Mission Innovation, a global initiative to speed up clean energy innovation, on Monday announced seven innovation challenges, including one to discover affordable ways to make "storable solar fuels".
Mission Innovation was launched at the COP21 summit in Paris last year. As the Mission Innovation countries gathered at COP22 in Marrakech, Morocco on Monday, they welcomed two new members, Finland and the Netherlands, which increase the country count to 23, including the EU. The governments have pledged to double their clean energy research and development (R&D) funding over five years to around USD 30 billion (EUR 27.9bn) per year in 2021.
The seven challenges focus on technologies that could play a significant role in combating climate change. The list is below:
1. Smart Grids Innovation Challenge – to enable future grids powered by affordable, reliable, decentralised renewable electricity systems.
2. Off-Grid Access to Electricity Innovation Challenge – to develop systems that enable off-grid households and communities to access affordable and reliable renewable electricity.
3. Carbon Capture Innovation Challenge – to enable near-zero CO2 emissions from power plants and carbon intensive industries.
4. Sustainable Biofuels Innovation Challenge – to develop ways to produce, at scale, widely affordable, advanced biofuels for transportation and industrial applications.
5. Converting Sunlight Innovation Challenge – to discover affordable ways to convert sunlight into storable solar fuels.
6. Clean Energy Materials Innovation Challenge – to accelerate the exploration, discovery, and use of new high-performance, low-cost clean energy materials.
7. Affordable Heating and Cooling of Buildings Innovation Challenge – to make low-carbon heating and cooling affordable for everyone.
"The Innovation Challenges give a clear focus for the collective efforts of public and private researchers, innovators and investors, which will help to accelerate innovation in these areas," commented Nick Hurd, UK Minister of State for Climate Change and Industry.
The US Department of Energy (DoE) said the US will co-lead, with Mexico, the energy materials challenge. The US will also launch and lead a challenge focused on realising zero emissions for fossil fuels through the carbon capture innovation challenge.
(USD 1.0 = EUR 0.928)
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Author: loosingmind. License: Creative Commons, Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic.
