Author: jzimbler

Route Optimization Software for Waste Management

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1) Sustainability Problem:

In 2014, in the United States, about 258 million tons of Municipal Solid Waste were generated. (EPA.gov) In addition to the environmental impact of the waste itself, the waste has to be hauled and carted to landfills or recycling facilities. This is performed by heavy-duty trucks which produce significant pollution per mile.
Category: Energy/Water & Waste Management

2) Technology Summary:

Route optimization software can ensure that fleet operators are driving the minimum necessary distance to efficiently pickup and deliver waste to the appropriate intermediate facility.
From the article:

Joe Burkel, vice president of digital operations and process improvement at Republic Services, estimates that a one percent reduction in total fleet miles traveled can save more than 631,000 gallons of fuel. The carbon emissions savings from that would be equivalent to removing 1,400 cars from the roads, he says.

Article: How Some Hauler Routines Have Been Transformed by Technology
Website: Waste360
Link: http://www.waste360.com/haulers/how-some-hauler-routines-have-been-transformed-technology
Tags: #waste #route optimization

3) Organizational stakeholders

  1. City councils
  2. Procurement officials in each municipality
  3. Waste management officials
  4. Software vendors

4) Steps in deploying this technology

  1. Establish SOW’s and service contracts with route optimization software vendors
  2. Establish data integration & data governance protocols for incoming data streams into municipal data warehouse
  3. Work with drivers unions to get buy-in on relying on new technology for their operations
  4. Measure and evaluate software effectiveness in mileage reduced and iterate on route tweaks

Related Resources:

http://www.routesmart.com/

https://www.tmwsystems.com/case-studies-resources/brochures/tmt-fleet-maintenance

Note: This software is extensible into all fleet operations, including school buses and all other service operations.

Uni: jz2805
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Next generation disease/cancer detection

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1) Sustainability Problem:

Medical technology has made great leaps in disease detection, but proper diagnosis still requires well-equipped labs and significant waiting time. Extended waiting time raises risk factors and allows diseases which could have been caught and addressed earlier to grow to worse problems. In addition the resource and cost barriers to sophisticated labs ensure that not all populations will have equal access to potentially life-saving information at the time when it can be most useful.
New diagnostic technology from QuantuMDx could change that scenario. Their Q-Poc “handheld lab”, the size of a smartphone, can diagnose a range of infectious diseases and cancers in minutes. This can have disproportionate advantages in the developing world where access to infrastructure is a barrier to quality health care.
From article:
Q-Poc differs from most conventional point-of-care diagnostic tools in that it analyses the DNA of pathogens rather than the proteins within the sample. 
This brings us one step closer to the Star Trek medical tricorder.
Category: Health

2) Technology Summary:

Article: This smartphone-sized device can diagnose cancer in 20 minutes
Website: The Guardian
Link: https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2016/apr/21/quantumdx-cancer-diagnostics-medicine-africa-tuberculosis
Tags: #health

3) Organizational stakeholders

  1. National health regulators
  2. Hospital & doctors employee advocacy groups
  3. Health insurance companies
  4. Device manufacturer & supporting supply chain

4) Steps in deploying this technology

  1. Ensure the device clears all safety and regulatory trials
  2. Enlist a sales team to sell technology to medical NGO’s and aid orgs in developing world
  3. Establish supply chain and procure initial batch of devices
  4. Train medical professionals on usage of the device.

Related Resources:

Manufacturer: http://quantumdx.com/
Uni: jz2805

Advanced IoT controls for commercial real estate

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1) Sustainability Problem:

All businesses have to aggressively control costs but a huge business such as Chase Bank  with multiple retail and corporate locations (and their accompanying large real estate footprints) spend millions of dollars on facility fees such as utilities. Some locations have advanced lighting and intelligent building mgt systems, but this is inconsistent across the fleet of properties.
Last year Current by GE began a partnership with Chase to install LED lighting in 5000  branches across 25 million square feet.”Current estimates that, once completed, the project could reduce the branches’ lighting-related energy use by more than 50 percent – equal to taking nearly 27,000 cars off the road.”

This July, in Phase 2, Current incorporated data and technology like Smart Irrigation technology from Weathermatic and other partners into an IoT platform called Predix. The new sensors and controls will allow for reductions in water usage from irrigation systems by 20 percent. In addition, electric and gas consumption will be reduced by 15 percent.

The overall system provides visibility into HVAC and energy usage, giving facilities managers tools to measure performance against expectations and adjust quickly.
Category: Energy & Buildings

2) Technology Summary:

Article: JPMorgan partners with GE’s Current to reach lofty environmental goals
Website: CNBC
Link: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/27/jpmorgan-partners-with-ges-current-to-reach-lofty-environmental-goals.html
Tags: #energy efficiency #IoT

3) Organizational stakeholders

  1. Client: Chase Bank
  2. System Aggregator: Current by GE
  3. Partner: Weathermatic
  4. Municipality (clearing municipal ordinances)

4) Steps in deploying this technology

  1. Establish parameters/governance for technology buildout
  2. Ensure supply chain in place for very large order
  3. Retain local resources to install sensor technology in retail locations across whole service area
  4. Aggregate/Test/QA data streams coming from all discrete locations
  5. Establish measurement and evaluation protocols so learnings can be fed back into future facility operations decision-making

Related Resources:

Equipment providers: 
Uni: jz2805

EV wireless charging during motion

jzimbler1 Comment

1) Sustainability Problem:

EV adoption is a chicken and egg sort of problem. Both sides of the market, vehicle owners and charging infrastructure owners, have to feel secure there will be critical mass of the other side to comfortable deploy their capital. Range anxiety is one of the primary barriers to prospective vehicle owners. The fear that mobility and productivity will be limited by the abbreviated range offered by EV batteries coupled with the long duration of recharging reinforces that perception.
From the article:
[If a car was able to be charged while it was being driven, then this would solve the problem of limited range and enable vehicles to travel for potentially unlimited distances.]
The transportation sector was responsible for 27% of all U.S. GHG emissions in 2015, 2nd only to Electricity generation. [EPA.gov] The faster transportation is electrified, and the faster that electricity can be produced from renewable sources, the more likely we are to mitigate the worst consequences of global temperature rise.

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Category: Energy

2) Technology Summary:

Article: Wireless Electric Vehicle Charging Breakthrough Achieved
Website: Clean Technica
Tags: #electric vehicle #wireless charging

3) Organizational stakeholders

  1. state transportation departments
  2. public service commission / regulators
  3. EV manufacturers
  4. utilities

4) Steps in deploying this technology

  1. Continue to expand the power capacity of wireless charging – currently beneath the required volume for vehicle operations
  2. Encourage vehicle manufacturers to adopt wireless charging technology
  3. Persuade state and federal transportation officials to set regulatory frameworks around safe in-lane charging equipment
  4. Evaluate revenue potential of time-of-use rates to incentivize congestion mitigation

Related Resources:

Technology Developments: 
Equipment providers: 
 wireless_power_system_-_inductive_coupling
Uni: jz2805

EV/PV integrated charging system

jzimbler1 Comment

1) Sustainability Problem:

As is well understood, the greater the percentage of EV fuel derived from renewable sources, the greater the sustainability edge is to electrified transportation over fossil-fuel based transportation.

The need for separate electrical equipment to handle PV capture and EV charging is both a cost and a hassle barrier to adoption. Not all PV users drive EV’s, and not all EV drivers have roofs with PV panels but this is a population which will grow exponentially as both technologies improve and become ubiquitous.

The increased efficiency in EV charging by leveraging gathered solar energy at the point of collection is a material gain to the consumer/homeowner.
From the manufacturer:
The SolarEdge HD-Wave inverter with integrated EV charger offers homeowners the ability to charge electric vehicles up to six times faster than a standard Level 1 charger through an innovative solar boost mode that utilizes grid and PV charging simultaneously. This product is the first PV inverter-integrated EV charger.
The SolarEdge HD-Wave inverter-integrated EV charger reduces the hassle of installing a separate standalone EV charger and a PV inverter. Furthermore, it eliminates the need for additional wiring, conduit and a breaker installation. By installing an EV charger that is integrated with an inverter, no additional dedicated circuit breaker is needed, saving space and ruling out a potential upgrade to the main distribution panel.
Category: Energy

2) Technology Summary:

Article: SolarEdge unveils inverter-integrated EV charger
Website: PV Magazine
Tags: #electric vehicle #solar power

3) Organizational stakeholders

  1. utilities
  2. public service commission / regulators
  3. EV manufacturers
  4. PV manufacturers
  5. banks providing clean energy financing products

4) Steps in deploying this technology

  1. partner with solar installers to promote PV/EV option over standard grid connection
  2. develop innovating PV/EV rebate programs from state governments
  3. mandate utilities to market/offer inverter charging equipment
Related Resources:
Uni: jz2805

Community-based parking

jzimbler1 Comment

1) Sustainability Problem:

Persistent inefficiency as drivers seeking parking can not be matched with available supply.
However, ICT-based systems connecting users, vehicles (V2X) and infrastructure can increase transportation system efficiency. In this particular case, employing the automated parking sensors on vehicles traversing the city is an innovative way to use the fleet to collect real-time data about available spaces. This obviates the need for parking detection hardware on street lamps or embedded in the pavement.
Category: Mobility

2) Technology Summary:

Article: Work together, park faster with community-based parking
Website: Bosch
Tags: #smart parking

3) Organizational stakeholders

  1. automotive manufacturers
  2. IoT sensor manufacturers
  3. ICT regulators
  4. privacy advocates

4) Steps in deploying this technology

  1. identify lowest cost, highest performance sensor equipment
  2. mandate lidar & camera technology inclusion for all new vehicles
  3. establish privacy/cyber requirements to allow new data streams to be fully leveraged
  4. develop easy, highly usable UX/UI for drivers to combat learning curve and slow adoption issues
Related Resources:
Uni: jz2805

Indian firm makes carbon capture breakthrough

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1) Sustainability Problem:

Excess CO2 contributing to a greenhouse effect and global warming.
Category: Energy

2) Technology Summary:

  • A coal-fired power plant in southern India can now capturing carbon at industrial scale without subsidy
  • Unlike the well known CCS process, the plant is converting captured storage into baking soda. This is known as Carbon Capture and Utilization (CCU)
  • CarbonClean, the inventor, has developed a new, more efficient chemical process which reduces operations and initial fixed costs
  • CO2 capture capacity: 60,000 tons of CO2 per year
Article: Indian firm makes carbon capture breakthrough
Website: The Guardian
Tags: #CCS #CCU #technology #GHG

3) Organizational stakeholders

  1. Merchant power generators
  2. Utilities
  3. Chemical process raw material manufacturers
  4. Energy regulators

4) Steps in deploying this technology

  1. Identify wider customer base for CO2 chemical raw material
  2. Identify price at which CO2 can be profitably removed
  3. Attracting financing for this technology
  4. Expand production of the new CO2-stripping chemical
Uni: jz2805