Smart Europe (Volume 4)

Jeremy Rifkin

• Publisher: European Investment Bank
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9789286142772
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Finance
• Index: Business

A green digital economy could change the future of the Old Continent. The new Smart Europe will be based on three elements: new communication technologies, new sources of energy and new modes of mobility. But the transition will require a transformation of the continental infrastructure. Digitalisation, the Internet and renewables will play a major role in the so-called Third and Fourth Industrial Revolutions: sensors embedded in devices will allow an immediate connection between humans and machines, providing updated data and information. Big Data and analytics, used to develop algorithms, will be able to increase productivity, address climate change and diminish the cost of goods and services. Sun, wind and renewable energies will make advanced economies less dependent on fossil fuel and nuclear power, boosting the development of sustainable economic models. Over the last few years, Jeremy Rifkin, advisor to the European Union and main architect of the Third Industrial Revolution long-term economic stability plan, has been promoting the importance of this approach, enabling collaboration in "vast virtual and physical global networks to create a more ecologically sustainable and equitable quality of life". This is the fourth essay in the Big Ideas series created by the European Investment Bank. The EIB has invited international thought leaders to write about the most important issues of the day. These essays are a reminder that we need new thinking to protect the environment, promote equality and improve people's lives around the globe.

THE THREE INTERNETS

In the 19th Century, steam-powered printing and the telegraph, coal and locomotives gave rise to the First Industrial Revolution. In the 20th Century, electricity, the telephone, radio and television, cheap oil, and internal combustion vehicles led to the Second Industrial Revolution. Today, the European Union is facing a Third Industrial Revolution based on the convergence of three significant technologies – a digitalised Communication Internet, a digitalised Renewable Energy Internet, and a digitalised Automated Mobility Internet – which is transforming the way European regions manage, power, and move economic activity.

These three Internets ride atop an Internet of Things infrastructure that will reconfigure the way the continent manages, powers, and moves economic activity in the 21st Century. In the Internet of Things era, sensors will be embedded into every device and appliance, allowing them to communicate with each other and with Internet users, providing up-to-the-moment data on the managing, powering, and moving of economic activity. Currently, 14 billion sensors are attached to warehouses, road systems, factory production lines, the electricity transmission grid, offices, homes, stores, and vehicles. These sensors continually feed Big Data into the Communication Internet, Energy Internet and Mobility Internet. By 2030, it is estimated there will be more than 100 trillion sensors collecting and transmitting data.

Today, private enterprises and government agencies can use Big Data and analytics to develop algorithms that increase productivity, address climate change and dramatically lower the cost of producing, distributing, consuming, and recycling goods and services. This makes European businesses more competitive and will fundamentally change the way we manage economic activity in the global economy. The marginal cost of some goods and services in a Smart Europe will even appr...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Big Ideas
• Smart Europe
• The Three Internets
• Here Comes the Sun
• Power to the People
• Biography
• Copyright