The topical issues of science and technology. Хрестоматия для студентов-бакалавров направления «Лингвистика»

San Francisco is joining the car-ban efforts by kicking passenger vehicles off its main downtown Market Street. Those efforts will begin next year. (1194)

3. Scooters become boring: If 2018 was the year of the "scooter wars" where some cities banned the two-wheelers and riders abused them, 2020 will be the year where scooters became, well, boring. Ridership of scooters has grown at an unprecedented rate, compared to other forms of transportation, and many cities are starting to embrace them as ways to get residents out of cars and reduce congestion.

In 2020, scooters officially will go mainstream and emerge as an uncontroversial tool to help commuters, tourists and school kids get to where they want to go. People won't complain about scooters, they'll just ride them. Niggling controversy will remain over how cities and scooter companies will share and use data. (717)

4. Matching electric vehicle charging with clean energy: As the electric vehicle industry, and the number of installed EV chargers, grows, it's important for companies to make sure that electric vehicles are being charged with clean electricity. Some early adopters are already starting to do this. Charging company EVgo this year committed to powering 100 percent of its fast charging network with renewable energy.

In an effort to match electric vehicle charging with clean energy in California, automaker BMW has partnered with Straus Organic Dairy Farm to install a methane biodigestor.

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The biodigestor captures methane from the local cow waste, and the methane can be converted into renewable electricity for the power grid. BMW also has a "ChargeForward" pilot program in the San Francisco Bay Area, which enables BMW EV drivers to charge their cars with solar power.

Adam Langton, who works on connected e-mobility for BMW North America, said in an interview that the automaker is exploring if such technologies can scale to enable all drivers of its EVs to charge (indirectly or directly) with clean energy. Expect more efforts like this to emerge from automakers in 2020 as the amount of EVs driving on the roads grows. (1226)

5. Utilities start being proactive on EV charging: U.S. utilities are beginning to take a more proactive approach to deploying, owning and managing electric vehicle infrastructure, and that trend will grow considerably in 2020. As one energy company exec said to me recently, the electricity demand for EVs is one of the biggest market opportunities of the last halfcentury for electric utilities.

The Smart Electric Power Alliance (SEPA) recently put out a report that says that EVs are a big opportunity for utilities to increase customer engagement and "be seen as a champion of positive change." But the coming wave of EVs will require a lot of advance planning and coordination for utilities, including developing new load management tools, new business models, new rate models and strategic collaboration around building out electric fleet depot charging. (861)

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6. The tech company electric commuter shuttle is coming:

While very few tech companies currently use electric commuter shuttles, expect that to start to change in 2020. More electric commuter bus models will be available next year and the pressure is on the tech companies to decarbonize their employee shuttle fleets.

The battery range of these buses has grown considerably over the past couple of years meaning "long haul" commuter trips, like from, say Marin County down to Facebook HQ in Menlo Park (nearly 70 miles), is totally doable on a single charge. (559)

7. E-school buses test out V2G: Electric school buses could be the great big hope for the market called "vehicle-to-grid", or V2G, in 2020. Because electric school buses have large battery packs, and are only used a small percentage of the day (and half the year), they make a great application for a utility to use the mobile batteries as basically stationary storage. They can tap into them during peak demand and avoid turning on, or deploying more, ultra-dirty peaker plants.

Virginia utility Dominion Energy announced this year a plan to deploy up to 1,050 electric school buses on Virginia roads over the next five years. Those buses will be deployed in locations that can provide the best V2G services for the utility. If this program shows some success in 2020 and beyond, it could be one of the first big commercial opportunities for vehicle-to-grid. (858)

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8. Consumers wake up to the environmental downside of instant delivery: The carbon emissions associated with shipping goods purchased online is growing rapidly, mainly due to the growing use of diesel-powered trucks to move goods quickly to and within cities. And many of us are actually starting to become a lot more concerned about it.

The Environmental Defense Fund recently launched a campaign to get signatures from concerned citizens about the emissions and air pollution from the rapid delivery of e- commerce. Next year they plan to use their findings to push retailers to tap into electric delivery truck fleets. Some retailers are working early on this issue, such as Etsy and IKEA. The issue is also gaining momentum because it's a local one: idling delivery trucks contribute considerably to local air pollution, much of it in disadvantaged communities near distribution hubs. (886)

9. Electric fleets go toward open standards: With fleet electrification about to boom, companies are strategically planning large charging depots that can charge dozens, or even hundreds of heavy-duty vehicles. In the early days of this market, some automakers and vendors have been pushing their own proprietary charging gear, which essentially locks a fleet into using only their equipment.

But as the market matures, the bigger energy players that sell charging gear are pushing for open standards and educating fleet managers on why open standards are important. If charging depots use open standards from the beginning they

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can have a much greater range of options for services and hardware and older assets have a smaller chance of getting stranded. A lot of these lessons come from the open standards work of digital communications networks, and open smart grid standards. (878)

10. Here come the urban e-cargo bikes:A fun sub-trend of decarbonizing delivery is the e-cargo bike. Cities such as New York City are giving incentives for delivery companies such as Amazon and UPS to deploy large numbers of e-cargo bikes that can drive in bike lanes and up onto sidewalks for deliveries. E- cargo bikes are great because they're not only battery-powered, but they also reduce congestion by removing big trucks from the roads. And they just make in tight urban neighborhoods where delivery trucks block lanes and cause major traffic. (550) (10640)

"GreenBiz.Com"

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