In two previous posts (Biomimicry 1 and 2 – Learning from Nature – BioEngineering a New World) I talked a little about Janine Benyus and her Biomimicry concepts. The key point I want to reiterate here is that the new wave of technology will by definition have to be focused on sustainability. This is not an if or maybe statement. Our present ‘heat, beat, and chemically treat (HBT)’ technology has pushed us to the edge of ecological collapse, and already beyond that if we are honest with ourselves in recognizing how far we have moved past the thresholds of ecological ability to handle the toxins, pollution and waste in our current world. Our new technologies will have to match a new spiritual mindset where we live within the natural world and not outside of the natural world.
The McKinsey consulting group emphasize that the near future will most likely involve development in 9 majors areas expanding our current ‘green’ technological needs. These would include public electric transport, more electric trucks, cheaper energy storage (long a problem in renewable energy development), encompassing newer long-term storage options, much more plastic recycling, more LED light efficiency, more accessible solar power for tens of millions of homes and manufacturing and finally, mor effective carbon capture and storage as use of fossil fuels winds down. While I applaud such business models from a current business perspective, I don’t think it goes anywhere near far enough in getting us to a sustainability paradigm.
The reason I admire the biomimicry model is that nature has already done the R&D for us and all we need to do is do more study and understand how natural mechanisms have efficiently shown us the engineering we need to develop. I am not a big fan of trying to genetically engineer our way out of this global mess, but moral genetics can help us find temporary solutions to some of our problems. Readers of this blog already know my disdain for GMO food technology, but genetic technology that seriously looks at safety and long-term consequences has potential. I’ll say it again, we are financially addicted to our HBT technology and are blind to the externalities that create all the ecological problems that plague our society.
Simply by rethinking the full cycle process of manufacturing and building (see previous post Reconditioning Ourselves: Alternative Perspectives 9 – Community Development – Part 1 Building differently) will begin the process. The waste produced from manufacturing and end-use discard by consumers accounts for mega-tons of waste every year, with plastics being high on the most problematic level. While we have recycling systems in place in many communities, the actual amount of plastic recycled is very low (estimates show only about 9% get recycled). What if there was an engineered enzyme that could be added to a large drum of plastic, which when heated to 72 Celsius is 10,000 faster (within 10 hours) of breaking many plastic bonds to yield virgin-like material for remanufacture. The current process developed by Carbios, the French sustainable plastics company, claims that initial tests shows the enzyme easily break down 90% of plastics.
Another approach is to re-engineer the types of polymers we use in plastics we currently need. Researchers at CSU in Colorado have developed a new kind of polymer. The new polymer shares important characteristics with plastic such as strength, durability, lightness and heat resistance. What makes it unique is that these new polymers can be recycled and reused infinitely – essentially no waste since it would follow the cradle-cradle manufacturing model in that the waste becomes virgin product for more new products – that is what nature does. (There is no waste in nature since one organisms waste is food for another organism.)
In energy technology, the options for multi-level renewable energy generation are already here. While solar and wind are the biggies, the options of storage and use of hydrogen technology is already becoming more of a reality. One of the biggest problems with renewables is that building these renewables still produces much waste and pollution. Once in place they are non-polluting and have a lifetime of about 50 years at present if well maintained. I have been reading some futuristic options that are focused on using quantum level energy possibility. This is as far above atomic energy as atomic heat is beyond a wood fire. Currently, this lives in the realm of science fiction, but advocates talk about ideas from geniuses, like Nikola Tesla, that claim to have developed the ideas and even generated working models that could use zero-point energy (). If that could become a reality, then it is more than a game changer for humanity, it changes everything we think about how the world functions. Mainstream physicists say that zero-point energy is impossible, yet many physicists say the potential really exists and that ability to reach that kind of energy means to rethink how the universe works at the quantum micro level and disregard the Newtonian model of the universe that only explains the macro level of the universe to a point. To explain the universe, even mainstream physicists have to use quantum mechanics to explain what Einstein called, “spooky action at a distance” because of the concept of entanglement (instantaneousness remote interaction between two entangled particles).
There are a lot of incredibly talented, even genius level researchers, out there working on some brilliant and highly innovative technologies that could propel humanity, literally into a new future. The biggest hurdle curiously is not the technological potentials, but the lack of funding and/or support for new technologies. Anything that is a game changer appears on the scene, is reported in the journals and science media, and then suddenly disappears into the black hole of corporate controlled repression of new science. It is literally an economic dogmatic adherence to HBT controlled technology, for any competition that would make HBT obsolete quickly disappears. I have to wonder how much progress humanity would have already made should innovations outside corporate control actually made it to market. I know that this sounds fantastical, but the more I read of innovators with great ideas, the more I see corporate road-blocks. Maybe that is one of our first game-changers, find a way to get past our corporate puppet-masters and have people have a voice in who controls new technology.
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