Why the reversing of Climate Change is not delivered?
…because research ideas have to go through the “Valley of the Death” first before the industry provides them to you.
Spoiler alert: an article for energy carriers, systems and products.
A lab is where a new product’s idea comes into a realisation that proves the functionality of a product or process, which translates into proof of concept (PoC). In a perfect world, a prototype is built as an intermediate step to reaching the functionalities of the end product verifying the theory but excluding the final product’s efficiency and durability that can be achieved by development towards the final product. In a sense, one needs to measure up the technology feasibility vs the desirability of the final product in the eyes of the end-user.
In reality, the “Valley of the Death” comes in; a situation where there is a gap in industrial sponsors funding from research to commercialisation.
If the industry funds a PoC, then the beginning of an investment to a new product is marked. By assisting the delivery of innovation to society is the ultimate goal.
Unfortunately, the industry does not share the same perspective. For example, the EU and its governments mostly support with public income the collaboration of industries and the innovation sector, aka the academia, research institutes, on the basis of societal challenges including that of climate change.
But what determines the societal challenges is the policymaking, which is influenced by the lobbying of the industry by spending millions of euros.
For example, since 2010, the fossil fuel industry spent more than €251 million to lobbying the EU [1].
The academia and research institutes with millions of researchers worldwide are kept hostages in this futile circle of the renewable energy “Holy grail”. (Some exciting views have been discussed at [2,3,4]).
Research is here to serve humanity, and it extends its offer to the industry to do the same for benefiting all and evolving our future.
The opinions expressed in the article are those of the author and not linked or communicated to the interests of any specific stakeholder or sector or organisation.
List of references
[1] Sandra Laville. 2019. ‘Fossil fuel big five ‘spent €251m lobbying EU’ since 2010’. The Guardian. 24 October. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/oct/24/fossil-fuel-big-five-spent-251m-lobbying-european-union-2010-climate-crisis (Accessed: 19 November 2019)
[2] Global Greek Influence podcast. 2020. Leadership in Technology: Science or Politics? with Dr Vassilis Inglezakis. 14th April 20. [Podcast]. 14 April. Available at: https://podcasts.apple.com/gr/podcast/leadership-in-technology-science-or-politics/id1492901274?i=1000471252482
[3] Global Greek Influence podcast. Frontiers in Chemical Engineering with Prof. Greg Stephanopoulos. 2nd August 20. [Podcast]. 02 August. Available at: https://podcasts.apple.com/gr/podcast/frontiers-in-chemical-engineering/id1492901274?i=1000486868685
[4] Global Greek Influence podcast. Bioeconomy and its implementation in the Greek energy roadmap with Maria Andrielou. 15th November 20. [Podcast]. 15 November. Available at: https://podcasts.apple.com/gr/podcast/bioeconomy-its-implementation-in-greek-energy-roadmap/id1492901274?i=1000498682763
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