Preparing for Climate Change through Energy Internet and eVehicles: OECD recommends that basic research in ICT should be supported through carbon offset mechanisms

Energy Internet and eVehicles Overview

Governments around the world are wrestling with the challenge of how to prepare society for inevitable climate change. To date most people have been focused on how to reduce Green House Gas emissions, but now there is growing recognition that regardless of what we do to mitigate against climate change the planet is going to be significantly warmer in the coming years with all the attendant problems of more frequent droughts, flooding, sever storms, etc. As such we need to invest in solutions that provide a more robust and resilient infrastructure to withstand this environmental onslaught especially for our electrical and telecommunications systems and at the same time reduce our carbon footprint.

Linking renewable energy with high speed Internet using fiber to the home combined with autonomous eVehicles and dynamic charging where vehicle's batteries are charged as it travels along the road, may provide for a whole new "energy Internet" infrastructure for linking small distributed renewable energy sources to users that is far more robust and resilient to survive climate change than today's centralized command and control infrastructure. These new energy architectures will also significantly reduce our carbon footprint. For more details please see:

Using autonomous eVehicles for Renewable Energy Transportation and Distribution: http://goo.gl/bXO6x and http://goo.gl/UDz37

Free High Speed Internet to the Home or School Integrated with solar roof top: http://goo.gl/wGjVG

High level architecture of Internet Networks to survive Climate Change: https://goo.gl/24SiUP

Architecture and routing protocols for Energy Internet: http://goo.gl/niWy1g

How to use Green Bond Funds to underwrite costs of new network and energy infrastructure: https://goo.gl/74Bptd

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

OECD recommends that basic research in ICT should be supported through carbon offset mechanisms

[The OECD Council has a agreed to a simple 10-point Recommendation on ICTs and the Environment to provide a framework for government policy to improve ICT-related environmental performance.

http://www.oecd.org/document/26/0,3343,en_2649_33757_45073498_1_1_1_1,00.html

One of the key recommendations:

“Members should support long-term basic research, and where possible stimulate research and development in resource-efficient ICTs and “smart” applications for example through technology-neutral tax incentives or carbon offset mechanisms, and encourage user-driven innovation.”

Boosting sustainable economic growth is high on government agendas. The Recommendation of the OECD Council on Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and the Environment supports governments to increase the environmental benefits of ICT applications and improve environmental impacts of ICTs. As governments embark on green growth paths, this recommendation addresses areas where public sector action can help overcome shortcomings identified in OECD reports on ICT and the environment. OECD analysis shows that most “Green ICT” initiatives concentrate on the direct effects of ICTs themselves rather than tackling climate change and environmental degradation through the use of ICTs as an enabling or “smart” technology.

The OECD Recommendation lays out a 10-point check list on how governments can employ ICTs to enhance national environmental performance. It encourages cross-sector co-operation and knowledge exchange on resource-efficient ICTs and “smart” applications, and highlights the importance of governments supporting R&D and innovation. By doing so, governments send positive signals for private sector investments. “Smart” electricity grid technologies for example have been receiving government attention and have attracted venture capital investments during the crisis, despite overall clean technologies seeing a dip.

This Recommendation applies to OECD countries and non-members. It is part of the wider OECD work developing a Green Growth Strategy to guide government policies. Governments and stakeholders will discuss related strategies at this year’s OECD Forum 2010 – “Road to Recovery: Innovation, Jobs & Clean Growth”.

Contact

For comments on the OECD recommendation on ICTs and the environment, please contact
Graham Vickery, Head of the Information Economy Group
Graham.Vickery [at] oecd.org
+33 1 45 24 93 87.

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