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Technology for Sustainability
Sustainable technology is a term that describes innovation that considers natural resources and fosters economic and social development. The main goal of these technologies is to drastically reduce environmental and ecological risks and create a sustainable product
Sustainability in Technology can be defined in a few ways
- Substitution- The technology marks a shift from non-biodegradable to biodegradable materials in its production.
- Prevention- This technology aims to prevent deterioration, contamination and other negative environmental impacts through its use or production
Introduction of electric vehicles for public transport can be one of the most significant steps towards a green ecosystem. Electric buses may have higher capital costs but they also provide with significant economic benefits due to reduced maintenance and fuel costs. They also eliminate local particulates, including SOx, NOx, and CO2, all major issues in most cities.
The new age of electric vehicles has rapidly expanded the market for lithium and cobalt batteries—and drastically reduced their price. With prices for batteries rapidly dropping, they are proving valuable to reduce power costs, increase reliability and resiliency, and make power systems more flexible to operate.
Renewable energy continues to become cheaper and more accessible. Solar panels can serve homes that are too remote, that are too poor, or whose energy consumption is too low to make a grid connection economical.
Carbon capture and storage (CCS) allows industry to capture carbon at its source, compress it, and move it to a suitable permanent storage site. The technology not only has the potential to significantly reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. Several industries are already working to put captured carbon dioxide to profitable use, including manufacturers who use captured carbon to make plastics, such as polyurethane.
Hydrogen-led pathways to cleaning up the environment forecast hydrogen powering more than 400 million cars, 15 to 20 million buses, and more than 20 percent of passenger ships and locomotives by 2050. Although battery-powered electric vehicles exhibit overall higher fuel efficiency, hydrogen-powered fuel cells can store more energy with less weight. This makes them an ideal solution for heavy cargo vehicles that must travel long distances. Hydrogen-powered fuel cell vehicles could help the world meet its goal of decreasing carbon dioxide emissions by 60 percent.
Affordability of the technology is an important indicator for the wider use since cost is the major factor in encouraging or discouraging the application of appropriate technology in developing countries
It is an important factor to find out how smoothly technology works in the local production system and system that explains to what degree is the technology system dependent or system independent. This indicates the need for understanding two types of risk - internal and external. Although analysis of risk is necessary before applying new technology, it is almost impossible to remove all the risk
If the chosen device is static, it will relatively reflect the short lived solutions to a much larger problem. The technology which supports the continuation of development by enhancing capability to expand can be expected to compete at the regional, national and international level