NO MORE EXCUSES: ACTION NOW FOR SUSTAINABLE TRANSPORT
25 MAY 2018
“We are in the early stages of a sustainability revolution,” says former US Vice President Al Gore. Al Gore spoke at the Scania Sustainable Transport Forum in Stockholm, which gathered industry and political decision-makers to chart the pathway to achieving carbon-free heavy transport by 2050, in keeping with the Paris Agreement.
The call to action has never been more urgent. “Climate change is the most serious challenge that mankind has ever faced,” emphasised Gore. “Scientists are making the point that things are getting even worse than we predicted earlier.”
The situation is worsening as we witness shrinking glaciers, increased flooding, draughts, heat waves, unprecedented heavy rainfalls, hurricanes and disrupted wind and ocean currents. The dramatic consequences are already resulting in uninhabitable areas of the world.
“Although we are at a turning point there is more to do and we are still falling short. Yet the rate of change is pretty impressive,” says Gore.
Solar energy cheaper than fossil fuel
The cost of solar energy is rapidly decreasing and is already below the cost of fossil fuel. In China, 54 percent of new energy comes from solar and wind and in Europe, 77 percent of new generated energy from renewable sources.
Scania has initiated a study that shows that several pathways can be selected to achieve a carbon-free heavy transport system by 2050. These pathways include switching to battery electric vehicles, biofuels, fuel cells or a mix of all these technologies. To succeed, change is needed at a pace never before seen and action must start immediately.
Scania’s President and CEO stated that he was convinced that we can make the transformation to sustainable transport. “We haven’t waited for the politicians, we haven’t even waited for our customers because the two degree global warming increase is not waiting for us. We must work with what we have today – here and now.”
Christiana Figures, who led the negotiations that led to the Paris Agreement, says that prerequisites for initiating these pathways are a compelling vision, stubborn optimism, radical collaboration, contagious leadership and publicised progress.
Shared public and private responsibility
Making progress is dependent on shared responsibility between public and private sectors. “We should not fall into the trap that business needs to take on the role of government. Having said that, we do need purpose-driven corporations such as Scania, with emphasis on a triple bottom line comprising social, environmental and financial goals.”
At the Sustainable Transport Forum Scania, together with energy provider E.ON, infrastructure provider Siemens and global retailer H&M group, announced that they had formed a coalition to accelerate the decarbonisation of heavy transport. “At the end of the day it’s all about mindset,” says Anna Gedda, Head of Sustainability H&M group. “One year ago, my 6-year old son asked my husband why we were destroying the planet by not using an electric car. In six-seven years’ time he will be a H&M customer and these are the expectations that H&M will have to meet. We don’t only need to make fashion sustainable but to make sustainability fashionable.”
Partnerships can accelerate the movement
Partnerships such as this will be instrumental on the continuing journey towards fossil-free heavy transport. “We have the technology today but need to partner to accelerate the movement,” says Henriksson. “We see that teaming up with our customers and their customers gives results. But we also need to work closely with policy makers to remove hurdles. We cannot do this alone; we need friends, partner and partnership to make 2050 happen.”
A FRICTION FIGHTER WITH A DREAM
Growing up with two volcanologist parents on the seismically active eastern edge of Siberia, Sergei Glavatskih seemed destined to be a scientist too. Now he uses chemistry and physics to take lubrication to the next level.
The son of two volcanologists, Sergei Glavatskih had a pathway into research that was in some ways preordained. “I was, by default, set for science,” Glavatskih reflects from his nondescript office at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm, Sweden. Raised on Russia’s far eastern Kamchatka peninsula, the land of volcanoes, he often “helped” his mother during summer research trips to geothermal fields and the Commander Islands.
Glavatskih says when he was growing up he always had a head full of questions, but at school he found his teachers tired and uninterested. Correspondence courses filled in some of the gaps in his learning, particularly in physics and mathematics, and there was the National Geographic, “one of the few magazines that remained relatively censor-free”, he says. In its pages he learned about people and places beyond his beautiful but cut-off homeland.
We should pursue impossible dreams sometimes, and if we are successful there will be incredible gains for society.
SERGEI GLAVATSKIH
Forgoing military service (and quite possibly, he believes, the war in Afghanistan) by attending university in Moscow, Glavatskih earned a master’s in mechanical engineering and went on to his first PhD, in cryogenics. He developed patented resonance sensors, later used in the refuelling system of a passenger aircraft, the TU-154, which operated on liquefied natural gas.
When the Cold War came to an end, Glavatskih left Russia, both to satisfy his yearning to travel and to begin his international research experience. “It was easier to come to Scandinavia, and I always liked the idea of Sweden,” he says. In Sweden Glavatskih embarked on his second PhD, in machine elements, which led to his work with Statoil on the development of environmentally adapted synthetic oils. The oils TURBWAY SE and TURBWAY SE LV became commercially available for rotating machinery.
Friction, as an area of research, has held increasing fascination for Glavatskih. He explains that it is one of the most fundamental areas in engineering and has been a concern of humankind since the earliest of times. Now it is more important than ever because of the amount of energy that the world produces and consumes, the associated losses and the consequent environmental implications.
Glavatskih says that many of today’s problems with machine efficacy come down to inappropriate lubricants and “just incremental” lubricant development over the years. Typically, he explains, machines are designed, and then it is decided which of the available lubricants to use based on viscosity.
“In many cases,” he says, “lubricants are regarded as chemical additives to an engineering solution.” Lubricant development is carried out by chemists and, as such, is considered almost a black art by mechanical engineers.
Sergei Glavatskih
“We need to incorporate more advanced lubricant technologies in machine design and even new properties previously not possible with traditional lubricants to ensure the necessary improvements,” he says. “This can be achieved through a mechano-chemical approach, so we should use our knowledge of chemistry on a molecular level and some physics and mechanics to give lubricants new properties to enable new technologies.
“If you look back at history, even in the 19th century, the great scientists did not define themselves as scientists in ‘machine elements’ or ‘thermo-dynamics’,” Glavatskih explains. “They did many things in many different subjects. Unfortunately, for some reason, as time went on, everything became more ‘siloed’ – it has all become so narrow. As a result of that we have to change things about the way we work.”
The way in which researchers and scientists work stems naturally from the way they’ve been educated. As a scientist Glavatskih feels strongly that the educational aspect of his work at KTH is just as important as the research he is engaged in. “We must further investigate and consider the way we are teaching and training the engineers of tomorrow,” he says, adding that his work will plant the seed for a non-linear, collaborative and innovative way of thinking and working.
At KTH, Glavatskih leads a diverse team of researchers from backgrounds such as nano-technology, chemistry and fluid mechanics. “Our starting point is that we consider a lubricant a machine element in itself,” he says. The notion of lubricant as an integral part of the machine is key to Glavatskih’s design philosophy.
One of Glavatskih’s current research projects, supported by the Swedish Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, is an investigation into ionic liquids (room temperature molten salts). Glavatskih and his team are exploring the potential of these ionic compounds in lubrication. Their results show that ionic liquids can serve as a key technology enabler in lubrication. A multiscale approach to the lubricant design developed by the team enables tuning the temperature, pressure and shear response of the ionic liquids to provide lubricants with desired properties. Important aspects of the design procedure are sustainable synthesis paths and a lower environmental impact.
It is possible, in situ, to control friction performance of the tailored ionic liquids, which is unachievable with conventional molecular lubricants. His vision is to bring to the market the novel “active” approach to the problem of friction and wear reduction in lubricated contacts, manipulating in real time the rheology and near-surface structure of the lubricants based on the tailored ionic liquids.
“My job as a scientist is to be a little crazy,” says Glavatskih. “We should pursue impossible dreams sometimes, and if we are successful there will be incredible gains for society.”
Sergei Glavatskih
Born: 1966.
Lives: Stockholm, Sweden.
Works: Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Stockholm, Sweden, and Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.
Education: Master’s in mechanical engineering, honours diploma, 1989, Bauman Moscow State Technical University; PhD in cryogenics, 1994, Bauman Moscow State Technical University; PhD in machine elements, 2000, Lulea University of Technology (LUT); docent in machine elements, 2003, LUT.
Currently reading: Vikingarnas Värld(Viking World), by Kim Hjardar.
CONTINUING THE COMMUNICATION REVOLUTION
Remember the time before smartphones and ‘mobile solutions’, before all the talk of autonomous systems and the Internet of Things? Remember when there was no 2, 3 or 4G? Remember wires, everywhere.
"I remember when, perhaps twenty years ago, what we were doing here was seen as interesting but too expensive to develop." Reflects Mikael Skoglund, Head of the Department of Information Science and engineering and vice dean of the school of Electrical Engineering at KTH.
For the past twenty years both he and his colleague, Professor of Signal Processing and program director for the MSc program in Wireless Systems, Mats Bengtsson have been performing both theoretical as well as experimental research, using numerous tools from information, communication, and coding theory to signal processing, machine learning and statistical physics to further develop wireless networks.
Skoglund and Bengtsson along with colleagues and students have worked to develop a technology we have come to take for granted, a technology which becomes more reliable, trusted, able, efficient and capable with each new ‘generation’. By the time we arrived at ‘3G’ enabled mobile devices they had capabilities that made it possible for us to access everything, almost anywhere. The wireless networking capability gave birth to the “smartphone”. It was easy to play games, send videos and images. Microblogging and sharing numerous selfies had become part of our everyday lives. This was all made possible from rapid, constant data transfer.
The next leap in wireless technology, 4G, became known as ‘mobile broadband anywhere and everywhere’ and it changed the atomic unit of the web from images to videos. Skoglund and Bengtsson, as well as colleagues and students, were involved from the start and between 2000 and 2010 they worked on 4G development. Their work was given a boost when in 2004 the European Commission began the project Wireless World Initiative New Radio (WINNER) whose aim it was to define the fourth generation radio standard. WINNER united 4G industry and researchers from Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Sweden and the UK. By 2010 4G was a reality and the European Commission decided to invest 18 million Euros in the further development of the technology. Overall, the years 2007-2013 saw the EU invest more than €700 million into research on future networks, half of which was allocated to wireless technologies contributing to the development of 4G and beyond 4G networks.
The work on 4G has been a resounding success. Aside from download and streaming speeds, it has been a success from a societal point of view. It has led to a decrease in the digital divide between urban and rural communities. Worldwide standardisation has meant the use of a single technology from across the world without changes between Europe the United States and Japan- areas which previously all operated on separate systems. The internet on our phones is now taken for granted, and mobile internet usage, in 2016, surpassed desktop usage for the first time. 80 percent of time spent on social media is
spent on mobile devices and social media itself has been supercharged from Snapchat stories to the 8bn video views on Facebook per day.
When asked about their role in the development of this disruptive and enabling technology Skoglund explains that it was, “Through our research, networking and working on the huge European projects that we contributed.”
Looking to the future we can glimpse just how the work done by Bengtsson, Skoglund and the EE School continues to have an impact. Both 4G and now 5G have been influenced not only by the work of Skoglund and Bengtsson but also by their former Phd students, now working with major telecommunication companies such as Ericsson and Huawei. Already in the early 2010’s Skoglund and Bengtsson were involved in the development of the new 5G technology. WINNER was soon followed by another European project, the Mobile and wireless communications Enablers for Twenty-twenty (2020) Information Society (METIS). METIS, a consortium of 29 partners focusing on developing a concept for 5G was coordinated by Ericsson whereas WINNER was led by Siemens. This time the technical objective was to develop a concept for the future mobile and wireless communications system that would support the connected information society.
“5G will be different again,” Says Skoglund. “If you browse the internet over the phone a two-second delay can be okay, but if you wish to control a robot over wireless or an autonomous car, the requirements on real-time and reliable communication are much tougher. 4G can’t deliver that.”
We should be in no doubt that 5G technology will be transformative. It will affect most industries, and will supercharge virtual and artificial reality. The Department of Information Science and Engineering has made its mark on the way in which we live our lives today and will continue to have an influence on how we will live them tomorrow.
This article was originally published in KTH a piece of history
https://www.antonywrites.com/home/2017/12/29/continuing-the-communication-revolution
EXACTLY WHERE THE PHYSICS IS HAPPENING
The keen observation of the night sky has long been a recognised part of Swedish scientific life, now we’re closer than ever to understanding it.
From the earliest days, the night sky — particularly the colourful aurora borealis — seen prominently over northern Scandinavia, has sparked curiosity.
Over time, this curiosity sharpened into scientific fact-based research. The naked eye was soon assisted by ground-based observations from magnetometers, all-sky cameras, and radars. In time, first sounding rockets and then satellites were launched to further investigate in situ the physical mechanisms behind the aurora, such as acceleration of auroral particles, needed to create the intense auroral displays, and the mechanisms driving the aurora.
Scientists at KTH have long played an internationally key role in the studies of the aurora and the auroral particle acceleration. Both Göran Marklund, professor of Space Plasma Physics at KTH and Per-Arne Lindqvist, research scientist in the same field, have studied the aurora and the mechanisms behind it since the late1970s.
“We often call our research ‘auroral research’. But the aurora is not the result of processes confined only to the Earth’s ionosphere where it is observed, but the result of a long chain of interaction processes between the Sun and the Earth’s magnetosphere. As the continuously emitted, highly variable solar wind hits the Earth’s magnetosphere, a process named reconnection will transfer energy and momentum between particles and magnetic fields. To further understand this process, in situ measurements by satellites crossing the magnetosphere’s outer boundary are needed.” Says Lindqvist as the two scientists explain their role in the continued study of an ever more vital area of space physics.
Electromagnetic hydrodynamic waves (or magneto-hydrodynamic waves) play an important role in the above mentioned processes behind the aurora. They were first described in 1942 by former KTH professor, Hannes Alfvén (1908 – 1995). As an electrical engineer and plasma physicist he had long promoted his theories on electromagnetic hydrodynamic waves and although at first not universally accepted, his theories were soon fully recognised and now these waves are commonly referred to as ‘Alfvén waves’. It is his pioneering work, recognised with a Nobel Prize for Physics in 1970, that has continued in earnest at KTH.
The success of the launch of Sweden’s first satellite VIKING in 1986, and its achievements as the first satellite to explore plasma processes in the Earth’s magnetosphere and ionosphere led not only to successive satellites FREJA and ASTRID-2 and their further investigations, but also to a recognition from the international community that Sweden had a serious research capability and a frontier position in the field.
“We showed the world that we were capable of designing and building advanced rocket and satellite experiments which worked.” Says Marklund. Confidence had grown internationally in the ability of Swedish space science, and engineers, to not only execute exacting experiments but also to build highly precise electric field instruments.
So when scientists at KTH learnt that NASA was getting a team together for a space physics project which would involve four satellites to launch in 2015, the KTH team worked hard on their contribution to a project close to their heart. The Magneto-spheric Multi-Scale (MMS) mission was targeted to deepen our understanding of the process of reconnection operating between the solar wind and many of the planets, including Earth. Magnetic reconnection, transferring energy and momentum between particles and magnetic fields, is a well-known process also in fusion plasmas, solar flares and probably also in astrophysical plasma jets.
A key parameter in this process is the electric field. The world-leading position of the KTH group in measuring electric fields was the reason for being invited to provide the spin-plane double probe electric field experiments on the four MMS spacecraft. So it was that on 13 March 2015, after 10 years of hard work on a 1-billion dollar NASA mission, an Atlas V 421 rocket entered space carrying their instruments. All three components of the electric field in the earth’s magnetosphere are now being measured with the highest resolution possible and frontier science is already being explored. As a result of this large scientific effort, “close to 400 papers have been published in international journals with many authors to each paper.” Says Lindqvist.
So what’s next for Space Physics at KTH? We discussed several new projects including one which Marklund and Lindqvist acknowledge will probably not be complete until after they have retired.
“We are moving away from the earth’s magnetosphere to explore other regions.” Explains Lindqvist. “One project, which we are involved in, and which is already on its way to be launched, is BepiColombo. It will go to Mercury, carrying an electric field instrument we have built. There will be two spacecraft, one will observe the planet and the other is a magnetospheric orbiter which will measure the electric fields, in situ around the planet Mercury, for the first time ever.”
Almost by way of further explanation, and especially to clarify the importance of the study of in situ space physics, Marklund explains. “Astronomers are forced to rely only on the light in different wavelengths emitted from stars, however, our in situ measurements are from exactly where the physics is happening, where there are electric fields, particles and currents, that is a real contrast between us and the astronomers.”