2022
India becomes the most populous country on Earth
India is now overtaking China to become the most populous country on the planet, with over 1.4 billion people.* The gap between these two countries will begin to widen as China peaks and declines, while India continues to soar ahead. An earlier estimate by the UN had forecast India to reach this point by 2030. However, its population was subsequently found to be growing faster than expected. By 2040, its economy is rivalling both China and the USA* with its population maintaining growth until the 2060s. A major driver of India's prosperity is the rapid expansion of its energy sector. Huge rural areas undergo electrification with solar playing a key role* – now cheaper and more efficient than ever before and even challenging the dominance of coal.* With its plentiful sunlight, India is geographically well placed to capture this energy source* and 100GW are installed by 2022.*
The ITER experimental fusion reactor is switched on
Human-engineered fusion was already demonstrated on a small scale. The problem has been finding ways of scaling it up to commercial levels in an efficient, economical, and environmentally benign way.
ITER – previously known as the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor – aims to be the first project to achieve this. Built in southern France at a cost of €20 billion, it has taken over a decade to construct and is among the largest scientific projects ever undertaken, second only to the International Space Station. This joint research experiment is funded by the US, EU, Japan, Russia, China, India and South Korea.
To demonstrate net fusion power on a large scale, the reactor must simulate the conditions at the Sun's core. For this, it uses a magnetic confinement device called a tokamak. This doughnut-shaped vacuum chamber generates a powerful magnetic field that prevents heat from touching the reactor's walls. Tiny quantities of fuel are injected into and trapped within the chamber. Here they are heated to 100 million degrees, forming a plasma. At such high temperatures, the light atomic nuclei of hydrogen become fused together, creating heavier forms of hydrogen such as deuterium and tritium. This releases neutrons and a huge amount of energy.
Following its operational activation in 2022,* it is hoped that ITER will eventually produce over 500 megawatts of power, in bursts of 400 seconds or more. This compares with 16 MW for the Joint European Torus (JET) in 1997, the previous world record peak fusion power, which lasted only a few seconds.
ITER will require many more years before its reactor has been sufficiently perfected. To generate the sort of continuous levels of power required for commercial operation, it will need a way of holding the plasma in place at the critical densities and temperatures. This will need refinements in the design of the chamber, such as better superconducting magnets and advances in vacuum systems.
However, it could ultimately lead to a revolution in energy. If this project were to succeed, humanity would gain a virtually unlimited supply of clean, green electricity.*
Solar grid parity has been reached in almost 10% of the United States
Grid parity is defined as the point at which renewable energy is equal to, or cheaper than, utility grid electricity – without government subsidies. In the case of solar, although a number of factors are involved, countries with more sunshine tend to achieve this landmark sooner.* In the US, regions such as California and Hawaii were among the first states to reach grid parity.
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From 2010 onwards there was explosive growth of installed solar capacity both in the US* and around the world. Dramatic falls in cost, faster production through automation, new materials and efficiency improvements, concerns over global warming, new financing models and the increasingly competitive market with China and other countries, all helped in boosting the deployment of solar.
The bankruptcy of Solyndra (awarded hundreds of millions of dollars through a federal loan guarantee program) received much coverage in the US media. However, this was less a failure of the industry and more due to the success of competition in driving down prices. Solyndra's panels were made from copper indium gallium selenide – nonsilicon technology. Although this was expensive, it was competitive in 2008 when silicon prices were high. When the cost of silicon fell, so did the price of silicon panels, making Solyndra's technology obsolete.*
The growth trend for solar would continue throughout the 2010s and into the following decade, with prices plummeting still further.* Traditional utility companies were beginning to face enormous competition from inexpensive rooftop solar power, even in northern states like Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan.*
By 2022, almost 10% of the US has reached solar grid parity.* This is helping to mitigate some of the economic damage caused by rising oil prices. By 2030, a nationwide "smart grid" has been established across the country, able to intelligently manage and distribute solar energy to precisely where it is most required.*By the 2040s, even solar from space is commercially feasible* and by mid-century, solar dominates the global energy supply.*
Germany phases out nuclear energy
After the Fukushima disaster in Japan, a number of countries began to reconsider their use of nuclear power. Germany was among the nations to abandon this form of energy altogether. Its government had originally planned to keep plants running until 2036, but this schedule was brought forward. Seven plants which had been temporarily shut down for testing in 2011, and an eighth taken offline for technical problems, would remain closed permanently. The remaining nine plants would be shut down by 2022.
Prior to this phasing out, nuclear power in Germany had produced a quarter of the country's electricity and the industry employed some 30,000 people. The shortfall would be made up by renewables, a temporary increase in coal use* and the cutting of electricity usage by 10 percent through more efficient machinery and buildings.*
Germany's nuclear plants in 2011, showing the zones of radiation in a potential worst-case scenario, as happened with Fukushima. According to this map, large areas of north and south Germany would be made uninhabitable if all plants were to meltdown.
Beijing hosts the Winter Olympics
The 2022 Winter Olympics take place from 4th February to 20th February 2022, in Beijing, China. The elected host city was announced by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in July 2015.* Beijing, along with Almaty in Kazakhstan, had been considered an outsider before the bidding process began. However, many European cities later withdrew for political or financial reasons. Beijing eventually beat Almaty by 44 votes to 40 with a single abstention. It becomes the first city to host both a summer and winter Games, having hosted the summer games in 2008. It is the third consecutive Olympic Games to be held in Asia, following Pyeongchang 2018 and Tokyo 2020. In addition to Beijing itself there is another city, Zhangjiakou – located 118 miles to the north-west, which hosts the snow events. As with Beijing's previous games, there are protesters concerned with the country's human rights record.
Qatar hosts the FIFA World Cup
Qatar is a tiny Persian Gulf nation of just 1.7 million people. It has the second highest GDP per capita in the world, owing to its massive natural gas deposits. It becomes the first country in the Middle East to host the World Cup.
Summers in Qatar can reach 50°C. However, each stadium employs state-of-the-art cooling technology, capable of reducing temperatures by over 20 degrees celsius. The upper tiers can be disassembled after the tournament and donated to countries with less developed sports infrastructure.
One of the stadia includes a 420,000 sq ft media facade, covering almost the whole exterior. This futuristic screen displays news, adverts, tournament information and live matches to viewers outside.*
China's first space station is complete
China's efforts to develop low Earth orbit (LEO) space station capabilities began with a space laboratory phase, consisting of three "Tiangong" space modules launched in 2011, 2013 and 2015, respectively. These were small and experimental modules intended to demonstrate the rendezvous and docking capabilities needed for a much larger space station complex. They were designed for short stays with crews of three.
The larger, modular space station begins to take shape in 2020, using the previous separate components which are arranged as a Core Cabin Module (CCM), Laboratory Cabin Module I (LCM-1) and Module II (LCM-2), a "Shenzhou" crewed vessel and a cargo craft for transporting supplies and lab facilities.
The multiphase construction program is completed by 2022. The complex weighs approximately 60,000 kilograms (130,000 lb) and will support three astronauts for long-term habitation. It has a design lifetime of ten years.*
Credit: Chinese Society of Astronautics
The European Extremely Large Telescope is operational
This revolutionary new telescope is built in Cerro Armazones, Chile, by the European Southern Observatory (ESO), an intergovernmental research organisation supported by fifteen countries. It has the aim of observing the universe in greater detail than even the Hubble Space Telescope.
A mirror of 39 metres (129 ft) will be powerful enough to study the atmospheres of extrasolar planets. It will also perform "stellar archaeology" – measuring the properties of the first stars and galaxies, as well as probing the nature of dark matter and dark energy.
Originally planned for 2018,* the observatory is delayed until 2022 due to financial problems.* The mirror is also reduced in size slightly, having previously been 42m.
The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope begins full operations
Joining the European Extremely Large Telescope this year is another observatory, the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), beginning full operations for a ten-year study.* This wide-field "survey" reflecting telescope is located on the 2,715 m (8,907 ft) Cerro Pachón, a mountain in northern Chile.
The LSST design is unique among large telescopes in having a very wide field of view: 3.5 degrees in diameter or 9.6 square degrees. For comparison, both the Sun and Moon, as seen from the Earth, are 0.5 degrees across or 0.2 square degrees. Combined with its large aperture, this provides it with a spectacularly large collecting power of 319 m²degree². In other words, vast amounts of data can be obtained simultaneously over huge areas of sky.
The observatory has a 3.2 gigapixel camera, taking 200,000 pictures (1.28 petabytes uncompressed) per year, far more than can be reviewed by humans. Managing and effectively data mining this enormous output is among the most technically difficult parts of the project, requiring 100 teraflops of computing power and 15 petabytes of storage. The main scientific goals of the LSST include:
- Measuring weak gravitational lensing in the deep sky to detect signatures of dark energy and dark matter;
- Mapping small objects in the Solar System, particularly near-Earth asteroids and Kuiper belt objects;
- Detecting transient optical events such as novae and supernovae;
- Mapping the Milky Way.
Data from the telescope (up to 30 terabytes per night) is made available by Google as an up-to-date interactive night-sky map.
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