I'd like to start with a couple of quick examples. These are spinneret glands on the abdomen of a spider. They produce six different types of silk, which is spun together into a fiber, tougher than any fiber humans have ever made. The nearest we've come is with aramid fiber. And to make that, it involves extremes of temperature, extremes of pressure and loads of pollution. And yet the spider manages to do it at ambient temperature and pressure with raw materials of dead flies and water. It does suggest we've still got a bit to learn. This beetle can detect a forest fire at 80 kilometers away. That's roughly 10,000 times the range of man-made fire detectors. And what's more, this guy doesn't need a wire connected all the way back to a power station burning fossil fuels.
Počeo bih parom brzih primera. Ovo su bradavice žlezdi na stomaku pauka. One proizvode šest različitih tipova svile, koje su upredene zajedno u vlakno koje je jače od bilo kojeg vlakna koje su ljudi ikada napravili. Najbliže što smo uspeli da stvorimo je aramidno vlakno. Da bismo ga napravili, trebaju nam ekstremne temperature, ekstremni pritisak i mnogo zagađenja. A ipak, pauku to polazi za rukom na ambijentalnoj temperaturi i pritisku sa sirovim materijalima mrtvih mušica i vode. Ovo nam sugeriše da imamo još ponešto da naučimo. Ovaj tvrdokrilac može da otkrije šumski požar na udaljenosti od 80 kilometara. To je 10.000 puta više od dometa detektora dima koje je napravio čovek. Što je još bolje, njemu ne treba žica koja je povezana na električnu centralu koja sagoreva fosilna goriva.
So these two examples give a sense of what biomimicry can deliver. If we could learn to make things and do things the way nature does, we could achieve factor 10, factor 100, maybe even factor 1,000 savings in resource and energy use. And if we're to make progress with the sustainability revolution, I believe there are three really big changes we need to bring about. Firstly, radical increases in resource efficiency. Secondly, shifting from a linear, wasteful, polluting way of using resources to a closed-loop model. And thirdly, changing from a fossil fuel economy to a solar economy. And for all three of these, I believe, biomimicry has a lot of the solutions that we're going to need.
Ova dva primera nam daju uvid u ono što nam biomimetika može pružiti. Ako bismo mogli da naučimo da stvaramo i radimo stvari onako kako to priroda radi mogli bismo da dostignemo faktor 10, faktor 100, možda čak i faktor 1 000 u uštedi resursa i upotrebi energije. Ako želimo da ostvarimo napredak u revoluciji održivosti, verujem da postoje tri velike promene koje treba da primenimo. Prvo, korenito povećanje učinka resursa. Drugo, promena od linijskog, rasipničkog, zagađujućeg načina korišćenja resursa do modela zatvorene petlje. I treće, promena od ekonomije zasnovane na fosilnim gorivima do solarne ekonomije. Verujem da za ove tri promene biomimetika ima mnogo rešenja koja će nam trebati.
You could look at nature as being like a catalog of products, and all of those have benefited from a 3.8-billion-year research and development period. And given that level of investment, it makes sense to use it. So I'm going to talk about some projects that have explored these ideas. And let's start with radical increases in resource efficiency. When we were working on the Eden Project, we had to create a very large greenhouse in a site that was not only irregular, but it was continually changing because it was still being quarried. It was a hell of a challenge, and it was actually examples from biology that provided a lot of the clues. So for instance, it was soap bubbles that helped us generate a building form that would work regardless of the final ground levels. Studying pollen grains and radiolaria and carbon molecules helped us devise the most efficient structural solution using hexagons and pentagons.
Možete gledati na prirodu kao na katalog proizvoda i svi oni su imali koristi od perioda od 3.8 milijardi godina istraživanja i razvoja. S obzirom na nivo investicija, ima smisla iskoristiti ga. Govoriću o nekim projektima koji su istraživali ove ideje. Počnimo sa korenitim povećanjem učinka resursa. Kada smo radili na Edenskom projektu, morali smo da napravimo jako veliki staklenik na gradilištu koje ne samo da je bilo nepravilno, već se i stalno menjalo zbog vađenja kamena iz kamenoloma. To je bio veoma veliki izazov i zapravo su nam primeri iz biologije dali puno smernica. Tako su nam, na primer, mehurići sapunice pomogli da damo oblik građevini koji bi radio bez obzira na nivelaciju zemljišta. Proučavanje čestica polena, radiolarije i molekula ugljenika nam je pomoglo da osmislimo najefikasnije rešenje konstrukcije korišćenjem šestouglova i petouglova.
The next move was that we wanted to try and maximize the size of those hexagons. And to do that we had to find an alternative to glass, which is really very limited in terms of its unit sizes. And in nature there are lots of examples of very efficient structures based on pressurized membranes. So we started exploring this material called ETFE. It's a high-strength polymer. And what you do is you put it together in three layers, you weld it around the edge, and then you inflate it. And the great thing about this stuff is you can make it in units of roughly seven times the size of glass, and it was only one percent of the weight of double-glazing. So that was a factor-100 saving. And what we found is that we got into a positive cycle in which one breakthrough facilitated another. So with such large, lightweight pillows, we had much less steel. With less steel we were getting more sunlight in, which meant we didn't have to put as much extra heat in winter. And with less overall weight in the superstructure, there were big savings in the foundations. And at the end of the project we worked out that the weight of that superstructure was actually less than the weight of the air inside the building.
Sledeći korak je bio naša želja da povećamo do maksimuma veličinu ovih šestouglova. Da bismo to uradili, morali smo pronaći zamenu za staklo, koje je veoma ograničeno u pogledu veličine svojih delova. U prirodi imamo mnogo primera veoma efikasnih struktura baziranih na membranama koje su pod pritiskom. Počeli smo da istražujemo materijal nazvan ETFE. Ovo je veoma jak polimer. Ono što radite sa njim jeste da ga sastavite u tri sloja, zavarite ga oko ivica, a onda naduvate. Ono što je odlično u vezi sa ovom stvari je što možete da napravite komade otprilike sedam puta veće od staklenih, a činio je samo jedan procenat težine dvostrukog zastakljivanja. Dakle to je faktor 100 uštede. Ono što smo otkrili jeste da smo ušli u pozitivan ciklus u kome je jedan proboj olakšavao drugi. Dakle, sa tako velikim, laganim jastucima, imali smo mnogo manje čelika. Uz manje čelika, imali smo više sunčeve svetlosti koja je prodirala unutra što je značilo da nismo morali mnogo da dogrevamo tokom zime. A sa manjom ukupnom težinom superstrukture, imali smo i velike uštede u temeljima. Na kraju projekta smo izračunali da je težina te superstrukture zapravo bila manja od težine vazduha koji je u unutrašnjosti zgrade.
So I think the Eden Project is a fairly good example of how ideas from biology can lead to radical increases in resource efficiency -- delivering the same function, but with a fraction of the resource input. And actually there are loads of examples in nature that you could turn to for similar solutions. So for instance, you could develop super-efficient roof structures based on giant Amazon water lilies, whole buildings inspired by abalone shells, super-lightweight bridges inspired by plant cells. There's a world of beauty and efficiency to explore here using nature as a design tool.
Mislim da je Edenski projekar sasvim dobar primer kako ideje iz biologije mogu voditi u korenito povećanje učinka resursa -- pružajući istu funkciju, ali sa delićem korišćenih resursa. Zapravo postoji mnoštvo pimera u prirodi koje bi mogli iskoristiti za slična rešenja. Na primer, mogli biste da razvijete superefikasne krovne strukture zasnovane na džinovskim amazonskim lotusima, cele zgrade inspirisane abalon školjkom, superlake mostove inspirisane biljnim ćelijama. Postoji ceo svet lepote i efikasnosti koji treba istražiti koristeći prirodu kao alatku za dizajniranje.
So now I want to go onto talking about the linear-to-closed-loop idea. The way we tend to use resources is we extract them, we turn them into short-life products and then dispose of them. Nature works very differently. In ecosystems, the waste from one organism becomes the nutrient for something else in that system. And there are some examples of projects that have deliberately tried to mimic ecosystems. And one of my favorites is called the Cardboard to Caviar Project by Graham Wiles. And in their area they had a lot of shops and restaurants that were producing lots of food, cardboard and plastic waste. It was ending up in landfills. Now the really clever bit is what they did with the cardboard waste. And I'm just going to talk through this animation.
Sada želim da govorim o ideji promene od linijskog do modela zatvorene petlje. Način kome naginjemo prilikom korišćenja resursa je da ih izvadimo, pretvorimo u proizvode sa kratkim vekom trajanja i onda ih bacimo. Priroda funkcioniše mnogo drugačije. U ekosistemima, otpad jednog organizma postaje hrana za nešto drugo u tom sistemu. Postoje primeri projekata koji su namerno pokušali da imitiraju ekosisteme. Jedan od mojih omiljenih je nazvan "Od kartona do kavijara" projekat sačinjen od strane Grejema Vajlsa. U njihovom kraju su imali puno prodavnica i restorana koji su proizvodili puno otpadaka hrane, kartona i plastike. To je završavalo na deponijama. Zaista je pametno šta su uradili sa kartonskim otpadom. Sada ću da vam objasnim ovu animaciju.
So they were paid to collect it from the restaurants. They then shredded the cardboard and sold it to equestrian centers as horse bedding. When that was soiled, they were paid again to collect it. They put it into worm recomposting systems, which produced a lot of worms, which they fed to Siberian sturgeon, which produced caviar, which they sold back to the restaurants. So it transformed a linear process into a closed-loop model, and it created more value in the process. Graham Wiles has continued to add more and more elements to this, turning waste streams into schemes that create value. And just as natural systems tend to increase in diversity and resilience over time, there's a real sense with this project that the number of possibilities just continue increasing. And I know it's a quirky example, but I think the implications of this are quite radical, because it suggests that we could actually transform a big problem -- waste -- into a massive opportunity.
Bilo im je plaćeno da ga sakupljaju od restorana. Onda su seckali karton i prodavali ga jahačkim centrima kao prostirku za podloge. Kada bi se ona zaprljala, ponovo su bili plaćeni da bi je sakupili. Stavljali bi je u crvlje sisteme za rekompostiranje, koji bi proizveli puno crva, kojima su hranili sibirske jesetre koje su proizvodile kavijar, koji su prodavali restoranima. Tako je linijski proces preobražen u kružni model i tokom procesa je stvorio veću korist. Grejem Vajls je nastavio da ovome pridodaje još i još elemenata, pretvarajući tokove otpada u šeme koje stvaraju korist. I baš kao što prirodni sistemi teže da povećaju raznovrsnost i otpornost tokom vremena, postoji velika izvesnost vezana za ovaj projekat da će broj mogućnosti nastaviti da se povećava. Znam da je ovo pomalo čudan primer, ali mislim da su njegove implikacije zaista korenite, zato što upućuje da bismo zapravo mogli da preobratimo jedan veliki problem -- otpad -- u veliku priliku.
And particularly in cities -- we could look at the whole metabolism of cities, and look at those as opportunities. And that's what we're doing on the next project I'm going to talk about, the Mobius Project, where we're trying to bring together a number of activities, all within one building, so that the waste from one can be the nutrient for another. And the kind of elements I'm talking about are, firstly, we have a restaurant inside a productive greenhouse, a bit like this one in Amsterdam called De Kas. Then we would have an anaerobic digester, which could deal with all the biodegradable waste from the local area, turn that into heat for the greenhouse and electricity to feed back into the grid. We'd have a water treatment system treating wastewater, turning that into fresh water and generating energy from the solids using just plants and micro-organisms. We'd have a fish farm fed with vegetable waste from the kitchen and worms from the compost and supplying fish back to the restaurant. And we'd also have a coffee shop, and the waste grains from that could be used as a substrate for growing mushrooms.
Naročito u gradovima -- mogli bismo da se fokusiramo na ceo metabolizam gradova, i na njih gledamo kao na prilike. To i radimo u sledećem projektu o kome ću da govorim, U Mobijus projektu, gde pokušavamo da spojimo brojne aktivnosti, sve u okviru jedne zgrade, tako da otpad jedne postaje hrana za drugu aktivnost. Vrste elemenata o kojima govorim su, prvo, imamo restoran u okviru produktivnog staklenika, pomalo nalik onom u Amsterdamu nazvanom "De Kas". Potom imamo anaerobnu jedinicu za varenje, koja bi mogla da se izbori sa svim biorazgradivim otpadom u oblasti, pretvori ga u toplotu za staklenu baštu i struju koja se može vratiti u mrežu. Imali bismo sistem za prečišćavanje vode, koji bi tretirao otpadne vode, pretvarajući ih u svežu vodu, i stvarajući energiju iz čvrstih materijala koristeći samo biljke i mikro-organizme. Imali bi ribnjak u kome bi kao hranu koristili otpadno povrće iz kuhinje i crve iz komposta, obezbeđujući ribu za restoran. Takođe bi imali i kafić, a otpadno zrnevlje iz njega bi moglo biti iskorišćeno za uzgoj pečuraka.
So you can see that we're bringing together cycles of food, energy and water and waste all within one building. And just for fun, we've proposed this for a roundabout in central London, which at the moment is a complete eyesore. Some of you may recognize this. And with just a little bit of planning, we could transform a space dominated by traffic into one that provides open space for people, reconnects people with food and transforms waste into closed loop opportunities.
Možete videti da spajamo cikluse hrane, energije, vode i otpada sve u okviru jedne zgrade. Čisto zbog zabave smo ovo predložili za kružni tok u centralnom delu Londona koji je trenutno pravo ruglo. Neki od vas možda prepoznaju ovo. Uz samo malo planiranja, mogli bismo da preobrazimo ovaj prostor u kome dominira saobraćaj u onaj koji pruža ljudima otvoren prostor, ponovo povezuje ljude sa hranom i koji preobražava otpad u zatvorenu petlju prilika.
So the final project I want to talk about is the Sahara Forest Project, which we're working on at the moment. It may come as a surprise to some of you to hear that quite large areas of what are currently desert were actually forested a fairly short time ago. So for instance, when Julius Caesar arrived in North Africa, huge areas of North Africa were covered in cedar and cypress forests. And during the evolution of life on the Earth, it was the colonization of the land by plants that helped create the benign climate we currently enjoy. The converse is also true. The more vegetation we lose, the more that's likely to exacerbate climate change and lead to further desertification. And this animation, this shows photosynthetic activity over the course of a number of years, and what you can see is that the boundaries of those deserts shift quite a lot, and that raises the question of whether we can intervene at the boundary conditions to halt, or maybe even reverse, desertification.
Krajnji projekat o kome želim da govorim jeste Projekat šume Sahare, na kome trenutno radimo. Za neke od vas može biti pravo iznenađenje da čuju da su prilično velike oblasti onoga što je trenutno pustinja zapravo bile pod šumom pre jako malo vremena. Tako na primer, kada je Julije Cezar došao u severnu Afriku velike oblasti severne Afrike su bile pokrivene šumama kedra i čempresa. Tokom evolucije života na Zemlji nastanjivanje kopna od strane biljaka je pomoglo stvaranju dobroćudne klime u kojoj trenutno uživamo. Obrnuta situacija je takođe tačna. Što više vegetacije izgubimo, veće su mogućnosti da će se klimatske promene pogoršati i odvesti do dalje dezertifikacije. Ova animacija, ovo nam pokazuje fotosintetičku aktivnost tokom perioda od nekoliko godina, a ono što možete videti je da se granice ovih pustinja dosta pomeraju, a to postavlja pitanje da li se možemo umešati u granične uslove da bi zaustavili ili možda čak i obrnuli, dezertifikaciju.
And if you look at some of the organisms that have evolved to live in deserts, there are some amazing examples of adaptations to water scarcity. This is the Namibian fog-basking beetle, and it's evolved a way of harvesting its own fresh water in a desert. The way it does this is it comes out at night, crawls to the top of a sand dune, and because it's got a matte black shell, is able to radiate heat out to the night sky and become slightly cooler than its surroundings. So when the moist breeze blows in off the sea, you get these droplets of water forming on the beetle's shell. Just before sunrise, he tips his shell up, the water runs down into his mouth, has a good drink, goes off and hides for the rest of the day. And the ingenuity, if you could call it that, goes even further. Because if you look closely at the beetle's shell, there are lots of little bumps on that shell. And those bumps are hydrophilic; they attract water. Between them there's a waxy finish which repels water. And the effect of this is that as the droplets start to form on the bumps, they stay in tight, spherical beads, which means they're much more mobile than they would be if it was just a film of water over the whole beetle's shell. So even when there's only a small amount of moisture in the air, it's able to harvest that very effectively and channel it down to its mouth. So amazing example of an adaptation to a very resource-constrained environment -- and in that sense, very relevant to the kind of challenges we're going to be facing over the next few years, next few decades.
Ako pogledate neke organizme koji su evoluirali da bi preživeli u pustinji, videćete neke neverovatne primere adaptacije na oskudnost vode. Ovo je namibijski tvrdokrilac koji se izležava u magli i razvio je način za prikupljanje sveže vode u pustinji. Način na koji ovo radi je da izađe u toku noći, uspuže se do vrha brda, a zato što ima matirani crni oklop može da oslobodi toplotu put noćnog neba i postane malo hladniji od svog okruženja. Kada vlažan povetarac duva iz pravca mora, dobijete ove kapljice vode koje se formiraju na oklopu ovog tvrdokrilca. Pre izlaska sunca, on nagne svoj oklop, voda se slije u njegova usta, on je popije, ode i krije se tokom ostatka dana. Genijalnost, ako bismo je mogli nazvati tako, ide čak i dalje. Zato što ako pogledate izbliza njegov oklop, videćete mnogo malih izbočina na njemu. Sve te izbočine su hidrofilne, one privlače vodu. Između njih je voskirana površina koja odbija vodu. Efekat koji ovo ima je taj da kada kaplice počnu da se formiraju na izbočinama, one ostaju u tesnim, sferičnim perlama što znači da su one mnogo mobilnije nego da su samo film vode preko celog tvrdokrilčevog oklopa. Čak i kada ima samo malu količinu vlage u vazduhu, on može da je sakupi veoma efikasno i kanališe je u svoja usta. Ovo je neverovatan primer prilagođavanja na okruženje sa veoma oskudnim resursima -- i u tom smislu, veoma relevantan za vrste izazova sa kojima ćemo se mi suočavati tokom nekoliko sledećih godina, nekoliko sledećih decenija.
We're working with the guy who invented the Seawater Greenhouse. This is a greenhouse designed for arid coastal regions, and the way it works is that you have this whole wall of evaporator grills, and you trickle seawater over that so that wind blows through, it picks up a lot of moisture and is cooled in the process. So inside it's cool and humid, which means the plants need less water to grow. And then at the back of the greenhouse, it condenses a lot of that humidity as freshwater in a process that is effectively identical to the beetle. And what they found with the first Seawater Greenhouse that was built was it was producing slightly more freshwater than it needed for the plants inside. So they just started spreading this on the land around, and the combination of that and the elevated humidity had quite a dramatic effect on the local area. This photograph was taken on completion day, and just one year later, it looked like that. So it was like a green inkblot spreading out from the building turning barren land back into biologically productive land -- and in that sense, going beyond sustainable design to achieve restorative design.
Radimo sa čovekom koji je izumeo Staklenik morske vode. Ovo je staklenik koji je dizajniran za suve priobalne predele, a princip na kome radi je da imate ovaj ceo zid rešetki isparivača, i kada morska voda curi preko njih, a vetar duva kroz njih, on sakuplja mnogo vlage i biva rashlađen tokom ovog procesa. Unutra je sveže i vlažno, što znači da biljkama treba manje vode da bi rasle. Potom, na kraju staklenika veliki deo te vlage biva kondenzovan kao sveža voda u procesu koji je efektivno istovetan onom kod tvrdokrilca. Ono što su otkrili sa prvim Staklenikom morske vode je da proizvodi malo više sveže vode nego što je neophodno za biljke unutra. Počeli su da je prolivaju po okolnom zemljištu i mešavina toga i povišene vlažnosti imala je dramatičan efekat na okolnu regiju. Ova fotografija je snimljena na dan završetka, a samo godinu dana kasnije, izgledalo je ovako. Bilo je poput mrlje od mastila koja se širila iz zgrade pretvarajući jalovo zemljište u biološki produktivno -- i u tom smislu, odlazeći iznad održivog dizajna da bi dostiglo povratni dizajn.
So we were keen to scale this up and apply biomimicry ideas to maximize the benefits. And when you think about nature, often you think about it as being all about competition. But actually in mature ecosystems, you're just as likely to find examples of symbiotic relationships. So an important biomimicry principle is to find ways of bringing technologies together in symbiotic clusters. And the technology that we settled on as an ideal partner for the Seawater Greenhouse is concentrated solar power, which uses solar-tracking mirrors to focus the sun's heat to create electricity. And just to give you some sense of the potential of CSP, consider that we receive 10,000 times as much energy from the sun every year as we use in energy from all forms -- 10,000 times. So our energy problems are not intractable. It's a challenge to our ingenuity. And the kind of synergies I'm talking about are, firstly, both these technologies work very well in hot, sunny deserts. CSP needs a supply of demineralized freshwater. That's exactly what the Seawater Greenhouse produces. CSP produces a lot of waste heat. We'll be able to make use of all that to evaporate more seawater and enhance the restorative benefits. And finally, in the shade under the mirrors, it's possible to grow all sorts of crops that would not grow in direct sunlight. So this is how this scheme would look. The idea is we create this long hedge of greenhouses facing the wind. We'd have concentrated solar power plants at intervals along the way.
Bili smo željni da proporcionalno uvećamo ovo i primenimo ideju biomimetike da bismo povećali koristi. Kada mislite o prirodi često mislite da se u prirodi radi samo o takmičenju. Ali zapravo, u zrelim ekosistemima isti su vam izgledi da nađete primere simbiotičkih odnosa. Jedan od bitnih biomimetičkih principa je pronaći načine za spajanje tehnologija u simbiotičke grupe. Tehnologija za koju smo se složili da će biti idealan partner Stakleniku morske vode je koncentrisana solarna energija, koja koristi ogledala koja prate sunce da bi fokusirala toplotu zarad stvaranja energije. Da bih vam dao uvid u potencijal koncentrisane solarne energije, razmotrite da mi svake godine primimo 10.000 puta više energije od Sunca nego što potrošimo energije u bilo kom obliku -- 10.000 puta. Dakle, naši energetski problemi nisu nerešivi. To je izazov za našu genijalnost. Oblik sinergija o kojima govorim su, prvo, obe ove tehnologije rade jako dobro u vrelim, sunčanim pustinjama. Koncentrisanoj solarnoj energiji treba zaliha demineralizovane sveže vode. A to je upravo ono što Staklenik morske vode proizvodi. KSE proizvodi mnogo otpadne toplote. Moći ćemo da je iskoristimo da isparimo više morske vode i unapredimo povratne koristi. I na kraju, u senci ispod ogledala moguće je uzgajati razne vrste useva koji ne bi rasli na direktnom suncu. Evo kako bi ova šema izgledala. Ideja je da napravimo ovaj veliki niz staklenika koji bi bili upravljeni ka vetru. Imali bi elektrane koncentrovane sunčeve energije na intervalima duž ovog niza.
Some of you might be wondering what we would do with all the salts. And with biomimicry, if you've got an underutilized resource, you don't think, "How am I going to dispose of this?" You think, "What can I add to the system to create more value?" And it turns out that different things crystallize out at different stages. When you evaporate seawater, the first thing to crystallize out is calcium carbonate. And that builds up on the evaporators -- and that's what that image on the left is -- gradually getting encrusted with the calcium carbonate. So after a while, we could take that out, use it as a lightweight building block. And if you think about the carbon in that, that would have come out of the atmosphere, into the sea and then locked away in a building product.
Možda se pitate šta bi uradili sa svim solima. U biomimetici, kada imate resurs koji ne koristite, ne mislite: "Kako da se rešim ovoga?" Mislite: "Šta mogu da dodam u sistem da bih dobio još koristi?" Ispostavilo se da se različite stvari kristališu u različitim fazama. Kada isparavate morsku vodu, prva stvar koja se kristališe je kalcijum karbonat. To se kristališe na isparivačima -- i to je ono što je na levoj slici -- postepeno se formira korica od kalcijum karbonata. Posle nekog vremena, mogli bismo to da izvadimo i upotrebimo kao gradivni blok. Mislite o ugljeniku koji je unutra, koji je izdvojen iz atmosfere u more, a onda zaključan u gradivnom proizvodu.
The next thing is sodium chloride. You can also compress that into a building block, as they did here. This is a hotel in Bolivia. And then after that, there are all sorts of compounds and elements that we can extract, like phosphates, that we need to get back into the desert soils to fertilize them. And there's just about every element of the periodic table in seawater. So it should be possible to extract valuable elements like lithium for high-performance batteries. And in parts of the Arabian Gulf, the seawater, the salinity is increasing steadily due to the discharge of waste brine from desalination plants. And it's pushing the ecosystem close to collapse. Now we would be able to make use of all that waste brine. We could evaporate it to enhance the restorative benefits and capture the salts, transforming an urgent waste problem into a big opportunity. Really the Sahara Forest Project is a model for how we could create zero-carbon food, abundant renewable energy in some of the most water-stressed parts of the planet as well as reversing desertification in certain areas.
Sledeća stvar je kuhinjska so. Nju takođe možete kompresovati u gradivni blok, kao što je urađeno ovde. Ovo je hotel u Boliviji. Nakon toga, postoji mnoštvo jedinjenja i elemenata koje možemo izvaditi, kao što su fosfati, koje trebamo vratiti u pustinjska tla da bi ih nađubrili. U morskoj vodi postoji gotovo svaki elemenat iz periodnog sistema. Bilo bi, dakle, moguće izvaditi vredne elemente, poput litijuma za baterije visokih performansi. A u delovima Persijskog zaliva morska voda, salinitet stabilno raste zbog otpuštanja otpadnih voda iz postrojenja za desalinizaciju. Ovo gura ekosistem ka kolapsu. Sada bi mogli da iskoristimo sve te otpadne vode. Mogli bismo da ih isparimo da bismo povećali povratne koristi i zarobimo soli, preobražavajući hitan problem otpada u jednu veliku priliku. Zaista, Projekat šume Sahare je model prema kome bismo mogli da stvaramo ugljenički neutralnu hranu, obilnu obnovljivu energiju u nekima od najsuvljih predela planete kao i da preokrenemo dezertifikaciju u nekim oblastima.
So returning to those big challenges that I mentioned at the beginning: radical increases in resource efficiency, closing loops and a solar economy. They're not just possible; they're critical. And I firmly believe that studying the way nature solves problems will provide a lot of the solutions. But perhaps more than anything, what this thinking provides is a really positive way of talking about sustainable design. Far too much of the talk about the environment uses very negative language. But here it's about synergies and abundance and optimizing. And this is an important point.
Vratimo se na velike izazove koje sam spomenuo na početku: radikalno povećanje učinka resursa, modeli zatvorene petlje i solarna ekonomija. Oni nisu samo mogući; oni su od velike važnosti. Čvrsto verujem da će nam izučavanje načina na koji priroda rešava probleme dati mnogo rešenja. Ali ako ništa drugo, ono što nam ovo razmišljanje pruža je jedan veoma pozitivan način govora o održivom dizajnu. Preveliki deo razgovora o životnoj sredini koristi veoma negativan jezik. Ali ovde se radi o sinergijama i izobilju i optimizaciji. Ovo je jedna jako bitna tačka.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery once said, "If you want to build a flotilla of ships, you don't sit around talking about carpentry. No, you need to set people's souls ablaze with visions of exploring distant shores." And that's what we need to do, so let's be positive, and let's make progress with what could be the most exciting period of innovation we've ever seen.
Antoan de Sent-Egziperi je jednom rekao: "Ako želiš da sagradiš flotu brodova, ne sediš i pričajuči o stolariji. Ne, trebate rasplamsati duše ljudi vizijama o istraživanju dalekih obala." I to je ono što mi treba da uradimo, zato budimo pozitivni, i hajde da stvaramo napredak sa nečim što bi moglo da bude najuzbudljiviji period u inovacijama koji smo ikada videli.
Thank you.
Hvala vam.
(Applause)
(Aplauz)