Happy Tuesday. Elon Musk – Space explorer, Crypto Kingpin and now… restauranter. We’re exhausted.
In today’s edition:
🏡 A “retro-fit revolution” in London
🐝 The arrival of Robo-Bees
🏢 Singapore’s city of the future
Big Business (2-minute read)
Sadiq’s ‘Retrofit Revolution’
For our UK readers… Housing in the UK is considered some of the poorest in Europe when it comes to energy efficiency. This week London mayor, Sadiq Khan, announced London will soon host a £3.5m ‘centre of excellence’ to help social housing providers retrofit their homes with low-carbon upgrades, including better insulation and solar panels. The centre will help providers access funding pots (incl. £160m Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund), and build partnerships with tech and construction firms.
Perspective: In 2018, 10.3% of UK households experienced fuel poverty, where spending money on energy would push the household below the poverty line. On-site renewables can be part of the solution, to prevent anyone having to make a choice between heat and food.
Big Tech tackle climate goals
Eight tech and entertainment heavy hitters such as Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Salesforce, Disney and Netflix, are joining environmental groups and the U.N. to devise ways to scale funding for climate solutions. Their new knowledge-sharing network, aims to accelerate emissions reduction efforts.
The enemy of my enemy: These giants have the shared challenge of realising ambitious climate commitments made in recent months. Scaling climate technologies to a point where they become commercially viable requires funding and expertise beyond the reach of one organisation. This network will lower barriers to innovation for the good of the industry as a whole, while these giants ensure they are helping shape conversations.
T-time at Tesla’s Supercharger drive-through
Yep Elon’s back with a vengeance. Tesla is expected to expand amenities around its charging infrastructure, including actual restaurants, as the automaker has filed a new trademark for its brand under ‘restaurant services’.
But why? At charging stations, Tesla has a captive market for a short period of time. There’s a business catering to that audience, and food service is a part of that. Services surrounding charging may ease one barrier to EV adoption – the inconvenience of charging.
🤖 Future of Tech (1-minute read)
Robo-Bees have arrived
Pollination by bees supports around $20 billion worth of crop production in the US annually. Over the past 15 years, however, some regions have lost up to 90% of their bees. To mitigate against financial losses, startup Arugga, has created a robotic method of pollination. The autonomous robot uses cameras and Artificial Intelligence to decide which plants are ready to pollinate. Once selected, it sprays pulses of air to shake them – replicating the buzz pollination used by some bees. Arugga’s technology allows growers to work effectively under artificial lighting, as well as in extreme warm or cold temperatures – something the humble bumblebee can’t.
Un-bee-lievable: Arugga isn’t exactly protecting the bees, but fear not, there’s plenty of startups doing just that.
The future of lithium batteries could be under-the-sea:
The growing demand for Electric Vehicles (EV’s) is expected to exhaust lithium reserves on land by 2080, however, researchers are turning to another source – our oceans, where there’s 5,000x more lithium than on land. A team of scientists have developed a system, using perforated ceramic cells, to extract lithium from seawater (find out how it works here). The lithium produced is pure enough for EV manufacturers and costs only $5/kg (Vs currently costing $13.25). The process has only been completed in a lab, this will need to be scaled, so future demand for lithium can be met.
Why it’s important: A stable supply of lithium will mitigate risks to EV supply chains and ensure prices remain stable, key to ensuring customer demand continues to grow.
💡Deep Dive (1-minute read)
The future of Urban Living – Singapore style
Cities make up only 2% of the earths surface but account for more than 60 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions. In an area of Singapore once home to brickworks and military facilities, a vision of the future of urban living is taking shape. ‘Tengah’ promises 42,000 homes in a smart and sustainable environment to be “at home with nature”.
- Smart Planning: Computer simulation and data analytics have been used to design buildings and precincts to optimise wind flow, minimise heat.
- Smart Lighting: will automatically switch off in unoccupied areas in order to reduce energy consumption.
- Smart Cooling: A centralised system to regulate home temperatures in a more energy-efficient manner than individual air-conditioning units – significant in a country where AC accounts for a third of household energy use.
- Automated Waste Collection: system that uses high-speed air to transport household waste, with reduced emissions and encouraging recycling.
Cars will also be entirely underground freeing up space for nature corridors to provide safe passage for Singaporean wildlife. Tengah will be used as a test case for members of the UN’S Future of Cities programmes, to take forward for their own cities.
💭 Little Bytes
Quote: “Climate change is the persistent global challenge and I believe this will mostly be solved by technological advances rather than changing the collective behaviour of 7.5 billion people (although of course, every little helps so we can’t be complacent).” Jamie Hutton, CTO, Quantexa.
Stat: Between 2010 – 2019 Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark, has seen a population increase of 20%, yet has cut its emissions by 42%. Find out how here.
Watch: How this farmer is saving the jungle by growing food in it
🗞 In other news…
- UK debuts new circular economy hub with over 200 partners and £30 million in funding
- BMW back Hydrogen vehicles whereas Tesla and VW strongly oppose
- Self-driving truck gets across the USA 10 hours quicker than human, a solution to tackling trucking labour shortages.
- KFC to train all staff members to tackle litter
- Heathrow to adopt Sustainable Aviation Fuels to partly power planes
🎣 Gone Phishing
Three of these stories are true, one we made up, can you guess which?
