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.
我想先講幾個簡單的例子 這些是蜘蛛吐絲的腺體 位在蜘蛛的上腹部 他們可以分泌出六種不同的絲變成纖維 這比任何人類製作出的纖維還要強韌 最接近這種特性的要算是芳綸纖維 要作出這樣的纖維需要極端的溫度 極端的壓力和大量的污染 然而蜘蛛卻能在一般環境的溫度和壓力 運用死掉蒼蠅和水當作原料做出來這種纖維 它說明了我們還有需要學習的東西 這種甲蟲可以偵測到遠在80公里森林火災 這大約是 10,000倍 人造火災探測器所能偵測的範圍 更重要的是,這小昆蟲不需要電線 連接燃燒燃料的發電站
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.
這兩個例子說明了生物模擬是值得學習的 如果我們能學會大自然的方式 我們可以達到10倍,100倍 甚至是1,000倍的 節約資源和能源 如果我們要有所進步達到永續發展 我認為有三個非常大的變化 是我們需要的 第一,提高基本資源使用效率 第二,把線性的,浪費的, 污染的資源使用方式 轉變成一個封閉的循環模式 第三,從礦物燃料經濟 轉變成太陽能經濟 而對於這三點,我認為 生物模擬提供很多的解決方法是我們需要的
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.
你可以看一下大自然把它當作是樣本 所有的東西都來自於 3.8億年的研究和發展的累積 如果就投資來說,運用這樣的概念是可行的 所以我要談談一些計畫,也探討這些想法 我們從第一點開始談 提高基本資源使用效率 當我們開始執行伊甸園計劃時 我們必須蓋一座非常大的溫室 在一個不僅不規則 而且不斷變化的地方,因為這個地方仍在開採 這是一個地獄般的挑戰 不過它實際上是運用生物學的例子 這提供了很多線索 例如 這參考肥皂泡泡的樣子,規劃出建築物的外觀 不管最後地面高度多高都能做到 研究花粉 和放射蟲類和碳分子 幫助我們做出最有效的結構設計 運用六邊形和五邊形
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.
下一步是我們想要 把六邊形做到最大 要做到這點我們必須用可替代玻璃的材質 不過這材質能夠用的單位面積也相當受限 在自然界中非常多的例子 都能有效用在結構設計上,像是加壓膜技術 因此我們開始探索ETFE這種材料 這是一種高強度聚合物 而我們把它做成三層 把它周圍邊緣焊接起來,然後充氣 這東西最了不起的地方是 它的每一個單位 可以大約是玻璃的七倍大 重量卻只有雙層玻璃的百分之一 所以這算是100倍的節約資源 我們也發現到這帶動起良性循環 新發現又會帶來另一個新發現 在這樣大又輕的支撐下 我們也能減少鋼材的使用 少一點鋼材,陽光就能多一點進來 換句話說,在冬天我們不用儲備太多的熱能 加上在建築上層的整體重量也減少 所以地基的建材也能節省許多 在這項計畫完成的時候,我們發現 上層建築的重量 實際上低於建築物內空氣的重量
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.
我認為伊甸園計劃是個相當好的例子 說明從生物學學到的想法 可以做到提高基本資源使用效率 在提供相同的功能 達到事半功倍的效果 實際上大自然中有非常多這樣的例子 是我們可以找到類似的解決方法 例如我們能蓋出高效能的屋頂結構 參考亞馬遜巨頭睡蓮的樣子 整個建築靈感來自鮑魚殼 超輕量橋樑設計靈感來自於植物細胞 這個既美麗又有效率的世界值得探索 運用大自然當作設計的工具
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.
現在我要說明的如何從線性轉變成封閉式循環 我們使用資源的方式 是我們開採資源 把資源做成生命週期短的產品,然後用完即丟 但大自然的法則不是這樣的 在生態系統裡每一種生物的廢棄物 會轉變成另一種生物的營養來源 還有其他例子 是刻意模仿生態系統 其中一項我最喜歡的是 "從紙板到魚子醬"的計畫 由Graham Wiles所做的 在他們那個地區有非常多商店和餐廳 造成許多食物、紙板和塑膠的廢棄物 這些廢棄物最終都會到垃圾掩埋場 但現在他們比較聰明會另外處理廢紙板 我利用這個動畫跟你們解釋
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.
他們負責從餐廳回收這些紙板 然後把紙板碾碎 賣給了馬術中心用作馬匹休息的墊草 等到這些墊草髒了,他們再負責去回收 接著把這些髒的墊草用來培育蠕蟲 這樣可以繁殖出許多的蠕蟲,這些蠕蟲就拿來餵食西伯利亞鱘魚 鱘魚生產出魚子醬,魚子醬再賣回去給餐廳 這樣的過程就是從線性 轉變成一個封閉式的循環 每一個過程都創造出更多的價值 Graham Wiles不斷加入更多的元素到這個循環 讓廢棄物在這個計劃中創造出價值 就像是自然生態一樣 長期下來能增加多樣性和適應性 這是計劃真正的目的 也就是創造出更多的可能性 而且不斷地增加價值 我知道這是一個奇特的例子 但我認為這是相當有效的影響 因為這實際上 可以讓我們把大的問題變成大的機會
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.
特別在某些城市 要處理垃圾問題 就能運用這樣的概念 這也是我接下來要談的另一個計畫 莫比烏斯(Mobius)計畫 也就是許多的活動 都能在同一棟建築物裡完成 所以每一種廢棄物都能變成原料 我要講的概念是 首先,我們在溫室裡有一間餐廳 這有點像在阿姆斯特丹的De Kas溫室餐廳 然後我們在裡面設了一座無氧消化器 能處理當地所有可生物分解的廢棄物 再轉變成溫室的熱能 和電力回饋到輸電網 我們有汙水處理系統 把廢水變成乾淨的水 從固體產生能量 只利用一些植物和微生物 我們有一個養魚池,用廚房的廚餘當作飼料 還有堆肥裡的蠕蟲 拿這些拿來餵魚,魚再供應給餐廳 還會有一個咖啡廳,不要的咖啡渣 可以做成種植蘑菇的培養土
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.
我們把這些想法結合在一起 成為一個食物、能源、水和廢棄物的循環 這通通發生在同一棟建築物裡 這挺有趣的,我們也針對倫敦市中心一個圓環提出這項計畫 因為這個圓環目前要算是政府的眼中釘 你們有些人可能認得這個地方 運用一點點的規劃 我們可以把一個以交通為主的空間 轉變成可以提供給民眾的開放空間 讓人與食物重新有交集 讓廢棄物可以在封閉式循環中得到不同的處置
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.
我要談的最後一項計畫是 撒哈拉造林工程計畫,這是我們現階段正在努力做的 這可能對在座的某些人來說 聽到這消息有點驚訝,因為這一大片地方目前是沙漠 但事實上這地方在不久之前其實有座森林 例如當凱撒抵達北非的時候 在北非有一大片區域 被雪松和柏樹森林給覆蓋 在地球開始繁衍出生命的時候 土地都被占據 被植物給佔據 這有助於發展出適合居住的良好氣候 反過來也是如此 我們失去越多土地上的植被 越可能加劇氣候變遷 導致進一步的沙漠化 這個動畫顯示了 數年來的光合作用的活動 我們可以看到這些沙漠的範圍 他們變化很大 這引發了一個問題 我們是否能干預沙漠的界線 去限制或是讓沙漠化的土地回復原本的樣子
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.
你看一些生物 可以適應在沙漠生活 在適應缺水問題時也有一些令人驚訝的例子 這是納米比亞的沐霧甲蟲 牠自己演化出可以在沙漠收集淡水的方法 牠的方式是牠在夜間出來活動 爬到沙丘上頭 因為他的粗糙黑色外殼 能夠在夜晚散發熱能 又能比其周圍環境低溫 因此,當海上吹起了潮濕的微風 甲蟲的殼就能讓水滴凝結在上面 在日出前,牠把身體抬高,水就能流進嘴裡 喝一口水,然後躲起來好好休息的一天 如果要說,這是大自然的智慧 更進一步看 如果仔細觀察甲蟲的外殼 外殼上有許多小的突起物 而那些突起物具有親水性,能吸引水 在每個突起物間有像臘一樣的溝槽可以排水 這個作用是 水滴在這些突起物上形成時 水分會緊密而且呈現水珠狀 所以更具流動性 比起甲蟲殼上有一整片的水來的更容易移動 因此即使當空氣中只有少量的水分 它仍然能夠非常有效的獲取水分讓水流到口裡 這是一個在適應上非常驚人的例子 一個資源相當有限的環境 這和我們是非常類似的 我們要面對的挑戰 在未來幾年,或幾十年
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.
我們正與一位發明了海水溫室的人合作 這是一種在乾旱沿海地區做的溫室設計 這運作的方式是裡頭有整座蒸發器架 讓海水滴流過這裡 讓風吹過收集很多的水分 然後在過程中冷卻 所以裡面是涼爽和潮濕的 適合不太需要水的植物生長 在溫室後方 能凝結大量的濕氣轉變為淡水 這個過程實際上是和甲蟲是相同的 而他們蓋的第一座海水溫室 能生產很多的淡水 而且多過裡頭植物所需要的 因此他們開始推廣到附近的土地 結合這一點和濕度升高這兩種條件 讓這個地區有非常大的改變 這張照片是在完工日那天拍的 一年後看起來像這樣 它就像一個綠色的墨漬從建築物擴散出去 讓貧瘠的土地回復到有生命的樣子 也就是說這不僅維持了生態平衡 更達到恢復生機
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.
因此我們希望可以擴大 應用生物模擬的想法把效益最大化 當我們想到的大自然 我們大部分想到的是競爭 但實際上在成熟的生態系統中 你能發現很多例子 都存在共生關係 所以重要的生物模擬的原則 是想辦法把不同的技術結合 做到集體共生 我們看中的技術是 能和海水溫室的概念合作的 太陽能源應用技術 它使用能追蹤太陽能的鏡子集中太陽的熱能 變成電力 我想讓你們對太陽能源應用技術多一點了解 想想看 如果我們每年使用的電有10,000倍來自太陽能 比較來自其他的發電方式 同樣是10,000倍 如果這樣我們的能源問題就不棘手 問題在我們的創造力 我現在要說的綜效是 這兩種技術在高溫陽光充足的地方都能作用 太陽能源應用技術需要去除礦物質的水 而海水溫室能生產這樣的水 太陽能源應用技術則產生大量的熱能 我們可以用來讓大量的海水蒸發 提高恢復效益(restorative benefits) 然後在鏡子下的陰暗處 可以增種各種作物 能避免直接的日照 這會是這個計劃的樣子 我們會在迎風處建造一大片的溫室 還有太陽能發電廠 以固定的間距蓋在這條路上
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.
在座某些人可能想知道我們會如何處理那些鹽分 在生物模擬的概念下,如果你有一項還未被使用的資源 你不會想"我該怎麼把這東西丟掉?" 你反而會想"我該加什麼東西進來創造出更多的價值?" 事實證明 不同的物質在不同的階段會變成結晶 開始蒸餾海水的時候,第一樣被結晶出來的 是碳酸鈣 碳酸鈣會凝聚在蒸發器上 就會像左邊的圖片那樣 逐漸被碳酸鈣給覆蓋 經過一段時間,我們可以把這些取下來 做成輕量的磚塊 如果你問那碳呢? 那是從大氣落到海裡的 碳會凝結在這些建材裡
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.
第二種是氯化鈉 也是可以壓縮做成磚塊 就像這裡 這是玻利維亞的一間酒店 之後還有其他各種 化合物和元素是我們可以提煉出來的 像磷酸鹽,這東西我們可以拿到沙漠施肥 幾乎化學週期表上的所有元素 都能從海水裡獲得 所以是能從海水提煉出有價值的元素 像高性能電池需要的鋰 而在阿拉伯海灣地區 海水裡的鹽份是穩定的在增加 因為有廢鹵水 從海水淡化廠排出 這造成生態系統瀕臨崩潰 現在我們能夠利用的所有的廢鹵水 我們可以蒸餾它 提高恢復效益(restorative benefits) 同時取得鹽巴 把一個急迫的汙染問題變成一的大的機會 撒哈拉造林工程真的是一個很好的例子 說明我們如何能夠創造零碳食品 在地球上一些最缺水地區創造出豐富的可再生能源 同時又能讓某些沙漠化的土地恢復生機
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.
因此,回到那些我在開始時提到大的挑戰 提高基本資源使用效率 封閉式循環和太陽能經濟 這些不只是可行,而且非常重要 我深信研究大自然解決問題的方法 可以提供人類更多的解決之道 但也許更重要的是,思考能帶來 正向的永續發展的設計 太多有關環境的討論 都用負面的言語 但討論應該是有綜效的,豐富的和樂觀的 這是非常重要的
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.
安東尼聖艾修伯理曾說過: “如果你想建立一個船隊 你不是坐下來談木工的工作 你需要讓人的靈魂 對探索遙遠的海岸充滿熱情" 這才是我們要做的,我們一起樂觀點 一起進步 為這令人興奮且前所未有的創新來努力
Thank you.
謝謝各位
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