The theme for the Nov. 25th GTEx Forum was complex and relevant, and took a few weeks for me to digest and write about. It was focused on ways that we can help the developing world with clean energy and water purification technologies. The topic became even more pertinent two days after the event, when Trudeau pledged $2.65B to help poor countries fight climate change. There was also the United Nations Climate Conference in Paris from Nov. 30 to Dec.12, where discussions over the $100B climate fund pledged by the world’s richest countries took place.
Surely, some of this climate fund can go towards the efforts we talked about at the forum. The topic is also complex because it prompts some introspection about our own development: we are currently ranked 14th in the world for CO2 emissions per capita and 150 communities in our country are currently under boil water advisories...what’s up with that? One of the best things we can do for developing countries is to set a good example. I’m optimistic that with the new government, the issue of carbon emissions and access to clean water within Canada will be addressed with more urgency.
To kick off the Forum, Elmer Sum, Co-Founder of GTEx, reported on his recent trip to Taiwan where he attended the Global Cleantech Cluster Association awards ceremony. He accepted an award on behalf of local company Etalim. They are developing a fuel flexible electric generator approaching the physical limits of efficiency and they won the Later Stage Award in the category of Energy Efficiency and Lighting. Other local companies nominated include Axine Water Technologies and TSO logic. It’s good to see that companies in our backyard are competing and winning on the world stage.
Mark Rabin, local cleantech entrepreneur, moderated the panel discussion and opened with an overview of the technologies and creative business models that have gained traction in emerging economies. As far as business models go, there is a big push for pay-as-you-go cleantech services in remote developing areas where activation and payment happens via cellular networks. Services on offer include everything from small scale solar power to microgrids and even pay-as-you-store community solar powered fridges. He emphasised that for companies to deploy successfully in the developing world their offering ought to engage the local community, and the technology should be modular and scalable.
Our second speaker was Dr. Majid Bahrami, SFU professor in the school of mechatronics engineering. He agrees that technologies should have built in modularity, meaning that a bigger system can be built out of multiple smaller systems. Bahrami shared his research on developing adsorption based cooling systems that operate on low-grade waste heat. Air conditioning for houses and cars uses a lot of energy, but the core technology has not really changed that much over the last several decades. By using novel porous materials, Baharami plans to demonstrate feasibility of an automotive cooling system in the coming years. As we transition to electric drivetrains, the efficiency use of the stored charge in the battery is really important and he sees this as a good place to enter the market.
Dr. Bahrami also discussed the world water crisis and the novel atmospheric water generation technology he is bringing to market to help mitigate it. This was a good segway into our final speaker, John Balanko, President & CEO of Quest Water Global, Inc. Based in North Van, Quest integrates solar power and water purification to provide community drinking water stations. John showed us a video that documented the system he set up for a riverside community in Angola four years ago. It produces clean drinking water for about 40 cents per 1000 liters. It is still running like new, and attributes the success of the project to the high level of engagement that was established with the local community. One line on the website reads “Quest Water lies at the intersection of humanity and technology”.
I really like how John and the other speakers emphasized the human element in the tech transfer to developing nations. Just as poor countries don’t deserve to deal with impacts of climate change caused by rich countries, they don’t deserve to be left with shiny pieces of technology that cannot be managed and maintained by the locals.
