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October 27

Tech & Society
Clean Tech Deep Dive

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1

Admin

• Possible labour action, impact on course
• Course schedule, communication, brightspace

• A2 questions at end of class

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How does tech innovation enter the
market – that is, how does Technology
meet People and Organizations?

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Diffusion of innovation

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Gartner hype cycle: hype arrives before the tech

Peak of inflated expectations

Slope of enlightenment

Trough of disillusionment

Plateau of Productivity

Time

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Mountain of Mistakes

Valley of Regret & Despair

Tundra of Technology Adoption

Bank of Best Practices

Time

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We run into trouble when:

1. Technology and Society
(individuals, organizations, governments…)

innovate (change) at different speeds.
2. We fail to anticipate the impact of

technology on society. We do this often.
Like, every single time.

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This free website where anyone can
make an anonymous account and type
whatever they want is filled with hate
speech, threats of violence, and
harassment?

WHO COULD HAVE SEEN THAT
COMING?

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How do people adapt to working alongside
automated systems?

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People cages, of course!

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We don’t all work next to definitely-not-killer robots

• But we do all trust our information and our safety and our understanding
  of the world to machines and algorithms
• You could teach a whole course on privacy!
  (Dal has at least five)
• How do governments respond to this pace of technology diffusion?
  • A whole other class!
• Are people keeping up?

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Different markets have different needs

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There is a willingness to let the system make the rules

• “Sorry, the system doesn’t let us do that”

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“Sorry, the system doesn’t let us do that”

• In general:
• More true with cloud systems: may not actually be in org’s control
• May be prohibitively expensive to fix
• Maybe no one noticed

• Maybe everyone noticed but there was no good way to tell someone
who could fix it

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Communications tech had the steepest adoption curve

• Information is an incredible valuable commodity
• Misinformation has been popular since forever, but it’s never been this
  easy before: rumour spread, deep fakes, no filter
• The prevalence of misinformation actually lowers perceived value of real
  information: ”fake news”
• Misinformation is a deadly weapon

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Shared responsibilities

• People creating technology can’t sidestep their responsibility for its
impact on society.

• Society can’t simply accept technology as something that inevitably
happens to it.

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Technology is driving change

• You should:

• Be prepared to react swiftly
• Be proactive & adaptive
• Be aware
• Anticipate side effects
• Recognize disruption before it happens
• You don’t always want to be the first to move, but you never want to be
  the last to move

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Green tech?

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Clean technology

Global market for clean technology is now worth over $2.5 trillion per year

• https://www.canadaclean.tech/

• https://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/099.nsf/eng/home

• https://www.international.gc.ca/investors-
investisseurs/assets/pdfs/download/vp-clean_technology.pdf

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Canadian Clean Tech

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Mini case: Solar in the USA?

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Solar tech in the USA?

• In the last decade alone, solar has experienced an average annual
growth rate of 49% in the USA

• Solar Investment Tax Credit

• Rapidly declining costs

• Increasing demand across the private and public sector for clean
electricity

• Now >85 gigawatts (GW) of solar capacity installed in the USA, enough to

power 16 million homes

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Solar tech in the USA?

• In Fall 2019, ~250,000 Americans work in solar (double that from 2012)
• >10,000 companies

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Solar tech in the USA?

• In 2019, 40$ of all new electric capacity added to the grid came from solar

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Solar tech in the USA?

• California, then Florida and Texas

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Solar power generation potential in NS

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Solar tech in the USA?

• Hardware costs have dropped, but “soft costs”
  (labour, permitting/inspection, etc.) remain
• Biggest opportunity for growth = storage
• Battery tech improving, BUT…

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Battery issues for environmental management

• The extraction of lithium and other metals used to make batteries can
also consume enormous amounts of energy and water

• in the Chilean region of Salar de Atacama, mining activities consumed
65% of the region’s water supplies, forcing local farmers to buy water
from other areas

Battery issues for environmental
management

• Because of increasing demand for electric
vehicles, the global lithium-ion market is set to
grow by up to 30% each year

• concerns over the carbon footprint of the
whole battery production chain

Battery issues for environmental management

Workers extract lithium from the brine of the salt crust found near a lake in
Bolivia, a lithium-rich area. This process is thought be more
environmentally friendly than mining, but it is also more energy intensive.
(Photo by Ricampelo, CC BY 3.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/)

Battery issues for environmental management

• If improperly disposed, E-wastes can leach lead and other substances
  into soil and groundwater posing a threat to human health and
  environment
• Workers exposed to hazardous materials
• Much E-waste is shipped to poorer countries for recycling
  • worker protections, environmental hazards
  • loose chains of responsibility – once it’s gone it’s “not their problem”
  • costs of recycling (health and environment) carried by those not
  actually producing the waste

Battery issues for environmental management

• In some cases, has been shown to be thrown directly into open ocean

• after the 2004 tsunami, dozens of containers carrying e-waste were
found near Somalian shores, leaving no clues about when they were
dumped or by whom

Electric cars

• Early adopters:

• Tech heads
• Environmentally-minded consumers
• People who want to ‘vote with their money’

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Electric cars

• Governments mandating no more fossil fuel cars BUT…
• Charging stations?
• Socio-economic inequalities?
• Battery life?

• Hot parking areas (overheating)?
• End-of-life of components (recycling)?

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Electric cars

• Still cars, still intensive use of resources
• Individual transit > public transit
• We don’t currently have the resources for everyone to get one
• Underpinning systems unchanged

• Road systems
• Transit systems
• ‘Gas’ station networks

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In-class Assessment