Energy

Often there are areas on the outskirts of a country where emergency response is rudimentary, located far from major cities and where critical infrastructure is vulnerable to these types of events. This is first and foremost untenable/indefensible for the citizens; however, authorities with emergency management responsibility need new methods in order to support the communities in their own efforts to build capacity, since the fire and rescue services do not necessarily have the capacity to carry out search and rescue operations as they are expected to in the future. One of the many challenges, besides the violent and devastating events themselves, is that the areas can also be threatened with relocation if the locals are unable to cope with the rising threats of climate change – this is critical for the Nordic societies in general.

The success of the rechargeable Li-ion battery is apparent to everyone, as most people in the Western world own at least one device powered by this technology. Now, this battery type is on the verge of becoming even more relevant with the transition from vehicles using a combustion engine to the more environmentally friendly battery-driven vehicles.

Fossil resources such as oil, gas, and coal are depleting, which implies that alternative technologies have to be developed to satisfy the demand of Nordic societies for fuels as well as for the thousands of products made out of oil, such as plastics, pharmaceuticals, and paints. In analogy to photosynthetic processes in nature, CO2 can be employed as an alternative carbon source in chemical, pharmaceutical, and energy-related industries to synthesize essential substances. CO2 is a sustainable and cheap raw material, but the development of chemical processes for efficient and selective conversion of CO2 to desired products is a major challenge.