6. Precision farming
The Fourth Industrial Revolution is providing farmers with a new set of tools to boost crop yield and quality while reducing water and chemical use. Sensors, robots, GPS, mapping tools and data-analytics software are all being used to customize the care that plants need. While the prospect of using drones to capture plant health in real time may be some way off for most of the world’s farmers, low-tech techniques are coming online too. Salah Sukkarieh, of the University of Sydney, for instance, has demonstrated a streamlined, low-cost monitoring system in Indonesia that relies on solar power and cell phones.
7. Affordable catalysts for green vehicles
Progress is being made on a promising zero-emission technology, the hydrogen-fed fuel cell. Progress to date has been stymied by the high price of catalysts which contain platinum. However, much progress has been made reducing reliance on this rare and expensive metal, and the latest developments involve catalysts that include no platinum, or in some cases no metal at all.
8. Genomic vaccines
Vaccines based on genes are superior to more conventional ones in a number of ways. They are faster to manufacture for one thing, which is crucial at times of a violent outbreak. Compared to manufacturing proteins in cell cultures or eggs, producing genetic material should also be simpler and less expensive. A genomics-based approach to vaccines also enables more rapid adaptation in the event of a pathogen mutating, and finally allows scientists to identify people who are resistant to a pathogen, isolate the antibodies that provide that protection, and design a gene sequence that will induce a person’s cells to produce those antibodies.
9. Sustainable design of communities
Applying green construction to multiple buildings at once has the potential to revolutionize the amount of energy and water we consume. Sending locally-generated solar power to a smart microgrid could reduce electricity consumption by half and reduce carbon emissions to zero if a project currently under development at the University of California at Berkeley Goes to plan. Meanwhile, the same project’s plan to re-design water systems so that waste water from toilets and drains is treated and re-used on site, with rainwater diverted to toilets and washers, could cut demand for potable water by 70%.
10. Quantum computing
Quantum computers’ almost limitless potential has only ever been matched by the difficulty and cost of their construction. Which explains why today the small ones that have been built have not yet managed to exceed the power of supercomputers. But progress is being made and in 2016 the technology firm IBM provided the public access to the first quantum computer in the cloud. This has already led to more than 20 academic papers being published using the tool and today more than 50 start-ups and large corporations worldwide are focused on making quantum computing a reality. With such progress behind us, the word on people’s lips now is “Quantum Ready.”
