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Exploring the Fourth Wave of Environmental Innovation
Header banner - Innovation and the Environment by EDF
February 25, 2021
Some headlines don’t ask for your attention; they demand it. “Scientists have taught spinach to send emails and it could warn us about climate change,” is one that came across my radar the other day. What sounds like a bad science fiction premise is actually a fascinating development in the field of plant nanobionics. In short, scientists engineered spinach plants to detect the presence of certain chemicals in the groundwater. The spinach in turn uses carbon nanotubes in the leaves to emit a signal read by an infrared camera and transmitted to scientists via email.
 
It’s but another example of the stunning potential of rapidly developing sensor technology. While this application was designed to detect explosives, the tech has already been tweaked to allow spinach to detect and communicate the presence of nitric oxide, a polluting byproduct of combustion. Given another recent hard-to-ignore headline (“Fossil fuel pollution causes one in five premature deaths globally” via Reuters), it’s clear that immediate and dramatic pollution reduction remains a paramount goal. That there may be a role for smart produce to play is a surprising development.
Read more about the spinach via euronews
Also worth your time...
Synhelion solar field

Synhelion aims to remove cement's carbon footprint by 2050
Why it matters: If the cement industry were a country, it would be the third largest emitter of carbon dioxide in the world. Seeing an opportunity, the Swiss start-up Synhelion* is working with CEMEX, one of the world’s largest building materials companies in the world, to deploy cutting edge solar technology in place of fossil fuels traditionally used in cement plants. As clean tech investment continues to boom, look for more environmental innovation startups seeking to serve business and climate goals. Watch Synhelion’s tech pitch here.
 
Plankton could be the next "grand challenge" for machine learning via VentureBeat
Why it matters: A May 2020 study found that plankton absorb twice as much carbon as scientists previously thought, but many species of plankton have not been documented. “Grand challenges” of machine learning — if successful they move the whole discipline forward — have traditionally been applied to tasks like self-driving cars or beating a human at chess. This OcéanIA project wants to bring that sense of challenge and purpose to oceans and climate change via automated recognition of plankton species.
 
New tech claims to convert CO2 into jet fuel via ScienceNews
Why it matters: Aviation is responsible for approximately 12% of all transportation-related CO2 emissions, which makes the sector a prime target for action. While previous efforts to turn carbon dioxide into fuel have used expensive materials like cobalt and involved many chemical steps, a new process uses an iron-based catalyst in one step. What’s more, other byproducts from the process could be used to make plastics.
 
Ways to remove barriers to financing zero-emission fleets via GreenBiz
Why it matters: If we’re going to see wide scale deployment of zero-emission vehicle fleets, the financing aspect must be more accessible, affordable and attractive to corporate buyers. Amply*, a charging infrastructure company, wants to develop software to better understand, monitor and plan a fleet’s energy use, to lower operational risks and make investments easier to justify. Operational expense financing models, which offer the possibility of paying over time, and battery leasing are also potential options. Watch Amply’s tech pitch here.
 
Cameras, AI and small-scale fisheries
Why it matters: In some waters, recreational and small-scale fisheries account for more than the commercial catch, but we don’t know how many boats participate. Using cameras and AI to determine how many and what type of boats are accessing an area, combined with other data, we can provide a more realistic view of fish stock health. Explore the potential of the emerging “SmartPass” technology, from the Gulf of Mexico to Indonesia, via text at the link above or by way of this beautifully shot four minute video.

*EDF doesn’t endorse specific business ventures

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I look forward to sharing more news from the frontiers of environmental innovation. Please send me your thoughts and suggestions at innovation@edf.org.

Fred
 

Connect with me on Twitter and LinkedIn, and join the Fourth Wave of environmental innovation conversation on Medium.

 


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