NEWS Oakland “Ecoblock” Honored as a Scientific American World Changing Idea for 2017November 27, 2017

Special Report

Scientific American (December 2017), 317, 28–39

Pub­lished online: 14 Novem­ber 2017 | doi:10.1038/scientificamerican1217-28

Top 10 Emerging Technologies of 2017

For more on this project, see our real​.berke​ley​.edu twit­ter feed:

@dan_kammen

Mari­ette DiChristi­na and Bernard S. Meyerson

What if drink­ing water could be drawn from desert air eas­i­ly, with­out requir­ing enor­mous amounts of elec­tric­i­ty from a grid? What if a doc­tor could do a biop­sy for a sus­pect­ed can­cer with­out a blade of any sort? What if we did­n’t have to wait too long for the result? Tech­nolo­gies that make these visions a real­i­ty are expect­ed to become increas­ing­ly com­mon­place in the next few years. This spe­cial report, com­piled and pro­duced in a col­lab­o­ra­tion between Sci­en­tif­ic Amer­i­can and the World Eco­nom­ic Forum’s Expert Net­work, high­lights 10 such emerg­ing technologies.

To choose the entrants in this year’s emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies report, we con­vened a steer­ing group of world-renowned tech­nol­o­gy experts. The com­mit­tee made rec­om­men­da­tions and elicit­ed sug­ges­tions from mem­bers of the Forum’s Expert Net­work and Glob­al Future Coun­cils, Sci­en­tif­ic Amer­i­can’s board of advis­ers and oth­ers who are tuned in to bur­geon­ing research and devel­op­ment in acad­e­mia, busi­ness and gov­ern­ment. Then the group whit­tled down the choic­es by focus­ing on tech­nolo­gies that were not yet wide­spread but were attract­ing increased fund­ing or show­ing oth­er signs of being ready to move to the next lev­el. The tech­nolo­gies also had to offer sig­nif­i­cant ben­e­fits to soci­eties and economies and to have the pow­er to alter estab­lished ways of doing things. —Mari­ette DiChristi­na and Bernard S. Meyerson

9 Energy: Sustainable Communities

Instead of “green­ing” indi­vid­ual hous­es, entire blocks of homes are retro­fit into a sin­gle effi­cient unit

By Daniel M. Kammen

In the past decade the con­struc­tion and retro­fitting of indi­vid­ual homes to reduce ener­gy and water use has grown explo­sive­ly. Yet apply­ing green con­struc­tion to mul­ti­ple build­ings at once may be an even bet­ter idea. Shar­ing resources and infra­struc­ture could reduce waste, and retro­fitting impov­er­ished or mod­er­ate-income neigh­bor­hoods could also bring cost sav­ings and mod­ern tech­nol­o­gy to peo­ple who would typ­i­cal­ly lack such oppor­tu­ni­ties. Work­ing at the neigh­bor­hood lev­el does add com­plex­i­ty to plan­ning, but these neigh­bor­hood efforts offer rewards that even green sin­gle-fam­i­ly homes can­not offer.

One such exam­ple is the Oak­land EcoBlock project, which I lead at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, Berke­ley, with my col­league Har­ri­son Frak­er, a pro­fes­sor of archi­tec­ture and urban design. It is a mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary endeav­or involv­ing urban design­ers, engi­neers, social sci­en­tists and pol­i­cy experts from city, state and fed­er­al gov­ern­ments, acad­e­mia, pri­vate indus­try, non­prof­its and grass­roots orga­ni­za­tions.  For more on our projects, click here. Or look at the RAEL group twit­ter feed: @dan_kammen

The pro­gram, which has been planned in great detail but has not yet begun con­struc­tion, will retro­fit 30 to 40 con­tigu­ous old homes in a low­er- to mid­dle-income neigh­bor­hood near Cal­i­for­ni­a’s famous Gold­en Gate Bridge. It aims to apply exist­ing tech­nol­o­gy to dra­mat­i­cal­ly reduce fos­sil-fuel and water con­sump­tion and green­house gas emis­sions. We expect to rapid­ly recoup the mon­ey spent on infra­struc­ture with sav­ings from oper­at­ing expens­es while ensur­ing res­i­dents’ long-term com­fort and security.

To bring in renew­able pow­er, we will install solar pan­els on build­ings through­out the area and send the ener­gy to a smart micro­grid. Excess solar ener­gy will be stored via fly­wheels housed in a com­mu­nal build­ing. The res­i­dents will also share elec­tric cars, which will have access to more than two dozen local charg­ing sta­tions. These mea­sures should reduce annu­al elec­tric­i­ty con­sump­tion by more than half and bring car­bon emis­sions to zero—a valu­able feat, con­sid­er­ing that more than a quar­ter of U.S. green­house gas emis­sions emanate from residences.

CREDIT: Eric Petersen

The Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency esti­mates that as much as 50 per­cent of Cal­i­for­ni­a’s home water con­sump­tion goes to lawns and gar­dens. We will treat and reuse waste­water from toi­lets as well as gray water sent down drains and released by wash­ing machines. The recy­cled flu­id will go toward gar­den­ing and irri­ga­tion. We will col­lect rain­wa­ter and deliv­er it to toi­lets and wash­ers and install effi­cient fix­tures and taps. Treat­ed sol­id wastes, mean­while, will be incor­po­rat­ed into com­post. Our esti­mates sug­gest that the EcoBlock­’s sys­tem-lev­el redesign will cut demand for potable water by up to 70 percent.

The Oak­land EcoBlock project will pro­vide local con­struc­tion jobs and help revi­tal­ize a com­mu­ni­ty. If it is as suc­cess­ful as we pre­dict, it could serve as a mod­el of sus­tain­abil­i­ty that can be repli­cat­ed else­where in the U.S. and beyond. To date, we have received inquiries from Europe, North Africa and Asia, con­firm­ing wide­spread inter­est in tar­get­ing and redesign­ing whole com­mu­ni­ties, not just indi­vid­ual homes.