2010: The World Will Not End Anytime Soon

Contrary to Nostradamus and the movies “2012” and “The Road” …. (drumroll please) I am predicting that the world will NOT end anytime soon. While we live in an era of unprecedented environmental challenges, we are also innovating solutions faster than at any time in the history of the planet.

Being an optimist at heart, the Conference of Parties at Copenhagen (also known as “COP15”) will produce a political “framework” for a new climate change treaty. The framework will address new numerical targets that national governments can pursue, a carbon trading system and, most importantly, it will cover the clean development and financing mechanisms that are essential to what is called “low-carbon prosperity”. The World Economic Forum (with input from Applied Materials and many other entities) has developed an excellent set of recommendations relating to such prosperity.

Consumerism will continue to be tempered by conservation and sustainability, at least until the recession is well behind us. In the U.S. and many parts of the world, we seem to have grown more interested in conserving resources and in using products longer.

Whether such an ethic can form the basis for a new economic model is the subject of a provocative new report from the U.K entitled “Prosperity Without Growth?”

Unfortunately, there will be a conflict somewhere in the world due to looming water shortages. Virtually every major river system in the world crosses some national boundaries and downstream users are increasingly at odds with their upstream neighbors. The good news is that smart investments can help mitigate some of the worst situations in terms of water quantity and quality (the latter is key since potable water is in even shorter supply). McKinsey and Co. has produced a marginal abatement cost curve for water similar to the widely cited one they produced for energy.

Smart Grid will continue to be one of the fastest growing areas in cleantech. What’s “smart grid,” you ask. Here’s a simple description: smart grid adds computer intelligence and networking to what has otherwise been a physical maze of interconnecting wires.” (Energy Predictions 2010, Deloitte) This is a natural direction for the many companies that are in both the networking and the energy arenas. The caveat is that smart grids have to get it right, meaning they need to be more energy efficient and accurate above all else. Early transitions to smart metering have already resulted in problems in California with households complaining that their bills suspiciously shot up.

There will be increasing concern over nanomaterials, if not regulations, in 2010 or the near future. Both the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and the State of California’s Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) are actively investigating the risks associated with nanoscale particles (i.e. 100 nanometers in size or smaller).

Among the novel issues that industry and government are facing is the challenge of finding devices that can accurately detect and measure particles at that scale. So “miracle” products may hasten a whole new set of regulations aimed at mitigating the technical and safety challenges. DTSC put it quite interestingly: “We see nanotechnology as the new “plastic” because it will show up in many industrial applications and consumer products.”

While there are many challenges to face in 2010, it is also a year that we will begin to see the framework the world will use for decades to come in helping to solve some of our most pressing issues.