Year: 2019

The future of waste handling: A better place (4 of 4)

Posted on by The New Economy

This is the fourth part in our video series with Molok North America, exploring the waste management challenges faced by the US and Canada, and one of the technological solutions to make recycling and composting more convenient and efficient. If you want to start from the beginning, watch part one of The future of waste handling: In a perfect world.

Mona Hillis, co-owner of Molok North America:

I want to make sure Molok continues going down the path of its one true vision, of really: sustainability.

And, no matter how big the company grows, no matter how many collection trucks we have out on the road, and how many employees there are; that we all feel like we’re one big unit – everyone being a family – moving towards a bigger goal. Of making the world a better place.

Susan Antler, Executive Director, Compost Council of Canada

We all have a responsibility. We’re all part of the continuum; the cycle of life that has to be much more respectful in terms of waste management.

We as human beings are not the only creatures in the world. And so we all have to have the will, we have to have the convenience, we have to have the systems and the trust that it’s going to be done well and right.

Narrator:

The UN has given us until 2030 to fix our attitudes – and more importantly our actions – around production and consumption. We need to be thinking differently, and we need to be thinking very, very big. But we also need to believe that we can make the world a better place. It’s easy to become disillusioned – but progress is being made, every single day.

Bryan Staley, President and CEO, Environmental Research and Education Foundation:

Well I think we’re in for some exciting and dynamic changes.  I think we’ll see increasing collaboration between product manufacturers and waste management entities, which will create a shift in the design of and the materials used for, packaging products and goods. This will make a much larger portion of the discards reusable or recyclable. For example, if most plastic packaging were to move to highly recyclable and usable resins such as PET and HDPE, this will serve to create stronger and broader end markets.

Brent Wootton PhD, Vice President of Applied Research, Fleming College:

Diversion of food waste is really something we need to improve on. France as an example issued a national ban on organics in the municipal waste stream. We need leadership like that in Canada.

Food waste of course fills up landfill sites, and costs the Canadian economy from CAD 30-100bn a year.

There are all kinds of innovative technologies. Companies like Molok have novel approaches to waste management, and there are lots of other solutions that could be explored and implemented.

Tim Corcoran, Vice President of Business Development for Molok North America:

Where we need to go is to get as much out of landfill as possible.

If you look at a waste depot in Finland, for example: the smallest container will be the waste. If you look at one here in North America, the biggest container’s the waste. We need to change that. And we need to educate people on why it’s important to change it, why we need to get the waste out of the landfills, we need to make sure that the plastics are being dealt with so they don’t clog up the oceans. And we need to make sure that we’re putting the organics where they should go, because that can be turned into energy; something that can actually help society.

I think as a waste management company, we have a responsibility to work collaboratively with others, to educate the communities on what needs to be done.

Mark Hillis, CEO and President of Molok North America:

There’s a lot of challenges facing the world of waste management and recycling into the future. And in the next five years and even 10 years out, there’s many things that have to happen. Efficiency, as far as collection is concerned, and as it relates to global warming. The consumer’s ability to separate the appropriate recyclables into the proper streams without contamination. The industry’s ability to take those recyclables and turn them back into usable commodities, that can be fed back into the supply chain. Those are all really really important over the next five to 10 years. And they’re significant from a global health perspective, and making the world a better place.

Molok is poised to really meet all of those demands. If you go back to the very basic concepts of Molok: the fact that it’s a space saver, the fact that it’s semi-underground, and as a result waste is kept cool, odours are at a minimum. The fact that it’s usually 1.5 to 2.5 times the volume of a similar sized container by weight. Those are terrific advantages.

If we can reduce the service frequency, say for an apartment building, by 30-50 percent a year. What are the advantages that brings, from a truck traffic perspective, from a safety perspective, from a CO2 emissions perspective? Wear and tear on equipment?

All those things that Molok brings to the table because of its simple design from Veikko Salli. Those advantages are all there, and bring efficiencies in so many different ways to the end user. That I think Molok is poised very well to meet the future needs of the waste industry within the world.

Tim Corcoran, Vice President of Business Development for Molok North America:

The future is very bright. We have been in Canada for 20 years, and we continue to expand. Our business continues to grow at double digit increases every year.

I’d like to see us everywhere. But I think in the short term, our goal is to educate the municipalities, the various levels of government, parks: educate the community on the alternatives. And get to the point where we are accepted and referred to as the alternative to the conventional types of containers.

As we become more broad-based, our future is limitless.

Mark Hillis, CEO and President of Molok North America:

I want to see Molok North America grow sustainably, quickly, and aggressively. And we’ve been experiencing that for a number of years now.

Anywhere you plant a Molok container, they just multiply from there. Because people see very quickly the concept of Molok, and the advantages that it brings to the end user.

So everywhere we’ve established a market in Canada, it’s grown considerably from there.

There’s no limit to what we can do.

Mona Hillis, co-owner of Molok North America:

Molok meant a lot to my mom; and she really wanted to build a company that educated everyone, and brought environmental consciousness to the everyday person in a positive and simple way.

As a young person, this generation; it’s kind of up to us to keep the world going. I feel it’s a social responsibility to take care of our planet, and give to it what we want back from it. And it’s easier to do than people think.

That’s what I want for Molok.

The future of waste handling: Doing what’s right (3 of 4)

Posted on by The New Economy

This is the third part in our video series with Molok North America, exploring the waste management challenges faced by the US and Canada, and one of the technological solutions to make recycling and composting more convenient and efficient. If you want to start from the beginning, watch part one of The future of waste handling: In a perfect world.

Tim Corcoran, Vice President of Business Development for Molok North America:

When Molok launched 27 years ago, it was with a view to change the way the individual interacts with waste, to encourage better diversion, to encourage more use. To make sure that as we as individuals interact with a waste container, it’s a better experience. It’s not something that’s dirty, it’s not smelly, the lid lifts easily; you’re likely to do what it’s asking you to do. Which is separating our organics from our waste, and separating our recycling from both of those two. People tend to do what’s right.

Brian Page, Vice President of Municipal Affairs for Molok North America:

The beauty of the Molok container was that we could always find a space for it, without having to redesign the whole project.

Narrator:

For 34 years, Brian Page was the Supervisor of Site Development for the City of Kitchener. Any development project subject to planning review –multi-residential, industrial, commercial or institutional – went through him and his team.

Brian Page, Vice President of Municipal Affairs for Molok North America:

One of the problems that we had with site development: architects or developers, the last thing they thought about was where they’re going to contain their waste and recycling. And they had to try and fit it in on site. They’d actually even come to the site development meetings and had totally forgotten. I’d say you know, ‘Where’s your waste and recycling?’ and their jaw would just drop.

So, when Molok came along, and when I first found out about it, it was basically a godsend, because it only used five percent of the space in comparison to putting up a building and putting in a front load container.

And once the development industry learned that not only it used less space, it was less expensive to install. It also saved them money in the number of pickups that they were going to have to do, because it self-compacts and holds more.

So it was a total win for us, and for the development industry. And from the end user’s perspective, they had less number of pickups so they were paying less for their garbage pickup. And it allowed us also to be more creative on where we could put the waste and recycling containers; we could make them very handy to the back door, instead of putting them in a back corner.

So again: it’s a win win win by using these containers.

Narrator:

Molok believes that making its containers convenient, accessible, and attractive is the best way to encourage better waste diversion, and so promote environmental sustainability.

And to make sure the Molok containers are as sustainable as they can be, the company has partnered with the Earth Rangers, a children’s conservation organisation, which runs a centre for sustainable technology in Vaughan, Ontario.

Gavin Yeung, Manager, Earth Rangers Centre:

So the Earth Rangers Centre is really a hub for a lot of new technologies that are not so prevalent in the commercial office sector.

We have geothermal systems, we have solar photovoltaic trackers that track the sun. We also have earth tubes, which harness the constant temperatures in the earth.

Molok is a building sponsor of ours, they’re one of the many technologies we exhibit at the Earth Rangers Centre. We have three Moloks: one for waste, one for recycling, and one for organics.

Julian Tersigni, Facility Manager, Earth Rangers:

The Molok bins are fantastic because a big thing for us is capacity. These guys behind us are 6.5 cubic yards each, with a very little footprint. Because they go five feet into the ground.

Previously we had a four cubic yard bin – two of those – in a conditioned room. The problem with that is that it takes up valuable real estate inside of our building, and it takes up energy.

Our previous bins were collected weekly because of the smaller volume. These bins are collected every two weeks: less pickups means less emissions from the trucks, which is what we stand for.

Gavin Yeung, Manager, Earth Rangers Centre:

We’re doing a study for Molok North America right now.

We’ve put temperature sensors into the Molok bins, to measure how constant are the temperatures year-round in the Molok container. And as well we measure the odours coming from it. So we have odour meters that measure certain particulates that are known to produce odours.

The more constant we can keep the temperature, especially during the summer months, the less often we have to pick up, due to decomposition of the organics especially.

During the winter months, you don’t want especially organic materials to freeze. If it freezes, it gets stuck, and then you don’t have a full pick-up: it ends up being in there until the summer.

The Molok container really keeps a constant temperature at the very bottom of the bin especially: around about 12 to 14 degrees Celsius. At most times it is actually cooler than our conditioned waste room.

And there are no odours emanating from directly outside the Molok that we’ve found from any test that we’ve done so far. So it doesn’t attract the pests a normal bin would that’s sat outside.

Narrator:

Back at its Mount Forest headquarters, the Molok team is working every day to make sure that the 27 year old innovation is keeping up with the expectations of modern users and businesses.

Gary McLean, Fabrication and R&D Manager for Molok North America:

The main product itself really hasn’t changed a lot. The idea and the concept of Molok – being the semi-underground waste containment – is solid. We don’t need to change the actual idea of the product.

So we just constantly are looking at improving, simplifying. Looking to evolve the components that are related to the product, and just make the whole thing better for the user.

Scott Kuglin, Production Manager for Molok North America:

We use a lot of recycled material, as well as a lot of raw material, which then is recyclable. Over 90 percent of our material is recyclable, so it can be re-used in our own production, or recycled and used for future things down the road.

Over the years we’ve increased the amount of recycled materials we use, as well as always looking for new materials that are recyclable or recycled to use in our product, so that we’re always improving environmentally.

Gary McLean, Fabrication and R&D Manager for Molok North America:

You can never develop a good product without really good people behind it.

At the end of the day, R&D has to be a collaboration of everyone’s thoughts. And the team here at Molok is good because we have awesome people at the top that understand the need for developing products. Then you have the production side of things: those guys are spectacular, you know. And then we have our sales staff that always look for the need of the customer, need of the end user.

And then we take everything for our production side, what is actually feasible, what works best. It takes all those team members to actually make that ideal product, that works best for everybody.

Narrator:

As Molok North America looks forward to another 20 years, the world is under more pressure than ever before to up its sustainability game. If we’re to stand a chance of slowing the effects of climate change, we all need to take action – every day – to make the world a better place.

Watch part four of The future of waste handling: A better place.

The future of waste handling: A vision, a drive, a dream (2 of 4)

Posted on by The New Economy

This is the second part in our video series with Molok North America, exploring the waste management challenges faced by the US and Canada, and one of the technological solutions to make recycling and composting more convenient and efficient. If you want to start from the beginning, watch part one of The future of waste handling: In a perfect world.

Mark Hillis, CEO and President of Molok North America:

Sustainability from Molok’s perspective is…

You know our founder Marja used to say: ‘What are we trying to do? What’s our purpose?’ And our purpose is to change the world, and make it a better place.

When you think about sustainability in the forefront of those thoughts, it becomes really important from a social conscience perspective of our company, that we’re doing something that is important to us, important to the residents throughout the world, and important to the world itself.

Mark Hillis, CEO and President of Molok North America:

So Molok was founded by a gentleman in Finland, whose name is Veikko Salli. And Veikko was a mechanical engineer turned entrepreneur who was very good at building things. And subsequently was involved with building a bunch of hotels, sports centres, restaurants, that type of thing, through Scandinavia.

One day he was challenged – as the story goes – by the appearance of garbage in one of his hotel sites in Finland. And he got to thinking about that, and I think with the help of his wife Anja they came up with the concept of going semi-underground with the garbage. Which brought a whole host of advantages to it: from the scope of space-saving, aesthetics, animals, odours; all that type of thing.

Narrator:

In 1991, Veikko – together with his daughter, Marja – turned the semi-underground waste concept into a business. In the first two weeks the company sold 40 containers to the local road administration – before it had even produced a working model. They named the company Molok, after the mythical god with a mouth like a bottomless pit.

Mark Hillis, CEO and President of Molok North America:

At some point the concept of coming to North America with the Molok model, came into view. And I wasn’t part of the family at that point – but in discussion with Marja and Veikko it was decided that Marja would come over here to Canada.

And she did that with a one year old daughter, as a single mother. Started this company up, and just had so much drive to make things happen with it.

And it takes a certain character and a certain personality and a certain drive to be able to do that.

Finnish people – as I’ve learned, being married to one for that many years, and being many times in Finland – are driven by something that they call Sisu. The easiest way to describe it is a stubborn determination against all odds. And Marja I think accentuated the word and the concept of Sisu very strongly. And failure was nothing that ever came into her mind.

Mona Hillis, co-owner of Molok North America:

Well, it was like her baby. It was a part of her life for so long. And it was the whole reason her and I came to Canada; or a big part of the reason, I guess.

She started with just this little tiny office in her closet in Mississauga, and now it’s this huge company doing these amazing things. And it was just, it was really important to her. As a woman and a business leader, and an environmentalist. It was a huge vision.

Narrator:

Marja ran Molok North America until March 2018, when she passed away. Her daughter, Mona, now co-owns the company; along with Marja’s husband Mark, who stepped up from VP of Operations to take over as President.

In 2019 Molok North America will be marking 20 years of operation – and one year since its founder’s death. But it’s clear that Marja’s vision for the company lives on.

Mona Hillis, co-owner of Molok North America:

She always did things sometimes in an unusual way, that you kind of thought, well that’s not so conventional! But it always ended up working out. And I’d see that in every aspect of her life, too. She didn’t like the trodden path so much, and she kind of just did what she wanted. And she got that from her dad too; he’s the exact same way.

She taught me independence, and to really stand for what you believe in. She taught me the value of stubbornness – she was very stubborn in her ways, yet very open minded as well. So I think I’ve gotten a lot of her personality traits, which I’m super grateful for. Because she was so loved. And still is.

Mark Hillis, CEO and President of Molok North America:

So, the vision, the drive, the dream, the passion that she had for Molok, and for how she wanted it to change the world, really came into play throughout her leadership in this company. And it’s her drive, and her leadership, that set the stage for how we think as a global company, and the success that we’ve had.

Tim Corcoran, Vice President of Business Development for Molok North America:

I believe our reputation in the industry is one of a leader, one of creativity. In some industries they view companies as ‘disruptors,’ you know? It seems to be in the internet of things, every business is a disruptor.

We were a disruptor 27 years ago, and we continue to disrupt the industry. We’re changing the way the individual views containment systems; the way architects, developers, and the service companies do business.

Mark Hillis, CEO and President of Molok North America:

The traditional waste model in North America, and particularly in Canada where we have most of our experience, if you consider it in the sense of a triangle: where the waste collection companies, the experts in the industry, are at the top; the municipalities which govern waste collection are kind of in the middle of the triangle; and the people, the residents, are at the bottom of the triangle.

The municipalities look upward to the waste collection companies on how things should go with regards to waste collection, recycling, organics, diversion, that type of thing. Then they push it down to their residents.

We’ve been fortunate enough to take that triangle and turn it upside down. We’re putting the people, the end users, the people who use Molok containers at the top. They’re the decision makers, they’re the people who use the system that want to get the most out of it.

And they’re driving that downward through the municipalities into the big waste companies in North America. And that’s been really successful for us. Because that’s the voice. That’s the voice of the people.

And the people are educated. They understand what’s going on in the world today from a sustainability perspective. They have a vision for what future they would like their children, and their grandchildren, to see. And that fits very well with the concept of Molok.

Narrator:

Today, Molok North America has installations in Canada from Halifax to Vancouver. It’s also established containers in key US cities, and has launched a distribution partnership in Mexico.

Where one Molok container pops up, others quickly follow. Because from the user, to the property developer, to the city – the advantages of the Molok container are immediately obvious.

Watch part three of The future of waste handling: Doing what’s right.

The future of waste handling: In a perfect world (1 of 4)

Posted on by The New Economy

Every year the world produces over two billion tonnes of waste. By 2050, the World Bank expects that will grow to 3.4 billion tonnes.

But the problem isn’t just the amount – it’s what we do with it. Instead of recycling or reusing valuable materials, or turning them into compost, or energy – today, nearly three quarters of the world’s waste goes straight to landfill sites or open dumps.

Molok North America is a waste management company that offers convenience and efficiency to consumers and municipalities seeking to improve the diversion of their waste into recycling and composting streams. The New Economy partnered with Molok North America to find out how, in this four part video series.

Kinsley, Grade 4:

We recycle pop cans, plastic water bottles. Containers; paper and boxes.

Emma, Grade 6:

There’s stuff, and we only have so much of it. And it’s a good thing that we reuse it, because there’s only so much of it.

Jeremy, Grade 11:

When you throw something away that doesn’t need to be thrown away, it not only takes up extra space in landfills, but it also makes us need more resources to replace that product that was just thrown away.

Ainsley, Grade 12:

If stuff keeps going to the landfill then we’re not going to have a place to live. The landfills will overtake, in the long run.

Jared, Grade 11:

I think that the natural resources are still there, but it’s in decline. We need to find a way to either stop using those resources, or reuse them so that we’re not using more of them.

Olivia, Grade 8:

Perfect world, we wouldn’t have to throw away anything. Everything would either be biodegradable or recyclable. Because right now there’s a lot of things that you can’t recycle. Like, you don’t really have much of a choice in the matter of how much damage you’re dealing to the planet at that point.

Kinsley, Grade 4:

So like, we have to recycle. Because we can’t keep on throwing it in garbage, else we’ll run out of things that we can use again.

Narrator:

Every year the world produces over two billion tonnes of waste. By 2050, the World Bank expects that will grow to 3.4 billion tonnes.

But the problem isn’t just the amount. It’s what we do with it. Instead of recycling or reusing valuable materials, or turning them into compost, or energy – today, nearly three quarters of the world’s waste goes straight to landfill sites or open dumps.

Susan Antler, Executive Director, Compost Council of Canada

Well in the perfect world there would be no waste. It would be all resources that we would lovingly collect and put back to be reused.

In a more practical world, we need to have a different perspective on things. Quite honestly I don’t think we’ve done enough. I’m quite embarrassed about the fact that we have not owned up to our responsibilities of people on this planet.

For me personally, I have such an urgency right now. If we don’t change the respect that we need to have for the materials that we use, we basically are not doing what is right.

Narrator:

Changing the way we produce, consume, and dispose of goods is one of the UN’s sustainable development goals.

By 2030, we need to substantially reduce the amount of waste we generate: through prevention, reduction, recycling and reuse.

And countries in North America – home to five percent of the world’s population, but creating 14 percent of the world’s waste – have a lot of work to do.

Brent Wootton PhD, Vice President of Applied Research, Fleming College:

Well, Canada currently produces about 700-730kg of waste per person per year. And that’s a per capita statistic, including commercial waste. But that’s a very high number compared to other nations in the world. In OECD surveys we rank typically last, among those nations.

We need better dissemination of best practices, best tools, incentives. We need to do better at measuring things, we need to do better at implementing some of these programmes, such as food waste diversion, recycling, and textiles.

But because we’re a confederation, we lack a coordinated approach. What would be really helpful is if we had a national government response to some of these waste management challenges.

Bryan Staley, President and CEO, Environmental Research and Education Foundation:

Many discarded materials in North America are placed into the wrong bins by consumers. This tends to happen because in many cases there’s confusion due to poor labelling practices, inconsistencies in the types of materials accepted, and a lack of standardisation in definitions of management practices.

Contamination – materials which are not supposed to be in a particular waste stream – they impede successful management. Contamination reduces the quality of the end product, and it’s a significant issue for recycling and composting waste streams.

Susan Antler, Compost Council of Canada:

One of the biggest barriers is convenience. Pretty much now as Canadians, we all know what we should be doing. But the reality is, as soon as it goes away from convenience, people drop off. And they have great excuses.

And so a company such as Molok that has provided the convenience to do the right thing in terms of recycling and composting, is appropriate this time. Because we have to get beyond the barriers of why they can’t do it, and we have to make everything happen.

Narrator:

Molok is a waste management company, founded in Finland in 1991. The business invented the deep collection method of handling waste: each surface container conceals a cavity up to five feet deep, keeping refuse hidden and hygienic. And because a Molok container can hold more waste for longer – it’s a more sustainable solution.

In 1999 the brand crossed the Atlantic and established Molok North America. And from its headquarters in Mount Forest, Ontario, it’s set itself the goal of making the world a better place.

Mark Hillis, CEO and President of Molok North America:

Sustainability; it’s become something that a lot of people in the world are striving for, because we recognise what’s going on with the world these days. Molok was really at the forefront of that, probably way before it actually became something that was in everybody’s eyes.

As a result of that, everything that we do within the company: our manufacturing, our assembling, the team that we built, our human resources.

Everything we do lends itself towards making the world a better place, and therefore sustainability is in the forefront of what we do.

Tim Corcoran, Vice President of Business Development for Molok North America:

27 years ago when the business was established, one of the tenets of our original business was to make sure that everything we did respected the environment going forward.

So to this day, whether it’s the manufacture of our products, the way in which we sell them, we do everything with a view of bettering the environment. Whether it’s through reduced truck traffic, or whether it’s through the ability to recycle our products after use.

Narrator:

The Molok system is designed to make managing waste as simple and sustainable as possible – for the end user, the local municipality, and the waste collection company. To understand why this green thinking is so deeply embedded in the company’s philosophy, you have to go back to its origins: in a trash-strewn alleyway outside a Finnish hotel.

Watch part two of The future of waste handling: A vision, a drive, a dream.

Graphene is the new wonder material transforming the energy sector

Posted on by ashton

Stories of supposedly groundbreaking technologies seem to be around every corner. It is rare, however, for these innovations to actually change the world. One material that succeeded in disproving its sceptics was plastic – dating back to the mid-19th century, synthetic polymers have had a profound impact on the planet. As their price tumbled in the 1950s and 60s, plastics were used in the mass production of items that never would have been possible without the material’s pliability, strength and lightweight quality. Plastic products, from disposable syringes to water bottles to contact lenses, have helped boost living standards around the world.

Graphene boasts an impressive collection of superlatives: not only is it the world’s thinnest material, but it is also the strongest

However, plastic is now falling out of favour due to its contribution to environmental pollution and its role in encouraging a throw-away culture. But there is another wonder material promising disruption on a global scale: graphene. According to the University of Manchester, which was the site of graphene’s discovery, “combining all of graphene’s amazing properties could create an impact of the scale last seen with the Industrial Revolution”.

Groundbreaking graphene
Graphene is made up of a single microscopic layer of carbon atoms laid out in a honeycomb-like lattice. Although it can be found in an object as ordinary as a pencil, graphene is a completely extraordinary material. In 2004, two researchers from the University of Manchester – Andre Geim and Kostya Novoselov – became the first to isolate graphene by sticking adhesive tape to a piece of graphite. When they pulled the tape away, they were able to separate a single layer of carbon, opening the door to a new class of two-dimensional materials. The pair won the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics for their “groundbreaking experiments” with graphene.

Graphene boasts an impressive collection of superlatives: not only is it the world’s thinnest material, but it is also the strongest. It is tougher than diamonds, more conductive than copper and incredibly flexible. Graphene is also completely transparent while still being extremely dense.

Around the world, entrepreneurs and businesses are taking note of the remarkable material. Between 2010 and 2017, the number of patent filings related to graphene grew at an average rate of nearly 61 percent per year to reach 13,371, according to market research firm ReportLinker.

Graphene’s appeal is nearly universal. Its flexibility and transparency could one day contribute to a phone that could be rolled up like a newspaper, while its incredible strength allows it to take a hit twice as well as Kevlar, the fabric currently used in bulletproof vests. As a replacement for health-tracking wearables like Fitbits, graphene could be tattooed directly onto the skin. In the future, aeroplanes, cars and countless other machines could be manufactured out of lightweight, superstrong graphene. Already the material has been injected into tennis rackets to enhance their durability.

Value of the graphene market

$85m

2017

$200m

2018

$1bn

2023 (predicted)

In the energy sector, there are a number of ways graphene could enhance power generation, storage and infrastructure. As Craig Dawson, a graphene applications manager at the University of Manchester’s Graphene Engineering Innovation Centre, told The New Economy: “Because graphene has the ability to serve several purposes, often at the same time, we could see its use [becoming] ubiquitous across the sector.”

Rapidly growing interest in the material has seen the value of the graphene market soar from $85m in 2017 to nearly $200m in 2018, ReportLinker said. Predictions vary about how quickly the market will continue to grow. While market research firm IDTechEx expects the industry to be worth $300m by 2027, ReportLinker said it could reach as much as $1bn by just 2023, with China leading the way in research and development.

Khasha Ghaffarzadeh, Research Director at IDTechEx, wrote in 2018 that China has developed a huge monopoly on technology development, dominating sectors from solar photovoltaics to 3D printing. It’s no surprise, then, that the country quickly became the centre of graphene innovation. According to Ghaffarzadeh, the largest suppliers of advanced materials like graphene are Chinese, and nearly 70 percent of the total nominal production capacity is located in the country.

Super-charged applications
Globally, the amount of electricity generated by renewable energy sources is on the rise. In 2017, nearly 24 percent of electricity produced around the world came from renewables. By 2023, the International Energy Agency (IEA) expects that figure to rise to almost 30 percent. Led by solar, wind and hydropower, renewables are set to meet more than 70 percent of global electricity-generation growth, the IEA said.

One big snag in the development of the renewables industry has been the fact that green sources of energy are produced intermittently – when the sun is shining or the wind blowing, for example. To ensure excess energy can be held back and deployed once again when the clouds come out, energy storage will be a vital element of the renewable energy mix.

Dawson and his colleagues at the University of Manchester see graphene as a good candidate for the creation of next-generation batteries, thanks to the material’s mechanical and chemical robustness alongside its impressive conductivity. “Graphene’s impermeability could be useful within devices such as fuel cells and grid-scale redox batteries where protons can hop across the graphene-enhanced membranes,” Dawson explained.

Graphene meets all the qualities of an ideal energy storage device, according to Rob Dryfe, a professor at the University of Manchester. Speaking about graphene in a video for the university, Dryfe said: “[You] want a high-surface, high-volume, light, stable, conducting material, and the advantage of graphene is that it basically ticks all of those boxes.”

Most energy storage devices today use lithium-ion batteries, which can be made up of various formulations of lithium, cobalt, aluminium, nickel and manganese. While lithium-ion batteries are prized for their ability to hold a charge, they are not efficient when it comes to shifting energy in and out of batteries quickly. For this reason, graphene supercapacitors would be ideal for electric vehicles – especially high-end supercars. As well as enabling cars to reach a high speed in seconds, supercapacitors could allow electric vehicles – as well as other electronics like phones and laptops – to be fully charged almost instantly.

Supercapacitors and batteries each have their benefits and downfalls. “Where high power is required, a supercapacitor could be advantageous, and where a large charge capacity is required, a battery is probably more suitable,” Dawson explained. Graphene researchers are also looking into the development of graphene supercapacitor hybrid batteries, which Dawson said would offer the best of both worlds.

Some players within the graphene supply chain, including students and partners of the University of Manchester and corporations like Samsung, have seen “tangible results” of such graphene-modified batteries and supercapacitors, Dawson said. “We could, therefore, expect to see these enter the market in the near future.”
For now, these devices need further research to become fully optimised for use in the energy sector. Nunzio Motta, a professor of science and engineering at the Queensland University of Technology, told The New Economy this is another area where China is ahead of the curve. Some Chinese companies are already producing commercial graphene batteries and supercapacitors, he said, which are being used to power electric buses.

Beyond batteries
Graphene’s utility extends far beyond batteries and supercapacitors, but because it was discovered less than two decades ago, many of its possibilities are still unknown. Researchers are working on experiments today that just five or 10 years ago wouldn’t have seemed possible.

For instance, Dawson said graphene’s dual transparency and conductivity means the material could be used to improve the efficiency of solar cells. This could help end the industry’s reliance on rare materials such as indium tin oxide, an expensive material that can be used as a thin film. “[Graphene] is also impermeable to almost everything, protecting energy infrastructure from the elements,” he added.

In 2012, researchers made carbon-based solar cells using graphene, which they said would be more easily produced and recycled than existing solar cell designs. The prototypes were expensive to make, however, and the scientists said more research was needed in order to optimise efficiencies.

Other projects are ongoing, including a joint venture between UK-based energy technology developer Verditek and graphene specialist Paragraf. The two teamed up in 2017 to create “a new generation of highly robust, ultra-lightweight” graphene-based solar panels that could “potentially revolutionise the photovoltaic market”. Researchers at three Australian universities, meanwhile, joined together to develop a light-absorbing, ultra-thin film that they said has “great potential” for use in solar thermal energy harvesting. Upon presenting their findings in March, the scientists said the graphene film offers a “new concept” for solar energy, opening new research areas, including in the direct conversion of heat to electricity and the desalination of water.

Motta told The New Economy that he does not see graphene as a suitable material for solar cells, but that it could be useful in concentrating solar power plants, which use mirrors to focus sunlight into a central tower where water is boiled to generate superheated steam. “Mirrors covered with graphene could have some application because graphene could conduct the heat very well,” Motta said. The possible applications of graphene elsewhere in the energy industry are far-reaching, including reinforcing materials used in wind turbine blades and lacing concrete used to build other energy structures with graphene.

Opening doors
Graphene is not only revolutionary because of what it can do – it has also changed scientists’ understanding of similar resources. Take superconductors, for example: these materials are able to conduct electricity with no resistance, meaning energy in a superconductor could flow continuously without ever degrading.

The problem with most superconductors is that they only work at temperatures near absolute zero, or about –273.15 degrees Celsius, where there is no motion or heat. Because it is impractical to run superconductors with the expensive cooling materials needed to make them work, scientists have spent decades searching for a material that could be used as a superconductor at room temperature.

Graphene, while not a high-temperature superconductor in itself, has brought scientists a step closer to solving this puzzle. Two papers published in the science journal Nature in 2018 proved that graphene could work as a superconductor if two layers were sandwiched together at the so-called ‘magic angle’. The researchers found that graphene works in a similar way to other ‘unconventional’ superconductors called cuprates, which can conduct electricity at up to 133 degrees Kelvin above absolute zero, or around –140 degrees Celsius.

While scientists have struggled to understand the workings of cuprates, the graphene system was relatively well understood. “The stunning implication is that cuprate superconductivity was something simple all along. It was just hard to calculate properly,” Robert Laughlin, a physicist and Nobel laureate at Stanford University, said at the time of the announcement. While Laughlin said it was not yet clear whether the behaviour of cuprates would match that of graphene, he said enough behaviours were present to “give cause for celebration”.

Tipping point
In the coming years, China will continue to dominate the graphene market, according to Ghaffarzadeh, who wrote that China has “the technology, the investment, the resolve and the value chain, including all the major target markets”. Elsewhere in the world, there remains a disconnect between the technical research into graphene and the businesses that can create practical, innovative products. Dawson said the umbrella group Graphene@Manchester, which includes the university’s Graphene Engineering Innovation Centre and its National Graphene Institute, aims to bridge the “innovation gap” between academia and the commercial world by forging collaborative partnerships between researchers and corporate entities.

Going forward, experts expect a critical juncture to take place in the global development of the graphene industry. Ghaffarzadeh has suggested a “major turning point” for graphene would occur in 2020 or 2021, while Graphene@Manchester CEO James Baker told China Daily that the tipping point could come as soon as the end of the year.
However, in a report published in 2016, consultancy firm Deloitte said the research and prototyping phase for graphene would likely extend for another decade. The report noted that throughout history, the materials that make the biggest impact tend to take decades of development before achieving mainstream adoption. Graphene products created in 2016 were just offering a glimpse of the material’s full potential, the Deloitte report said: “Some of the future technologies and benefits of graphene, which could embody the ‘graphene era’ and change our world, only currently exist within the realms of our imagination.”

Although it is almost certain that graphene will not solve every problem researchers claim it will, its discovery in 2004 has already opened the door to countless new areas of research and product design. For the energy sector, graphene’s arrival has led to groundbreaking discoveries and innovative new ideas – but this could just be the beginning. As Motta said: “We’re probably just scratching the surface regarding what graphene can do for the future energy sector.”

As the technology becomes more viable, we must assess the ethics of mind-reading

Posted on by ashton

For decades, scientists have worked to decode the secrets of the brain. Whether through tracking the peaks and troughs of electrical activity via electroencephalography or examining the structure of the brain with computerised tomography and MRI scans, neuroimaging has helped us glean a greater understanding of the inner workings of the mind. Now, thanks to the rapid development of AI and machine learning, we are closer than ever to unlocking new methods of communication with so-called ‘mind-reading’ technology.

Through brain-computer interfaces (BCIs), scientists can ‘read’ an individual’s mind by opening a pathway for communication between the brain and a computer. According to Ana Matran-Fernandez, an AI industry fellow at the University of Essex who studies BCI technology, this could be a significant catalyst for change in the lives of people who are currently unable to communicate.

Action should be taken now to ensure powerful corporations, hackers and governments cannot exploit people through BCIs when the technology becomes more sophisticated

By integrating BCI technology with smart home devices, for example, we could one day give those who are fully paralysed with locked-in syndrome a renewed sense of independence and freedom. But even in the face of these potentially life-changing benefits, the ethical implications of mind-reading technology are immense.

Getting in your head
Both public and private groups have thrown money at research projects in a bid to get the nascent mind-reading industry off the ground. In 2018 alone, the US Government invested $400m in the development of neurotechnology through its BRAIN Initiative, while in 2017 the US’ Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency funnelled $65m into the development of neural implants. Elsewhere, the European Commission has put €1bn ($1.1bn) towards a 10-year programme that aims to model the entire human brain, known as the Human Brain Project.

Companies are also working to push the limits of BCI technology. In a 2017 article published by the science journal Nature, a team of neuroscientists, ethicists and machine-intelligence engineers called the Morningside Group estimated that for-profit entities were already spending $100m per year on neurotechnology development. Allied Market Research, meanwhile, has predicted the global market for BCIs will reach as much as $1.46bn by 2020.

Facebook is one of the most prominent companies currently experimenting with mind-reading technology. At an annual developer conference in 2017, Regina Dugan, then head of Facebook’s division for new hardware projects, Building 8, said users would one day be able to type on the platform using only their minds.
“It sounds impossible, but it’s closer than you may realise,” Dugan said.

Mind-reading technology industry

$1.46bn

Estimated value by 2020

$400m

Amount invested by the US Government in 2018

$100m

Amount invested by for-profit companies each year

 

Although Dugan left Facebook after just 18 months and Building 8 was dismantled at the end of 2018, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg recently reiterated his interest in BCI technology during an interview with Jonathan Zittrain, a professor of international law at Harvard Law School. Zuckerberg had previously called telepathy the “ultimate communication technology”. Other prominent names exploring BCIs include billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk and Japanese carmaker Nissan. The former is working on a secretive project called Neuralink, which seeks to make humans “symbiotic” with AI through an implant in the brain, while the latter revealed plans for its ‘brain-to-vehicle’ technology in 2018.

Despite these thought-provoking plans, Matran-Fernandez pointed out a number of hurdles to the commercial development of BCIs, principally the cost. In fact, most of the research being conducted into BCIs is currently confined to laboratories because the necessary equipment is so expensive. But even if this technology was cheap enough for mass-market production, Matran-Fernandez believes the proprietary algorithms underlying such devices are still not up to scratch: “In practice, the headsets I’ve seen that will be cheap enough for anyone – I’m talking $100, $200 – that would be cheap enough to buy for personal use, they are not… good enough.” This is due, in part, to the fact that every brain is different, and the minds of those with conditions like locked-in syndrome have an added layer of complexity.

Matran-Fernandez told The New Economy: “I think the technology is getting there, and the algorithms are getting there. It’s just a matter of putting it all together and finding someone who’s willing to work on that and make it open-access.”

Brain trust
While the industry must tackle these practical concerns to boost the widespread adoption of mind-reading technology, serious ethical concerns about the practice continue to threaten its viability. For now, BCI technology remains relatively rudimentary, and it could be decades before it becomes advanced enough to be used in everyday life. But the Morningside Group has argued that action should be taken now to ensure powerful corporations, hackers and governments cannot influence or exploit people through BCIs when the technology becomes more sophisticated.

The group warned: “[We] are on a path to a world in which it will be possible to decode people’s mental processes and directly manipulate the brain mechanisms underlying their intentions, emotions and decisions, where individuals could communicate with others simply by thinking, and where… mental and physical abilities are greatly enhanced.” In such a scenario, the group believes the existing ethical guidelines on research and human testing – namely the Declaration of Helsinki and the Belmont Report – would be “insufficient”.

The matter of privacy and security is further complicated by the unique fragility of the human mind. In some cases where people received deep brain stimulation through electrode implants, for example, participants reported feeling a loss of identity and agency afterwards. As researchers Katherine Pratt and Eran Klein pointed out in an article penned for the Conversation, neural data is unlike other forms of personal data because it is “intimately connected to the mind and who we take ourselves to be”.

Matran-Fernandez, however, is not particularly concerned about issues of privacy and identity just yet. As she explained, no mind-reading actually takes place; instead, the process is like being outside the door of an auditorium when an orchestra is playing. In Matran-Fernandez’s analogy, the orchestra is the brain, with different instruments making up different neural activities. “From outside you can hear, in general, the music,” she said. “[But] it’s going to be distorted. You don’t hear it as if you’re sitting inside… You cannot distinguish the different instruments.”

It is similar for researchers using BCI technology. If two categories are created – ‘yes’ and ‘no’, for example – researchers can study the brain’s response to each option and distinguish between the two, but they cannot pinpoint what a participant is actually thinking about.

Mind over matter
Although mind-reading technology prompts numerous ethical debates, there are promising practical uses for BCIs, especially in the healthcare sector, where it has already had a degree of success. A consortium of leading scientists called BrainGate, for instance, is using BCI technology to help people with neurological diseases, injuries or lost limbs regain movement and the ability to communicate.

In one of the group’s case studies, paralysed individuals with sensors implanted in their brains were able to type up to eight words per minute on smartphones and tablets. In another proof-of-concept demonstration, BrainGate showed how people with chronic tetraplegia resulting from spinal cord injuries could regain limb movements with the help of BCI technology.

A separate group of researchers at Columbia University, meanwhile, was recently able to construct synthetic speech using a device called a vocoder, which deciphered what people wanted to say through brain activity alone. With more research, it is hoped that BCI devices will allow people to control wheelchairs, robotic prosthetics and paralysed limbs, as well as enabling those with severe locked-in syndrome to communicate.

Today, the very first steps are being made into these areas of research. As we develop a better understanding of the brain, there is great potential for further improvements in healthcare and medicine. While researchers must tread carefully through the ethical dilemmas these technologies pose, the adoption of mind-
reading technology throughout society appears to be a question of when, not if.

Cleaning up crypto’s dirty legacy

Posted on by ashton

In Irkutsk, Eastern Siberia, the temperature barely creeps above freezing for at least seven months of the year. Life is hard for the city’s 600,000 residents – much of the local economy is based on energy revenues, meaning it was hit particularly hard by the 2014 oil crash. Suffering food shortages, unemployment and a bootleg alcohol tragedy that has killed at least 76, residents likely felt that there were few prospects left in this isolated, frozen wasteland.

In 2017, however, they found a glimmer of hope in an unlikely place: the nascent bitcoin market. The process of ‘mining’ for cryptocurrencies relies upon the one thing that Irkutsk has in spades – access to cheap energy. Bitcoin mining in particular is a hugely energy-intensive industry, as it requires multiple high-power servers working at full capacity to solve mathematical problems and generate currency. The technology also produces a huge amount of heat, so powerful cooling systems are vital – except in Irkutsk, where natural Arctic temperatures do the work for them.

The bitcoin industry has a huge carbon footprint, which could threaten any global progress made on tackling climate change

But while bitcoin mining may have boosted this struggling economy, it’s also causing significant environmental damage on a global level. The industry has a huge carbon footprint and produces a significant amount of electronic waste, which could threaten to derail any global progress made on tackling climate change.

Consumptive industry
Bitcoin, the decentralised currency system, was developed by Satoshi Nakamoto, the name given to the unknown individual or group that published the original open-source software in 2009. The value of each unit of the cryptocurrency has since risen exponentially, hitting a high of around $20,000 at the end of 2017.

To earn bitcoins, miners solve mathematical problems to verify ‘blocks’ that are stored in a blockchain ledger. “[Miners] are creating what we call ‘crypto hashes’ – they’re essentially trying out random numbers to try and find a signature for a new block,” explained Alex de Vries, a blockchain expert at PwC. Around two billion attempts are needed to identify this signature, hence why most miners have multiple computers working on problems simultaneously. This speeds up the process, but also increases the amount of energy used for each ‘mine’.

The energy needed to produce one bitcoin is also rising over time, due to a feature of the original software that only allows a single unit of the decentralised currency to be mined every 10 minutes. Due to the growing number of miners across the globe, each must solve an increasing number of problems per hour in the competition to score the bitcoin for that 10-minute period. “Every machine that’s added to the network takes a little bit of the same pie that everyone is eating,” said de Vries. More maths means more computers working, meaning more energy will be used. Mining computers have become more efficient, with the latest generation of machines able to create roughly 20 percent more crypto hashes per MWh of electricity. However, Alex Hern, Technology Editor at The Guardian, explained in a January 2018 article: “In the zero-sum game of bitcoin mining, that just means a miner can afford to run more machines at the same time, leaving their power usage roughly stable.”

Power needs
The sheer volume of energy needed means that areas such as Irkutsk are popular with bitcoin miners, as the Siberian Government only charges four cents per hour for electricity. For context, in New York City, energy costs 19.4 cents per hour. Part of the reason energy is so cheap in Irkutsk (and in other areas that are popular with bitcoin miners, such as China) is that it is produced by hydroelectric dams. This source of clean, renewable energy happens to be extremely inexpensive, as water is an abundant natural resource that is not affected by market volatility. Hydropower dams also require little maintenance, have low operating costs and produce a consistent and reliable source of energy for up to 100 years.

4¢

Cost per hour of electricity in Siberia

19.4¢

Cost per hour of electricity in New York

83%

of available bitcoins have already been mined

3.4m

Total bitcoins left to be mined

The use of hydroelectric energy to power the bitcoin mining industry has drawn criticism from environmental campaign groups for two reasons. First, cryptocurrency has no intrinsic value – its worth is entirely defined by market speculation. If the entire sector were to implode tomorrow, the most ‘successful’ miners would be left wringing their hands in dismay as they would have huge amounts of an immaterial product that had suddenly been rendered worthless. Cryptocurrency is also an adjunct industry, in that it is a carbon copy of the existing currency industry; it doesn’t solve any problems or fulfil any societal needs. As such, the use of one of the world’s cheapest clean energy sources to power this unnecessary and highly consumptive process is controversial, to say the least.

Second, the bitcoin mining industry demands constant access to power, which renewable sources don’t provide. As de Vries explained: “The sun isn’t always shining, the wind isn’t always blowing, and it’s the same for hydropower.” Therefore, in some areas, hydroelectric energy is supplemented by coal-based power, which is the most detrimental for the environment. “The presence of bitcoin miners could actually be a reason to either build new coal-based power plants or reopen existing ones,” de Vries told The New Economy. “That… happened in Australia last year, where a coal-based power plant was reopened for bitcoin mining. That’s the worst possible outcome of the process.”

An end in sight
Bitcoin’s vast energy needs have caused huge issues in countries with less-than-robust energy sectors. In Venezuela, according to cryptocurrency news website Bitcoinist.com, mining operations have caused widespread blackouts and have drained the national grid of electricity that could be used to power homes – particularly bad news for a country currently in the grip of the worst economic crisis in its history. According to estimates by the Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index, bitcoin consumes around 49TWh of energy per year – an amount that could power more than 4.5 million US households if it was redirected.

In addition to draining the world of energy, bitcoin is also causing significant environmental damage. The cryptocurrency’s current annual carbon footprint is roughly the same size as Singapore’s, according to data from Digiconomist. By effectively adding another country’s carbon impact to the global total, the world becomes increasingly unlikely to hit the warming targets set out under the Paris climate agreement. If these are not met, it will have disastrous consequences for weather patterns and ocean ecosystems.

The industry creates a huge amount of electronic waste due to hardware burning out after a certain amount of time. “These machines cannot be repurposed, so they effectively become single-purpose, as they are hardwired for mining,” explained de Vries. “When they’re done, the only thing you can do with them is to throw them away – they become electronic waste immediately after they become unprofitable.” Just 20 percent of this waste is recycled globally, with the rest ending up in already-brimming landfills or incinerators.

‘The total electronic waste output of the bitcoin network is as much as Luxembourg, by my initial estimates, and that’s a very conservative number,” said de Vries. Add to that bitcoin’s massive energy consumption and carbon footprint and we’re looking at what can only be described as the planet’s worst environmental nightmare. Humanity is already decades behind in tackling our carbon impact – while we’re now taking some action on pollutants like fossil fuels, change simply isn’t happening fast enough. The last thing we need is another vastly consumptive industry adding to our substantial footprint.

There may be one slight silver lining, though, in the fact that there is a finite amount of bitcoins. Nakamoto only created 21 million coins in total, of which 83 percent have already been issued, meaning there are around 3.4 million left to be mined. Once all of those have been released, there’s a chance the industry may simply cease to exist. However, that’s little relief when you consider the damage bitcoin will cause to the environment between now and then. As de Vries concluded: “[The industry] could have a natural end, but then we’ve really wasted all this energy.”

Technological developments are making retail cashiers obsolete

Posted on by ashton

In recent years, the retail industry has seen a dramatic decrease in the number of cashiers present in stores, with self-service checkouts filling their positions instead. Many of us bemoan the automated machines; the thought of locating oft-hidden barcodes, scanning at exactly the right angle and packing all at the same time just seems like too much. Then there are the frequent issues that arise, which see customers patiently waiting for a human employee to come to their assistance, type in a secret code or attest to the fact that they are old enough to purchase cough medicine.

A large portion of the workforce – not just in the US and China, but across the globe – could become redundant as a result of our incessant pursuit of convenience

The idea of these DIY checkouts is to improve efficiency and convenience for customers, but how effective are they? They may work when you’ve only got a handful of items, but anything more seems to send the whole system into meltdown. Despite these frustrations, self-service checkouts continue to make their way into shops – and as the technology develops, these teething problems may soon be a thing of the past. It seems that we may be set to say goodbye to supermarket cashiers forever.

Grab and go
In December 2016, e-commerce behemoth Amazon launched Amazon Go, its first cashier-less grocery store, selling ready meals prepared onsite, basic groceries, drinks and snacks. To date, it has 10 stores in Seattle, Chicago and San Francisco, with number 11 on its way; rumours of a London branch have been circulating since last year.

Using sensor fusion, deep learning, computer vision and hundreds of cameras, Amazon’s ‘just walk out’ technology automatically identifies when items are taken off shelves (and returned, for that matter). It keeps track of everything in a virtual basket and when customers are done, they simply walk out. An e-receipt of the charge to their Amazon account follows soon after. While many supermarkets are dipping their toes into the self-checkout game, Amazon Go stores signal a landmark moment for the retail landscape.

In China, though the technology is less advanced than Amazon’s, the number of cashier-less shops is in the hundreds and continues to soar thanks to dozens of start-ups in this burgeoning market. One prominent player is BingoBox, which features radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags on all its products. To check out, shoppers scan their items using a typical self-checkout machine and pay via multi-purpose app WeChat.

China’s biggest players – Alibaba, JD.com and Tencent – are also jumping on the bandwagon. With more than 20 stores already in operation, e-commerce giant JD.com has plans to roll out hundreds more using increasingly sophisticated technology, such as facial recognition. In August 2018, meanwhile, JD.com opened its first unmanned store in Indonesia, signalling its plans for regional expansion.

They took our jobs
The rise of the self-checkout will inevitably result in job losses. In the US, retail jobs are the most common type of employment, with women holding more than 70 percent of the positions. According to a recent report by Cornerstone Capital Group, in the coming years we can expect to see a loss of between six and 7.5 million retail jobs in the US alone as a result of automation. A large portion of the workforce – not just in the US and China, but across the globe – could become redundant as a result of our incessant pursuit of convenience. A number of companies, including Amazon, have guaranteed that technological developments would not see cashiers replaced with machines, but let’s not forget that banks made – and broke – similar promises when they first introduced ATMs many years ago.

There’s also something to be said for the human contact we receive when grocery shopping. For some, it may be the only social interaction they have for days and, as such, is a welcome breath of fresh air. In today’s fast-paced, technologically driven world, individuals are becoming increasingly isolated. Let’s not march even more rapidly towards that future – there is a place for convenience, but not at the cost of millions of jobs and one of the last bastions of social interaction.

The longevity industry comes of age

Posted on by ashton

Legends of a miracle cure for old age have been told for millennia, but the concept flourished around the 16th century after rumours spread that Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León was on a quest to find a fountain of youth, rumoured to be located in Florida. To this day, tourists flock to a stone well in St Augustine in the hope that its sulphur-smelling water will smooth the wrinkles on their faces.

For now, death remains a certainty, but it is true that we are living longer than ever before. Life expectancies have been trending upwards since the late 19th century and, according to the United Nations, the global population of those aged 60 and older more than doubled from 1980 to 2017, reaching 962 million. By the end of the century, this group is poised to hit 3.1 billion. With birth rates tumbling, the global population is inevitably becoming older. By 2100, a quarter of the Earth’s residents will be aged 60 or above.

Having an older population is not necessarily a bad thing. Ageing only becomes a problem when a person’s quality of life, otherwise known as their health span or healthy life years, stagnates. “Sadly, the [healthy life years] index does not grow as fast as life expectancy does: people live longer, but they are also sick for longer,” Elena Milova, a board member and outreach officer at the longevity non-profit Life Extension Advocacy Foundation (LEAF), told The New Economy.

Ageing gracefully
Current public health approaches to ageing are ineffective, according to the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) 2015 World Report on Ageing and Health. The Geneva-based agency explained that, even in high-income countries, current health systems are not prepared to meet the needs of older populations. Long-term care models are “inadequate and unsustainable”, and physical and social environments are filled with barriers that stop the elderly from participating.

Many companies will thrive in ‘hyperageing’ societies by targeting older populations with new products and services that extend healthy life years

These issues must be addressed by supporting healthy ageing, combating ageism and enabling autonomy in the elderly, the WHO concluded. Some ways of doing this, detailed in the group’s 2017 action plan on ageing, include investing in health systems and infrastructure, creating age-friendly housing and establishing health services that focus on meeting the multidimensional needs of the elderly.

Assistive technology, or ‘agetech’, is one way that older people can gain greater independence. The elderly are able to live self-sufficiently for longer with smart devices that automatically dispense medication, technologies that monitor cognitive skills and networking apps that improve social connectivity.

Agetech can also include financial products and services optimised for older users. “Today, most fintech banks are aimed at younger people using smartphones,” Dmitry Kaminskiy told The New Economy. Kaminskiy is working to build the Global Longevity Consortium, a group of companies that provide resources for the longevity industry.

In the next two or three years, Kaminskiy expects big financial corporations to show agetech the same level of excitement they had for fintech in the mid-2010s. “A lot of venture investors, angel investors and big financial institutions will recognise the opportunity of the market, and they will start to invest in it,” he said.

Ageing Analytics Agency, which Kaminskiy co-founded as part of his consortium, published a report in 2019 on the proactive steps Singapore has taken to address the problems caused by its ageing population. In 2015, the city-state launched an action plan for successful ageing. This included preventative and active ageing programmes that begin at age 40, such as the National Silver Academy – a network of organisations that offer seniors educational programmes – and the Silver Generation Ambassadors, who make health services and government schemes more accessible through home visits.

Global population aged 60+

382m

1980

962m

2017

3.1bn

End of 21st century

Japan is another interesting country for longevity industry players. Currently, it boasts the world’s longest life expectancy, with half the population aged over 50 and more than a quarter over 65. Japan also holds the title of the highest ratio of centenarians per capita.

But these credentials have come with a price: the country is facing a dementia crisis, with one in five people aged 65 or older expected to suffer from the memory-loss disease by 2025. Because of Japan’s unique position, a study by the consultancy firm McKinsey said the country’s response to the “unprecedented” economic and social challenge of ageing would become a roadmap for other governments contending with ageing populations, such as Spain and Italy.

Corporate leaders have a big role to play in these countries too. In fact, many companies will thrive in ‘hyperageing’ societies by targeting older populations with new products and services that extend healthy life years, McKinsey said. For example, the report described a social network in Japan where users aged 50 and older can chat with others about their hobbies and interests. The product, created by Kozocom, aims to tackle social isolation in older people, who often live alone, by helping them become part of a community.

A disease-free world
While one side of the longevity industry prepares for a world with significantly more elderly people, another aims to stop ageing from being a concern at all. Numerous scientific research firms are taking a preventative approach to the health implications of ageing by developing medical therapies that address the causes. Drugs that aim to extend the healthy period of peoples’ lives are already being trialled on humans.

“Science is increasingly showing that biological ageing consists of about a dozen root mechanisms; it is basically the accumulation of several types of damage that happen due to normal bodily functions, regardless of our lifestyle,” Milova said. “These root mechanisms of ageing can be addressed by medical means and, as a result, people will age more slowly with an extended period of good health, while the development of age-related diseases will be significantly postponed or even prevented.”

In the long run, focusing on the root causes of ageing will reduce the strain on nursing homes, healthcare providers, caregivers and assistive technologies in a world with a growing elderly population. This mission is already big business in Silicon Valley.

Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, paediatrician Priscilla Chan, announced in 2016 that they would donate $3bn through the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative to curing, preventing or managing all diseases by the end of the century. In their announcement, they said current spending on treatments is 50 times higher than investments into preventative medicine, which would stop people from getting sick in the first place.

Google’s parent company, Alphabet, has been working to unlock the secrets of ageing since 2013 with its biotech company, Calico. The firm has received a budget of $2.5bn to date, but the details of its operations are mostly a mystery. In 2018, the firm made a rare announcement about its research on naked mole rats, which defy the usual ageing process. In a statement on its findings, Calico said research found that naked mole rats’ risk of death does not increase with age, as is typical with other mammals.

In fact, the rodents showed little to no sign of ageing, and their risk of death did not increase even at 25 times past their reproductive maturity. “These findings reinforce our belief that naked mole rats are exceptional animals to study to further our understanding of the biological mechanisms of longevity,” said Rochelle Buffenstein, Senior Principal Investigator at Calico, in a statement.

Reaching for immortality
Anti-ageing medicine is not just a Silicon Valley trend; today, these once-fringe ideas are gaining traction all around the world. Even big banks are beginning to realise their disruptive force.

According to a recent report by investment bank Citi, the current anti-ageing market is worth about $200bn globally, but this only involves non-therapeutics such as cosmetic products and procedures. Recent breakthroughs in the science of ageing could produce commercial therapeutics within the next decade.

Citi claimed the most promising anti-ageing approach was one undertaken by biotech firms, including Unity Biotechnology, a US-based company that is backed by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. These firms are developing a class of drugs called senolytics that are designed to eliminate senescent cells, or cells that have ceased to divide and replicate.

The removal of these cells in mice delayed age-related diseases, according to research funded by the US National Institutes of Health and published in Nature Medicine. In naturally ageing mice, the drugs also extended both their life and health span. One senolytic therapy made by Unity is designed to treat patients with osteoarthritis of the knee by essentially returning the knee tissue to a more youthful state. If successful, the therapy could be commercially available by 2023.

Steve Hill, Board Member and Editor in Chief at LEAF, told The New Economy that it currently takes about 17 years for a new drug to be developed from start to finish. Treatments such as senolytics, which are making waves now, have been in the works for years. Hill said: “The defeat of age-related diseases is a long haul, not something that will suddenly occur overnight; it will likely happen in small steps, each of which brings us closer to the goal.”

Therapies that delay or even reverse certain diseases of ageing could hit the market within the next decade, Hill said, but a more comprehensive control of age-related diseases will likely take much longer. “However, as our knowledge grows and automation and AI become increasingly present in the research setting, we could see that progress happening faster than it currently is,” he added.

Another barrier to the development of new medicines is cost. Most funding for early-stage scientific ventures comes from government investment and philanthropy, according to LEAF. Profit-focused investors are often wary of these projects as returns can take decades to materialise, if at all. But what was unthinkable to corporate investors like insurance companies or pension funds just half a decade ago is not so unconventional anymore.

“There is a tremendous change in the general perception towards longevity and actually even an acceptance of the technical possibility of extending life, or at least the healthy period of life,” Kaminskiy said. He expects 2019 to be a turning point for many bigger investors.

Longevity investor and billionaire Jim Mellon said in a white paper published by British bank Barclays that “billions of dollars” would soon be flowing into the longevity sector as its growth continues. “There are very few companies available to the general public today, but there will be hundreds lining up over the next two or three years.”

The economics of ageing
As the population turns increasingly grey, the economy will change in a number of ways. The European Commission’s 2018 Ageing Report said the EU’s working-age population, defined as those aged 15 to 64, is shrinking “significantly” due to a combination of increased life expectancy, declining fertility and migration flow dynamics. As a result, the EU will go from having 3.3 working-age people for every person over 65 to just two working-age people by 2070.

The commission also expects spending on healthcare and pharmaceuticals for age-related diseases to surge. It predicted spending on long-term care systems in the EU would rise by 73 percent to a total of 2.7 percent of GDP by 2070, from 1.6 percent of GDP in 2018. Meanwhile, spending on public health in the EU, which was 6.8 percent of GDP in 2016, could rise between 0.9 and 1.6 percentage points by 2070. As Milova points out, these issues create a double burden for healthcare and social welfare systems, which are dependent on taxpayer funding.

However, the advent of drugs that improve our healthy life years will have different implications for the global economy. In the bank’s white paper, Barclays’ Chief Economist for Europe, Antonio Garcia Pascual, said rising life expectancies – so long as they coincide with rising health spans – could be advantageous for the global economy. If people remain fit and healthy into their old age, they could continue to work for longer and boost long-term economic growth. Governments would also be collecting more taxes and thus have bigger budgets.

Elsewhere, the traditional economic dynamic will be turned on its head. Savings and investment plans will change as people work out how to finance their longer lives. This impact will extend to monetary policy, as Pascual explained in the white paper: “As a population ages, savings tend to rise and that brings down interest rates. That’s one reason why we are already seeing central banks struggling to lift interest rates; the long-term equilibrium rate is being dragged down by population dynamics.”

A handful of cities could benefit further by positioning themselves as hubs for longevity research. Aside from Singapore and Japan, the UK stands out as having expertise in a unique mix of three sectors that the longevity industry relies on: biotechnology, AI and finance. It is also home to an ageing population, with centenarians being the fastest-growing age group in the UK.

The British Government has already displayed an interest in the sector, providing a £98m ($130m) challenge fund for healthy ageing. Kaminskiy said accelerators could also be built within the next couple of years to kick-start the growth of advanced biomedicine, agetech and other aspects of the longevity industry. According to a report by AAA, there were 260 longevity-related companies operating in the UK as of 2018.

As far-fetched as the idea of curing all diseases sounds today, similar feats have already been done on a smaller scale with vaccines. To date, only smallpox has been declared completely eradicated by the WHO, though other diseases have been eliminated in certain areas. This work gives hope to the idea that, with more supportive environments, preventative medicine and anti-ageing therapies, humans could live longer and healthier lives. While the longevity industry still has some growing up to do, the way we age is already transforming.

Declining insect numbers will have a devastating effect on ecosystems

Posted on by ashton

Insects often get something of a bad rap. Most are considered little more than pests and (colourful species aside) are lucky if they don’t end up flattened by a slipper or a rolled-up newspaper. Recent research, however, indicates that humans have been taking these unpopular critters for granted. A study published earlier this year in the journal Biological Conservation found that 40 percent of insect species are currently threatened with extinction. Although previous research had noted falling insect numbers, the rate of decline – scientists from the China Academy of Agricultural Sciences and the universities of Sydney and Queensland believe global insect biomass is falling by 2.5 percent every year – has come as a shock.

Municipal planners should work on making cities more hospitable for their smaller inhabitants, allowing insects to live alongside humans

Insects play an important role that extends far beyond annoying picnickers. They are essential to the planet’s ecological health, with many other animals and plants relying on them. If insect numbers continue to collapse, the effects are likely to be devastating. Fewer insects may mean fewer pests, but a world with no insects at all would be one of crippling starvation and mass extinction.

On their last legs
Although headlines telling of an insect Armageddon may sound melodramatic, the situation facing the world’s beetles, bees and butterflies is pretty dire. At the current rate of decline, half of the world’s insects will be gone in 50 years and they will be wiped out entirely in a century. The reasons behind such a nosedive require further study, but some potential causes are coming to the fore.

Dr David Wagner, Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Connecticut, explained: “Agricultural intensification… and all it entails, relative to the more nature-friendly small family farms of the past, and urbanisation are the two greatest threats to insect diversity in Europe and North America. In the tropics, deforestation and climate change appear to be the primary threats. The threats to Mother Nature are many. I fear that her plight is one of death by a thousand cuts.”

Interestingly, although Wagner is right to highlight climate change as a contributing factor to declining insect populations, it comes relatively low down in the pecking order. While a recent study did note plummeting invertebrate numbers in a relatively undisturbed patch of the Puerto Rican rainforest, there is little conclusive evidence to suggest that climate change, so often the modern-day villain, is behind the worldwide decline.

“Evidence is limited as to how much impact, so far, climate change has had on insect numbers,” Professor Dave Goulson from the University of Sussex told The New Economy. “We’ve seen about a one-degree increase in temperature so far and there is evidence that, for example, some species like butterflies have shifted their ranges northwards in response to climate change. Bumblebees seem to be disappearing from the southern edges of their ranges as well. So it is beginning to have an effect. But probably in the grand scheme of things, climate change hasn’t had a major impact on insect levels.”

Habitat loss appears to be the main driver behind the recent drop in insect numbers, with large commercial farms meaning that flower-rich, semi-natural habitats that were once home to many insects have been lost. The increased use of chemicals may have resulted in larger agricultural yields, but they have proved deadly for the tiny creatures that once enjoyed their share of the annual harvest.

“Pesticides are designed to kill things and lots of the ones we use are insecticides,” Goulson said. “If you spray lots of insecticide, you shouldn’t be surprised if insects don’t thrive.”

Grub’s up
No one is yet suggesting that insects are in short supply – they remain the most abundant type of animal on Earth and outnumber humans in terms of biomass by a factor of 17. Yet, in spite of their overall volume, their small size and considerable mobility makes them hugely difficult to monitor.

“It’s worth stressing that we have enormous knowledge gaps when it comes to insect numbers,” Goulson said. “So far, we’ve named about a million species of insects but most people agree that there are probably at least another four million that we’ve yet to name. That means that we have absolutely no data for about 80 percent of the world’s insect fauna. But even for the one million insects that we have named, in the vast majority of cases, we have no long-term monitoring scheme in place to say what’s happening to their numbers. All we do have is isolated studies from particular places.”

While these isolated studies are painting a bleak picture, it should be pointed out that not all insects are struggling. As insect numbers fall overall, more hardy or adaptable species are likely to thrive – unfortunately, though, these are likely to be the species most commonly classified as pests.

“No matter what humans do, nature produces winners and losers,” Warner said. “If the world is converted to a massive anthroscape for our exploitation, with little regard for wild lands or wildlife, we will still have dogs, cats, rats, starlings, robins, cockroaches and dandelions. What will be lost will be tragic: millions of species that have fought tooth and nail, alongside us, on their own struggle for existence, through millennia, only to be extinguished by the rapacious self-interests of mankind.”

Not so long ago, insects were being talked up as a potentially protein-rich food for livestock, or even for humans. Currently, more than 1,900 species of insect are deemed fit for human consumption, but recent fears over an insect population collapse may scupper the few insect farms that view this as a viable proposition. On the other hand, there may not be much else to eat other than cockroaches and houseflies if most of the world’s pollinating insects die out.

Looking out for the little guy
If a bleak future is to be avoided, mankind needs to act fast to arrest the insect decline. Urbanisation is one of the main drivers behind the fall and there is unlikely to be an easy way of reversing this. At present, 55 percent of the world’s population lives in urban areas, with this figure set to hit 68 percent by 2050, according to UN projections. Trying to halt, let alone reverse, this trend is likely to prove futile. Instead, municipal planners should work on making cities more hospitable for their smaller inhabitants, allowing insects to live alongside humans.

“If we change the way we use parks, road verges, roundabouts and any place where there is spare land, planting wildflowers and reducing pesticide use, then perhaps cities could become giant insect nature reserves,” Goulson explained. “This would also have the advantage of helping people reconnect with nature because increasingly people spend all their time in cities. Some children grow up without ever seeing butterflies and perhaps we should try to change that.”

Agricultural businesses and national governments also need to take their fair share of responsibility. Financial incentives should be increased to encourage more organic farming, while providing access to an independent agronomic advisory service would help farmers make decisions about how many chemicals to use on their crops, without the interference of pesticide manufacturers.

Members of the public are also not without blame. Increased demand for organic food and local, seasonal produce would make it easier for growers to transition from industrial farming to smaller-scale, mixed horticultural operations. It’s true that saving insects from extinction will require major changes relying on both top-down efforts and buy-ins from consumers, but the alternative – a life devoid of the ecological vibrancy we enjoy today – is surely much worse.

The unexpected environmental drawbacks of concentrated solar power plants

Posted on by ashton

Stretching across 3,500 acres of the Mojave Desert, the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System is the largest concentrated solar power (CSP) plant in the world. Costing $2.2bn and taking more than three years to build, the facility is the best-known project in the growing CSP market. Having said that, not many are aware that establishments like Ivanpah exist. While solar energy has generally become better established, concentrated solar power remains a little known development.

When most people talk of solar power, they are usually referring to photovoltaic cells that directly convert sunlight into electrical energy. Conversely, CSP works by using a large number of mirrors to reflect and concentrate sunlight onto a central receiver, which then converts it to heat. It comes with benefits and drawbacks when compared with photovoltaic solar, but for some parts of the world, CSP is a perfect fit.

Ivanpah’s current energy output of 392MW – enough to power 140,000 homes – may be impressive, but its real benefit could be as a trailblazer for other CSP plants

The Ivanpah plant, which formally opened in February 2014, has not been without its critics. In February this year, California’s San Bernardino County – home to the Ivanpah facility – passed a bill banning the further construction of large solar projects. Clearly, even green technology is not always welcomed.

A place in the sun
If a bird’s eye view of Ivanpah helps to show its sheer scale, it doesn’t reveal much about how the solar facility actually works. The plant produces energy in a similar way to how most of the world’s electricity is made: using steam-turned turbines. Across three distinct sites, more than 300,000 software-controlled mirrors follow the path of the Sun, reflecting its rays onto the summits of three 459ft-tall towers. At the top of each of these towers is a boiler that is rapidly heated by the concentrated sunlight, producing high-temperature steam that is piped back down to turbines on the ground.

Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System in numbers

$2.2bn

Cost to build

3+

Years to build

329MW

Energy output

Ivanpah’s current energy output of 392MW – enough to power 140,000 homes – may be impressive, but its real benefit could be as a trailblazer for other CSP plants. One of the major problems facing solar power is how to generate energy when cloud cover (or nightfall) gets in the way. However, CSP plants can be paired with thermal storage – usually in the form of molten salt – to enable energy production to continue even after the Sun has gone down.

Though Ivanpah does not boast thermal storage, one of the facility’s operators, BrightSource Energy, has used information gleaned from the plant’s operations to include thermal energy storage in subsequent facilities, including the Huanghe Qinghai Delingha Solar Thermal Power Project in China.

In the firing line
While environmentalists normally endorse solar power projects, this hasn’t always been the case at Ivanpah. Although the land upon which the facility is built may look fairly desolate, the Mojave Desert boasts a surprisingly rich level of biodiversity. As well as milkweed and queen butterflies, the area around the Ivanpah site is home to a number of desert tortoises. With growing fears that the solar plant could be harming tortoise numbers, operators have spent $55m on mitigating the ecological damage.

Despite these efforts, environmental concerns persist. One particularly grim side effect of the plant’s construction is that birds, attracted to the insects gathering at the top of the towers, are incinerated as they pass through the beams of concentrated sunlight. According to estimates, this results in some 6,000
deaths every year.

Just as the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System represents a significant leap forward in the development of solar power, it also serves as an important case study on the unintended consequences that can arise from the deployment of green technology. As more CSP plants are built around the world, operators would do well to consider both the good and bad that they could be doing to the environment.

China plans to breed stink bug army to fight crop infestations

Posted on by ashton

Scientists in China plan to unleash an army of stink bugs on the fall armyworms that are spreading across its provinces and destroying the country’s crops, according to a report published by the South China Morning Post on June 11.

Originally native to America, the crop-devouring caterpillars reached Africa through imported produce before spreading to China in early January

Armyworms are named so because they march across landscapes like an invading army. Feasting on a diet of many plant species, including sorghum, corn and sugarcane, they can infest hundreds of hectares of crops in a single night.

Originally native to America, the crop-devouring caterpillars reached Africa through imported produce before spreading to China in early January. On account of the devastation the insects have caused in recent years, the international agricultural community has become increasingly concerned about them.

The Centre for Agriculture and Biosciences International warned in 2017 that armyworms posed a major threat to food security and agricultural trade, after the pest devastated maize crops in Africa, destroying farmers’ livelihoods.

China’s stink bug army offers a promising solution. Stink bugs are the natural predators of armyworms and make for highly effective exterminators. During a field trial in the south-western province of Yunnan, scientists found that a mature stink bug can eliminate up to 41 fall armyworm larvae a day.

To combat the armyworm infestation, the Institute of Plant Protection at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences has created a stink bug factory, where it hopes to breed 10 million stink bugs a year.

Since its arrival in China, the armyworm has affected crops in 18 provinces and has been found in at least 92,000 hectares of Chinese farmland. It’s predicted to reach China’s corn belt in the north-east of the country this month.

China’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs warned that the pest “severely threatens the agriculture and grain production security of China”. A solution is urgently needed in order to stave off the widespread destruction of crops. If successful, the stink bugs could be harnessed in other countries to battle this growing threat to global crop supplies and farmers’ livelihoods.