Urban Design, Mining, and Space are three industries critical to addressing climate change.
Urban Design: Addressing the needs of a growing population more sustainably is not just an academic pursuit. Leading architects and urban planners are working with NEOM to make our cities sustainable and economically viable. The learnings from our pioneering work are already impacting the global urban design and architecture industry.
Mining: Minerals are critical in the production of the electrical vehicles and systems we will increasingly depend on to combat climate change. While the mining industry itself is making efforts to become more sustainable, there are areas in which others can help. For example, NEOM has a leading hub for green manufacturing and logistics called OXAGON. From air pollution to wastewater management – across the entire life cycle – how do we minimize waste with as close to zero environmental impact as possible? Leveraging robotics, quantum gravity, and other new solutions will provide insightful learnings that could aid industries like mining.
Space: One of our key focus areas is applying learning from space and space technologies to improve how we live on Earth. For example, space-based power has been around for decades. But we now believe the convergence of technologies and resources is such that the economic and technical models are viable to make this work at scale. However, the space launch industry has some major challenges to overcome – rocket propellant today is a combination of fuel and oxidizers, fuel being the main pollutant component. As the number of space launches increases the impact of these pollutants on climate change will also increase.
Green hydrogen and other types of green fuels could eventually replace the fuels used in the space industry today. We can make a difference in this industry by developing sustainable rocket propellants as a replacement – at NEOM we are already actively working on mapping out the roadmap to sustainable space fuels.
At NEOM, we are leveraging our knowledge and our investments to develop new sustainable solutions that could be used to green many industries. We are using our Living Lab to find new ways of accelerating human progress by addressing our biggest challenges.
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