New research by Charlie Wilson with colleagues from IIASA in Vienna is finding that small-scale energy technologies offer a wide range of potential benefits to users, and to the energy system as a whole. Charlie gave a talk summarising the findings so far during a visit to the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU) at the […]
Many countries are now actively promoting electric vehicles and planning future bans on gas and diesel cars. Alongside alternative-fuelled vehicles, and potentially autonomous vehicles, a new multi-modal user-oriented concept called ‘Mobility-as-a-Service’ are opening up new choices for commuters and road users. Whether these alternatives to the internal combustion engine help reduce emissions depends on how […]
How can data be used to make cities work better for the people who live in them? This is the key question addressed by the World Economic Forum in their recent ‘Data Driven Cities – 20 stories of innovation’ white paper. The 20 selected case studies from around the world span the broad themes of […]
This thought-provoking article describes a proposal for a floating dairy farm in Rotterdam harbour. The innovation aims to address the scarcity of land in urban areas together with the insecurity of long supply chains. Although clearly innovative, there are open questions about how animal welfare would be managed (do cows like floating!?) and what the […]
Dan Brown’s new thriller, Origin, features a whole range of potentially disruptive low-carbon innovations! A personal supercomputer accessed via smartphone allows the protagonist to use ‘on-demand mobility’ across river, air, and road, with the final leg of the journey in a fully autonomous electric vehicle. The villain, meanwhile, escapes using an ‘Uber-style’ ride share. With […]