Collaborative spirit is now indispensable in the urgent realm of climate technology, where the need to combat global warming races against time
Complex problems require a collective intelligence system to conjure creative solutions. Just about a decade ago when Google was finding it difficult to make its machines learn to clearly distinguish between the pictures of a cat and a dog; the company felt that to meet the desired levels of accuracy in face recognition systems, it might require a substantial scale-up of its processing capacities. But then its engineers stumbled upon the NVIDIA GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) which is quite popular in enabling high-quality video gaming environments and is powered with better chipsets and algorithms.
Google partnered with NVIDIA and the collaboration now delivers crucial breakthroughs in AI. It is widely acknowledged that the intersection of various disciplines is perhaps the most fertile space leading to path-breaking innovations; the Neuralink brain chip is one such very recent example. Such interdisciplinary collaborations become indispensable particularly in the realm of climate technology, when there is a race against time to contain warming to 1.5 to 2 degree celcius limit.
Key Challenges to a Collaborative Paradigm: The intellectual property regime is built upon the philosophical foundations where it is believed that healthy competition among the entities serves the greatest common good. However, for addressing an existential crisis like climate change, collective efforts too must be incentivised by the regulatory framework.
Consortium-based Innovation Model:
An innovation model developed through integrating the industry, academia, and policymakers, can fast-pace the technological maturity, augment efficiencies and nudge consumer behaviour towards sustainability. In high-velocity industries such as biotech, computers and electronics, an institutional consortium can create collaborative innovation wherein learning occurs through network relationships and institutions are both actors and the recipients of the skills and expertise that the learning brings. Moreover, the convergence of the key stakeholders also elevates the Research-Practice integration.
Such accelerated learning mechanisms are much needed for climate change management and adaptation. As we explore its application in climate technology, let's delve into specific areas where collaborative efforts can reshape our approach to environmental challenges:
Renewables and Storage: Unpredictability in solar and wind resources necessitates storage solutions in any reliable clean energy scheme. Thus, solar and wind developers getting formally networked with battery or other storage solution providers and grid managers could help towards building a more resilient energy ecosystem. On similar lines auto manufacturers too can be brought under the collaborative umbrella.
Imagine a scenario where the power grid has a demand surge, and one gets paid for supplying electricity to the grid through the battery in the electric vehicle. Time of Use tariffs and Device-Tagged Electricity Bills: Electricity during lean demand periods can be cheaper. Think of a washing machine in your house running only when the electricity is the cheapest during the day or night.
The collaboration of the device/appliances manufacturers, digital technology players and the power distribution companies can enhance transparency, and efficiency and cut down the peak demand requirements of the power generation units; notably such peaks are often met by coal-based plants. A power distribution network incentivised by time-of-use tariffs facilitates more sustainable consumer behaviour.
Augmenting Forecasting through AI: Let’s envision a scheme where satellite imagery of the cloud cover, projections on wind velocities and weather data get analysed by an AI model that predicts good sunshine and wind hours well in advance. Such early knowledge of the resource pattern would cut on wasteful spinning reserves that run as a backup to meet any sudden surge in power demand.
End-of-Life Planning and Sharing of Resources: A consortium-based system would inherently have a cradle-to-grave approach as the optimal end-use utilisation would be a natural spin-off. A re-purposing scheme of degraded batteries could be one such example. Also, cloud and web-based services could scale down the personal device hardware requirements, and blockchain may edge out inefficient intermediates thus contributing to sustainability.
The recent union budget announcement on the creation of a corpus of rupees one lakh crore targeted towards interest-free long-term assistance to private entities for research and innovation could go a long way towards cultivating a culture of innovation.
A synergy of efforts could indeed be a catalyst, as timing is crucial for the deployment of climate-friendly technologies.
(The writer is an Indian Railway Service officer and a Commonwealth scholar; views are personal)
