Innovation is the key to tackling climate change

WHEN politicians and experts gathered in Poland last year to consider how to tackle global warming, battery experts were clear that innovation is the key to finding successful efforts to reduce harmful emissions.

For the Consortium for Battery Innovation, achieving breakthroughs to develop advanced lead batteries, which deliver secure and reliable energy storage for many renewable energy projects worldwide, requires a relentless focus on continuous improvement.

The UN’s latest warning on the impact of climate change -if no progress is made -paints a catastrophic picture. We are, the UN states, the last generation capable of stopping climate change.

However, no one country or one technology can provide the answer alone. The solution will necessarily be political, with difficult considerations for policy makers and governments over the cost of transitioning to a low carbon economy.

Innovation, through ongoing research and the collaboration between different technologies, is as important as policy change. And it is not inexpensive. Which is why we are working with governments to collaborate with industry to support research and development across arange of technologies.

We have established the Consortium of Battery Innovation to help write the next chapter for advanced lead batteries. This yearwe will be unveiling a roadmap setting out the performance improvements we are targeting through the latest research and technology, and in collaboration with partners including the Argonne National Laboratory in the U.S. among others.

The combination of innovation and policy change might, with global political will, provide a fighting chance of meeting some of the Paris targets set in 2015. For the decision-makers who metto discuss progress at #COP24 in Polandin December 2018, time is not on their side.

View some of the lead battery projects supporting renewable energy here.

By Dr Alistair Davidson