World Economic Forum Issues Top Ten Emerging Technologies for 2013
By John Rasmussen
Posted: Mar 5, 2013
The World Economic Forum's Global Agenda Council on Emerging Technologies picked the top 10 most promising technology trends that they believe can deliver sustainable growth in decades to come. These technologies are deemed essential as global population and material demands on the environment continue to grow rapidly. The Global Agenda Council chose these technologies because they are considered to have made development breakthroughs and are nearing large-scale deployment.
OnLine Electric Vehicles (OLEV)
In these next-generation electric cars, a set of coils under the vehicle receives its power remotely from an electromagnetic field imbedded in the actual road. In Seoul, South Korea, several of these vehicles are currently undergoing road testing.
3-D Printing and Remote Manufacturing
Though not new, advancements in applicable materials are allowing three-dimensional printing to expand the creation of real structures from digital computer files. This process is revolutionizing manufacturing in terms of prototyping and actual production.
Self-Healing Materials
The breakthrough of the creation of non-living structural materials, called biomimicry, which has the capacity to self-repair when broken or damaged without human intervention, will significantly increase material/product lifetimes and reduce the demand of related raw materials.
Energy-Efficient Water Purification
Traditional desalination processes consumes a great deal of fossil fuels. New technologies are much more energy efficient, in some cases up to 50%. Greater efficiently and lower cost makes desalination accessible to impoverished areas or nations, potentially increasing standards of living.
Carbon Dioxide (CO2) Conversion and Use
The long time dream of capturing underground carbon dioxide and turning it into a commercially viable re-use option, has never been economically feasible. A promising new approach uses biologically engineered photosynthetic bacteria that can turn waste CO2 into liquid fuels or chemicals using cost efficient modular solar converter systems.
Enhanced Nutrition to Drive Health at the Molecular Level
Even in developed countries, people suffer from health issues related to diet inefficiencies. New modern genomic methods can identify at the gene sequence level proteins which are of greater importance in the human diet. Based on these techniques, new supplements can be developed to fight diabetes, obesity and other diet related illnesses.
Remote Sensing
New generations of sensors that react to external actions with little or no human interface are increasingly being used, most noticeably in the healthcare industry. Wireless communication between devices, low power-sensing technologies and even active energy harvesting showcase some of the advances. Other examples include vehicle-to-vehicle sensing for improved safety on the road.
Precise Drug Delivery through Nanoscale Engineering
Medicine can be accurately delivered at the molecular level by targeting nanoparticles that stick to diseased tissue, allowing for the micro-scale delivery of potent compounds while having little impact on the surrounding healthy tissues. After almost a decade of research, this process is showing real advancement in medical trials.
Organic Electronics and Photovoltaics
As opposed to traditional (silicon-based) semiconductors, organic electronics use materials such as polymers to create electronic circuits and devices. Also, organic electronics can be manufactured using low-cost, scalable processes making them extremely cheap compared with the more traditional electronics devices.
Fourth-Generation Reactors and Nuclear-Waste Recycling
Current nuclear power reactors use only 1% of the potential energy available in uranium, leaving the rest as nuclear waste. 4th generation reactors would recycle and turn the waste into new fissile material which would extend already-mined uranium resources for centuries and reduce long-term toxicity of wastes, making disposal much less of a challenge. The new reactors will also generate 100-300 times more energy from the same amount of fuel.
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