Credit: Emrah Elmasli

Related articles

• Green fallout from nuclear report
• Failure on climate will "haunt humanity"
• Factfile: The evidence for climate change
• Australia commits to modest emissions cuts
• Great Barrier Reef under serious threat

Robot dawn

FLOOR SWEEPING, dusting, window cleaning, picking up after the kids, sorting the laundry, folding clothes, ironing, tidying the house: such activities are the banes of our lives. Yet if engineers are right, by 2020, we may be able to forget such chores, thanks to the development of domestic robots.

"We already have grass-cutting robots the public have happily accepted scuttling around their gardens," says robotics expert Gordon Wyeth of Brisbane's University of Queensland. "Now robots able to walk and balance on two legs are becoming commonplace in laboratories, and computing power is constantly rising while costs fall."

As a result, home robots will be the next consumer 'must have' by 2020 when they will have become as ubiquitous as personal computers today. They will be smart, ready to attack their tasks out of the box and will team with humans and other smart robots.

"I am betting most home robots will end up being named and treated like pets of sorts," adds Wyeth. "It will create a whole new industry where major players will reap the rewards just as Microsoft has done with personal computers."

Smart dressing

ROBOTS WILL not have it all their own way, however. Indeed, they can expect to face considerable technological competition in the home, thanks to developments in materials science and nanotechnology. At the University of New South Wales in Sydney, for example, researchers – led by Rose Amal and Michael Brungs – are developing self-cleaning surfaces for use in hospitals as well as domestic kitchens and bathrooms. These surfaces will be coated with particles that absorb ultraviolet light at a particular wavelength, exciting electrons and giving the particles an oxidising quality stronger than any commercial bleach. The surfaces will also be designed so that droplets cannot form on them – water will run off, washing as it goes.

In addition, scientists are working on materials that will not only change our homes but will transform the way we dress through the creation of 'intelligent clothes'. Special fabrics, fitted with monitors, will study our health throughout the day, while we sleep, work and exercise. For example, at the University of Wollongong, south of Sydney, researchers have created a fabric that emits a groaning sound to warn sportsmen and women if they are stretching or moving in ways that could harm them.

Another concept being developed by scientists involves embedding clothes with mobile phone chips. "The idea is that if you get injured out hill-walking or skiing, sensors will detect physiological and temperature changes to your body," says Jane McCann of Derby University in England. "The garment will alert the mobile phone chip to call the nearest hospital."

Energy diversity

JUST HOW we power the technology that will be offered in 2020 depends on the world's response to the threat of atmospheric warming. If global agreements are reached soon over carbon emissions, major changes in power production should have begun to make an impact on life across the planet. New-generation nuclear plants, based on pressurised water reactors perfected by the French, Germans and Americans – along with wind, water and tidal power generators being developed across the globe – will spring up across the landscape and power our homes. Or perhaps thorium-based nuclear reactors – generating power while burning up old nuclear waste – might have been perfected by then and be operational (see Cosmos, Issue 8, p40).

"Energy systems will be a lot more diverse," says the CSIRO's Graeme Pearman. "Wind, wave and solar energy will become a lot more important. Similarly, cars will emit far less carbon dioxide: either we will drive the new generation of highly efficient diesel cars that are being developed, or hybrids that use a mix of electric power and petrol. However, cars running on fuel cells and hydrogen will not yet be upon us. As for four-wheel drives – we will hardly see them any more."

The consequence of greater energy diversification, and the fragmentation of habitats triggered by global warming, will also produce major changes in the manner and places in which we live. "In 2020, we will be witnessing the fragmentation of society," says James Lovelock. "Individual regions, never mind countries, will be compelled to depend on their own resources. We can expect a future not necessarily of misery but of privation and austerity."

Readers' comments