Research reports found that venture investment in climate tech grew five times faster than venture capital overall from 2013 to 2019! We are becoming more and more aware of the climate issues and while we are also focusing on tech development we can already use AI to combat climate problems with better efficiency. There are countless business applications of AI but there are also already startups that try to tackle climate issues with the support of this technology. AI may become a key enabler of climate change and facilitate prediction, prevention and reaction to some serious climate-related events.
The most in need, problematic and polluting industry sectors are agriculture, buildings, energy, forestry, food, manufacturing, transportation.
We need to address the problems and define the desired outcomes so we could see the progress and areas that still need further development.
Climate Tech Categories Undergoing Fundamental Changes
Renewable Energy Sources (solar, wind, hydropower, geothermal, biomass) are to replace the way the power and electricity are generated and batteries to store energy and power electric vehicles.
What is still needed?
– improvement of the cost and effectiveness of wind and solar
– better utilization of the marine, geo-thermals and biofuel energy sources
– higher batteries’ capacity
Food production is to decrease global emissions.
What is still needed?
– affordable meat, fish substitutes with similar proteins and minerals daily dose
‘University of Michigan report, a plant-based burger generates a 90% fewer greenhouse emissions, 46% less energy, has 99% less impact on water scarcity and 93% less impact on land use.’
Transportation is to decrease carbon dioxide emissions. The global expansion of electric cars, buses and airplanes will significantly impact this area.
What is still needed?
– electric vehicles’ price reduction
– increase of the capacity and/or reduction of the charging time of batteries – utilization of alternate fuels (biofuels)
‘The largest electric plane ever to fly’
Manufacturing disruption to decrease the number of factories and make the process more productive, reduce the use of power and toxic emissions.
What is still needed?
– further development of the carbon capture technologies
‘Sustainable Manufacturing Is the Wave of the Future’
Buildings and Cities to decrease lighting, power, heating and cooling, as well as carbon emissions. Autonomous vehicles and smart cities projects will help in this space.
What is still needed?
– emission-free heating and cooling systems
‘Green Breakthrough: The new invention behind sustainable temperature control’
How Can AI Drive the Solutions?
1. AI can improve predictions of how much electricity people need. Energy consumption optimization can be supported by smart AI-powered meters and other appliances. It’s while considering location, weather, climate patterns, seasons and household behaviour. Wind companies can use AI for each turbine’s propeller to produce more electricity per rotation by incorporating real-time weather and operational data.
2. AI can facilitate transportation as well as freight optimization (shipping goods). It can significantly help to understand various demands in many complex, local and international supply chains.
3. AI can optimize food production producing better prediction of the demand in restaurants (food waste reduction), diagnosing and treating agricultural crops for farmers.
4. AI can help with industrial manufacturing and new types of materials discovery (creation of solar fuels, sunlight energy storage, identification of carbon absorbent; identification materials that are less carbon dependent in the production process)
5. AI can make homes, offices and cities more efficient (energy consumption control system (heating, ventilation, cooling adjustment, lighting control) based on weather forecasts, building occupancy and usage.
6. AI can optimize traffic & make cities ‘smarter’ by rubbish trucks optimization (pick up only if bins are xx% full), predictions of extreme weather events such as floods, fires, hurricanes, illegal activity tracking (decrease deforestation).
What Else Could Help?
- Our individual consumption patterns reconsideration and change
- Global coalitions and joint regulatory policies to be initiated
- Increased awareness and consistency on the local communities level
- Potential financial incentives established by countries representatives
- Early education and adaptation
Startups in Climate Tech
Venture Capital Funds in Climate Tech
What’s Happening Now On The Global Scene?
- Reports predict that the share of automobiles that are expected to be electric will increase from 3% in 2020 to up to 30% by 2030 globally
- World Bank estimates that investments in climate and cleantech will reach up to $23 trillion by 2030
- Repsol is doubling down on its transition away from the slippery elixir. It’ll spend around $6.5 billion growing its renewable energy business fivefold by 2025
- The price of photovoltaic cells, devices that convert sunlight into energy, have dropped 82% since 2010 while the number of solar installations have risen sixfold over the past decade
- Although currently too expensive for widespread use, carbon sequestration technologies are seeing their prices drop just as EV batteries and solar panels had previously
- China invested $100B in clean energy in 2018 and the US $64B
- Microsoft’s AI for Earth program has committed $50 million over five years to create and test new applications for AI
- The Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory operated by Stanford University will use machine learning and artificial intelligence to identify vulnerabilities in the grid, strengthen them in advance of failures, and restore power more quickly when failures occur
- Venture funding in AI companies had reached a mind-blowing $61 billion from 2010 through the first quarter of 2020
Why is it so important?
- On Nov 28th 2019, the EU parliament declared a global climate and environmental emergency
- In Europe, increasing flooding has been happening
- In Australia, repetitive bushes fires endanger the country
- In India, officials declared a public health emergency and distributed five million masks to deal with air pollution
- In San Francisco, PG&E preemptively shut off power for several days
- In 2016, 772 weather and disaster events were reported. It’s 3 times more than in 1980
- Today’s greenhouse gas levels may be the highest in 3 million years
- If current Paris Agreement pledges are kept, global average temperatures in 2100 are still expected to be 3°C above pre-industrial levels
- The Earth is losing its biodiversity at mass-extinction rates. 1 in 5 species faces eradication, and estimates show that this will rise to 50% by the end of the century unless we take urgent action
- Current deforestation rates in the Amazon Basin could lead to an 8% drop in regional rainfall by 2050, triggering a shift to a “savannah state”
- The chemistry of the oceans has been changing more rapidly than at any time in 300 million years and the water absorbs anthropogenic greenhouse gases
- Fish stocks and corals are being damaged due to the ocean acidification and warming
- By 2030, we may fall 40% short of the amount of fresh water needed to support the global economy as pollution and climate change affect the global water cycle,
- Around 92% of the world’s people live in places that fail to meet World Health Organization (WHO) air quality guidelines
- The WHO has reported that around 7 million people die annually from exposure to air pollution – one death out of every eight globally
‘The current population of around 7 bn grows to 9.8 billion by 2050, it will increase the demand for food, materials, transport, and energy, further increasing the risk of environmental degradation and affecting human health, livelihoods, and security.’
Development Stages And Successful Use Cases
- In India, AI has helped farmers get 30 % higher groundnut yields per hectare by providing information on preparing the land, applying fertilizer and choosing sowing dates
- In Norway, AI helped create a flexible and autonomous electric grid, integrating more renewable energy
- AI has helped researchers achieve 89 to 99 % accuracy in identifying tropical cyclones, weather fronts and atmospheric rivers, the latter of which can cause heavy precipitation and are often hard for humans to identify on their own
- Researchers at the Department of Energy and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration actively use AI to better understand atmospheric conditions in order to more accurately project the energy output of wind farms
- Google used machine learning to help predict when its data centres’ energy was most in demand. The system analyzed and predicted when users were most likely to watch Youtube videos, for example, and could then optimize the cooling needed. As a result, Google reduced its energy use by 40%!
- The London-based AI unit DeepMind is using information collected by sensors to reduce energy use for cooling for up to 40%
- In China, IBM’s Green Horizon project is using an AI system that can forecast air pollution, track pollution sources and produce potential strategies to deal with it
- Another IBM system in development could help cities plan for future heat waves. AI would simulate the climate at the urban scale and explore different strategies to test how well they ease heat waves.
