Can you imagine our world in 2050? Can you imagine the earth in 2050? Can you imagine people in 2050? Do you want to know the future of earth? By mid-century there will likely be 9 billion people on the planet, consuming ever more resources and leading ever more technologically complex lives. What will our cities be like? How will we eat in the future of Earth? Will global warming trigger catastrophic changes, or will we be able to engineer our way out of the world climate crisis?
In the future world demographic changes will certainly be dramatic. Rockefeller University mathematical biologist Joel Cohen says it's likely that by 2050 the majority of the people in the world will live in urban areas of the earth, and will have a significantly higher average age than people today.
we are in a race the race is against time we have to build cities we need them but we have to make them in a different way we need a wave of innovation not only for our way of life but also the planet the consequences would be enormous if we lose this battle.
I’m Thomas gets executive editor at Wired magazine and wired we look at the innovators innovations that are changing our world in the next hour well see three stories from acclaimed film makers about the future of energy will explore cutting-edge innovations in how we drive how we live and in our first story how we fuel our hearts they’re all ideas that promise to shape the path to the world of 2050 all the world has right now close to a billion cars and by double the number of cars of the plant addicted so we doubled our vehicles we really increase the amount of fuel they consume and that’s gonna have a big footprint in terms of our demand for resources to move on most vehicles around were pulling up carbon has been stored underground and burning in our automobiles and putting all that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere we don’t reduce that can have changes in the climate that we could never recover from there’s a number of forecasts for what type of Transportation economy.
we could move into one vision is that we will use more and more liquid fuels another one is will use more electricity right now more of the industrial activity is focused around liquid biofuels the thing
about the fuel is its really unparalleled on a weight basis how much energy is in a gallon of fuel and even if batteries develop as some of the advocates hope they develop were not going to see batteries running large trucks and were certainly not going to see an electrified air plate we’re going to need transportation fuels for those that will directly replace the petroleum-based fuels that were using today this is kicked off people looking at whole range of other alternatives to petroleum in your tank commercial production of ethanol as fuel started in Brazilian 1975.
When we started the ethanol program nobody talking about reducing emissions this was not the issue at that time first and most important we didn’t have money to buy oil anymore after the first oil shock we were importance of oil and today more than fifty percent of all cars use ethanol set of gasoline Brazil made a very conscious choice to try to find a way to reduce their fossil fuel dependence and they didn’t have to look very far because Brazils climate is ideal for growing sugarcane when you have sugar cane plantation you have only two things who make sugar methanol my family has been in sugarcane business since nineteen fifty-five and about 30 years ago who I thought there is opportunity to make more ethanol.
Now we are producing 120 thousand cubic meters of the tunnel Brazil today has very close to 400 sugar mills the overall sales sturdy billion US dollars on this number is increase if you look at how they make ethanol and how efficient the process is it its really a model for all of us they grind the plant up extract the sugar from the cane the sugar goes into these large fermentation tanks which combines sugars together with yeast that naturally produces ethanol they use the rest of the plan to generate heat to
distill the ethanol and turned into fuel they also use that heat generate electricity renewably not putting excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere brazil has God to a point today where they’re using about forty percent less petroleum and they would be otherwise but Brazil cannot supply the whole world of ethanol because they.
Would have to cut very strongly in food production and into critical natural areas like the Amazon to make that happen and this really boils down to the fact there’s only so much arable land and growing fuel for our gas tanks is yet another demand on that landscape.
We cannot get ourselves into thinking that we found a general solution for the world problem I think we will have to face the awarding this way today we have no oil and very large plenty of this anymore you have no call transforming the clean way in the meantime well have to do the best weekend the best at the moment is that they can do biofuels sugarcane ethanol is an incredibly efficient process you get out about seven times the energy you put into growing the sugarcane in the US.
When we produce ethanol from corn for every unit of input of energy we get about the same amount of energy out so were really not gaining anything we need a better process we don’t have to take what nature has given us we can actually engineer plants and yeast to be more efficient and that’s the basis for a lot of the work that were doing what we need to look at though is which of the pathways that come out of this are not only good financially but those that are also good news sustainability and this equation is really wide open right now we are in a race to develop fuels the race isn’t with other countries the race is against time to meet they mediate and future demands we made the energy solution spring from the ground Brazil is the most efficient is an old producing country in the world sugarcane alcohol from Brazil can reduce the total carbon footprint right up to seventy percent compared with the castle the biggest challenge for field providers and common factors is to reduce co2 emissions over the next 20 years demand for mobility will continue to grow we believe that biofuels are very important because they help in immediate way all forms of fuels are going to be needed hydrocarbons natural gas biofuels all of them are going to be part of the energy means for the future of transportation brazil has been very successful at taking a resource they had and finding the process to make that into ethanol and people call those first-generation biofuels we have lots of lab work around the world that are looking at the second generation that’s generally turning cellulosic material from for example weeds into biofuels and United States is very much at the forefront of the innovation park equation for centuries.
We have been using yeast to consume glucose and produce wine and beer we’re trying to do something very similar only wear engineering the east to consume that glucose and turn it into a fuel or drug chemical we call this synthetic biology and when I started in this area many of my colleagues that this is great work but where’s the application what are you gonna do with these tools who cares malaria is an enormous problem in any one year a million or so people die of the disease and most of them are children under the age of five so we thought this is a great opportunity to engineer yeast to produce an anti-malarial drug called argument this drug is derived from plants right now but it’s too expensive for people in the developing world.
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