Will Technology Save us?

Even though our technologies have an environmental dark side, we are still looking to technology to help us clean up our pollution. There are two technologies that are standing out right now with the promise to help our future. Although it is easy to forget the hidden dark side of long-term use when new and shiny technologies appear, we tend to go for the glitter no matter what the cost.

 The first to keep abreast of is cold fusion. We have been trying for decades to build a reactor and have just hit an exciting mark where fusion reactors put out a small amount more energy than they require. (Hurray- I guess.) The idea is that the energy that powers the sun will be available to us on Earth in small mini reactors. We hope to be able to replace our fission reactors to get away from their radioactive emissions to fusion reactors that emit non-toxic elemental gasses like helium. Why would we need this with our solar energy potential? Because even if we put solar on every building and with all our wind generators – sadly, it still isn’t enough power for our needs. Perhaps we should reduce our needs, but that is another conversation.

The other exciting techno break through is graphene. It has some truly amazing applications. Graphene is a monolayer of carbon atoms bonded in repeating patters of hexagonal patterns. It is the thinnest material known yet 200 times stronger than steel and flexible and light weight. It is amazing in its properties to conduct heat and electricity as well as absorbs light. Researchers found that arranging several sheets at specific angles creates a superconductor material -one that lets electricity pass without resistance. Do I need to say how that could transform everything from the internet to electrical lines?

 But its most promising attribute is that it can be made from the methane collected off landfills. Methane is 80 times more potent than CO2 in its ability to warm the planet. This new process developed by a firm called Levidian Nanosystems out of the United Arab Emirates, takes methane and breaks it down to clean burning hydrogen and a black powder of graphene.

  Yet with all of these promises, why hasn’t it gotten big? Because maybe we learned that new technologies have repercussions, and we aren’t sure what graphene will do to the future. I’m kidding. Of course, we don’t care about that; it’s about manufacturing, man. They are gearing up to make this stuff by the tonnage. It is a simple material (just carbon) so we’ll figure out a recycling system later. The environmental groups and the government will figure that out.

Right now, it is being used in some electronics, sports, and military (of course), but it is, for better or worse, about to be spread around the world – via concrete.

Concrete production amounts to 8% of the world’s CO2. A high number when compared to other polluting industries. But if 0.1% of graphene is added to the concrete, it is 30% stronger. This leads to the idea that we need less concrete which will reduce CO2.

Industry wants to use graphene in everything from tires, cars, and batteries to plumbing, paint, and pavement. But are we headed to another plastic dilemma? We have seen what better living through plastics has done to this planet, so is this another super substance?

The one thing that is promising about graphene is that it is simple - just carbon layers (although it has various manufacturing grades), in theory, it can be recycled easily. When left to itself it adheres to carbon to make graphite which is a thicker version of graphene. This is where industry is putting waxes and coatings on it to make it stable, but which also makes it less recyclable.  It may be a miracle material - made from old plastic, methane, or even food waste to be a light, strong, energy-conducting, and maybe recyclable material, but as we have seen in the past, it will be used everywhere before there is really a sense of its environmental effects.