Signals of the Future: from Biomimicry to Energy Storage
December’s (shorter) crop of Friday Futures Insights explore bio-composites, giant batteries, and health-wearables: signals of what might come.
Bio Buildings
I’ve always been a fan of biomimicry and designing with, and for, nature. Radically re-imagining the way we produce life’s essentials is one of the ways we’re going to save the planet.
So, it was great to meet the team at DeakinBio www.deakinbio.com recently and hear how they’re making tiles taking inspiration from natural materials such as ivory, pearl and tooth enamel.
These new bio-composites have big potential sustainability benefits, especially for reducing embodied carbon in buildings.
Ordinary ceramic tiles need to be fired at high temperatures over many hours in order to harden and this makes-up about 80% of the carbon footprint of most ceramics. This young Manchester-based start-up have developed two bio-processes that eliminate the need for firing and use chickpea waste or spirulina algae for binding. Some of the raw materials for the tiles can also be made from captured CO2, further lessening the carbon impact.
The bio-composite tiles looked good, felt really hard to the touch, and can be stronger than high-strength concrete.
I look forward to a future where we move to a bio-economy using renewable resources from land and water to produce food, materials, and energy, and where we grow — rather than build — our homes and offices, using wood, waste-biomass and synthetic biology.
Tracking Flu
I saw a piece in Wired about how smart thermometers connected to the internet can help track and respond to the spread of flu. A US company, Kinsa, is pioneering blue-tooth connected devices to provide anonymised data about epidemics.
We tend to use a thermometer at home when somebody’s sick. Real-time sharing of data can help track outbreaks to allow prevention and improve response, ensuring, for example, that the vulnerable stay at home or that medical supplies are in the right place.
Connecting health data can be a valuable source of knowledge to the patient and the health profession. Fitbits or smart clothing can support healthy living, (expect e-textiles that coach you as you move). Early warning can come from wearable biosensors (in jewellery or glasses) that track your vital signs or watches that detect falls. Remote monitoring for patient after-care can come from wearables or even implants.
What does this mean for the built environment?
Health-supporting digital infrastructure will be integrated in buildings and the public realm.
Sensors and remote monitoring mean patients can be discharged from hospitals more quickly, or if they are elderly, live independently in their own homes for longer.
Connected health could mean fewer in-person visits to doctors’ surgeries and hospitals. That would mean less demand on infrastructure and less travel: the NHS apparently accounts for 5% of all road traffic in England,
All this data should feed back into insight to inform building design and spatial planning that encourages activity or improves health: smart inhalers to understand air quality impacts, connected thermometers to map disease spread, or stress monitors to prove the benefits of urban greening,
There are privacy issues to be overcome and equity concerns. Those who can afford connected health devices and good digital connectivity probably have better health outcomes already.
We can expect these wearables and real-time data to not just transform health care but also to change how we design and live in cities.
Giant Batteries
Europe’s biggest battery storage facility was recently switched on in Hull, storing enough electricity to power around 300,000 homes for two hours.
The Harmony Energy facility, which uses Tesla technology, will help to balance the grid, and was deployed more speedily than planned because of the current pressures on energy supply.
Storage is key to our energy future. Most renewable generation is variable and intermittent, dependent on sun, wind, and water. And smart grids with storage can better balance supply and demand. We may see some very big energy stores — battery arrays like this one, tidal lagoons, and hydro where water is pumped up-hill when renewable power is plentiful.
We’re also likely to see much more distributed storage, at the neighbourhood and individual building level. Panasonic sell a battery for the home, that is popular in Japan. Property developers may be expected to plan and build-in energy storage. And one vision of the future of electric vehicles is that they will operate as a vast network of batteries that can take power from the grid at appropriate times, but also deliver it back when needed.
Given the importance of storage to a low-carbon future, there’s tonnes of innovation in a variety of technologies to store electricity, heat, and cooling. For the solutions to be deployed at scale, we’ll need a different grid, some different thinking, and different economic incentives for using and storing energy in smarter ways. We may all be storing energy in our homes in future years.
