long-term developments reveal our path, imperfect as they may be.
The Internet opened to the general public in 1991, and although dial-up modems were incredibly slow, the World Wide Web immediately began to change the way we live and work. Imagine trying to work right now without texting, emailing, or video conferencing.
In 1990, I was researching error correction algorithms that my employer planned to use to send data over military wireless networks. The transfer rate was very slow over a wireless connection, so additional encryption needed to be minimal and the latest technology was good enough to correct one or two errors in a block of data.
For several days, I visited the National Science Library in Ottawa and read books describing various error correction algorithms. Eventually, I found something that met our needs, took the book out of the library and spent a few more days writing a specification detailing the mathematics as well as the process of encrypting and decrypting data.
After peer review, I presented the specifications to our software engineering team and they produced debugging code. From start to finish, the job took over a month, but we were also working on other things in parallel.
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As a comparison experiment, I asked ChatGPT to write me an algorithm in Python to encrypt and decrypt data using the BCH error correction algorithm that we implemented in our system many years ago. Within a few seconds, the code was ready for testing.
In just over 30 years, the performance improvements and cost savings in the engineering process have been miraculous. Likewise, continuing technological advances have seen solar panels evolve from simply heating water for residential swimming pools to utility-scale solar farms such as the Philippines' recently announced 3.5 gigawatt project, with four gigawatts of battery storage.
Continued technological advances have seen innovations like solar panels advance from simply heating water for residential swimming pools to utility-scale solar farms, writes Rob Miller @winexus #renewables #electricity #ClimatePollution
Electric cars have gone from children's toys with limited functionality to Tesla's Model Y becoming the best-selling car in the world. The first wind farm was completed 40 years ago and generated 0.6 megawatts at maximum capacity, producing enough electricity in one hour to power the Model Y for approximately 3,500 kilometres.
By 2022, more than 900 GW of wind power has been deployed globally, with the largest offshore wind turbines capable of generating a maximum of 16 MW of output per hour capable of powering the Model Y for more than 90,000 km.
Solutions are also being developed to improve the efficiency of electrified product life cycles through recycling, the use of more sustainable materials, and the development of long-lasting battery technology.
It doesn't take conscious artificial intelligence (AI) to deduce which direction our energy system is headed. Technological advances will continue to make clean energy and electricity more cost competitive and desirable.
When oil was the new energy alternative in the early 1900s, technology was developed to reduce costs and increase production. New products using this inexpensive fuel have appeared on the market, such as automobiles, aircraft, and heating oil furnaces. The growth trend continued until demand began to rise seriously in the 1960s.
Electricity and renewable energy are now technologies on an accelerated growth path. Solar and wind costs are falling and battery-powered products are beginning to emerge, from e-bikes to electric pickup trucks. Heat pumps and zero-carbon district energy now heat nearly 200 million homes around the world. For many applications, clean energy is already replacing coal, oil and natural gas.
The fossil fuel industry has known about the greenhouse gas (GHG) problem for more than 50 years, and in all this time it has been unable to scale up technology that would eliminate GHG emissions. In fact, industry emissions have steadily increased to more than 35 billion tons of carbon dioxide each year. This is a clear indication that the major oil companies are unable to solve their problem economically. Its technology has plateaued and is ripe for disruption.
It is a tragedy that some people are still fighting for a way of life that will wreak havoc on future generations. The fossil industry and its supporters have lost sight of their responsibility to serve society and believe they can manipulate us into complacency. But one only has to look at the rapidly advancing technologies to see a brighter future on the horizon.
Rob Miller is a retired systems engineer, formerly of General Dynamics Canada, who now volunteers with the Calgary Climate Hub and writes on behalf of Eco-Elders for Climate Action, but any opinions expressed in his work are his own.
