Future Worlds

To electrify or not to electrify. That is the question. It’s undeniable that greenhouse gas emissions, from road vehicles, contributes significantly to climate change and reduced air quality. Electric vehicles have been touted as our saving grace yet the expected mass market uptake and not been realised. This talk will explore the journey of the electric vehicle, from initial conception, to current market status and explore where the technology is heading. Are we all doomed, or is there yet a saving grace?

Every star we can see in the night sky is likely to be orbited by planets. There are probably a hundred billion planets in our galaxy alone. In only 20 years, we have discovered almost 2000 “exoplanets” in distant solar systems, and spotted many thousand more objects that may turn out to be alien worlds. But for all except a handful, we know only three things: where they are, how big they are and how close they are to their sun. What about the interesting things: What’s the weather like? How have they evolved? Are there gases in the atmospheres that are the tell-tale markers of life?