Amid calls from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and other groups for 2050 greenhouse gas emissions to be 80 per cent below 2005 levels, it is little wonder that clean technology has become such a hot career prospect for engineers.
'There's no way to believe this is just a fad,' says Kevin Yu, Asia Pacific director for electric car firm Tesla Motors. 'Not if you believe oil prices will continue to go up, not if you believe the technology will only continue to get better.'
Asia Pacific will be the growth engine for clean technology, according to Ngan Chi-cheung, director of CLP Research Institute. He sees Asia as the commercial proving ground for many innovations. 'There is a lot of activity, a lot of investment,' he says. 'To turn ideas and innovations into commercial deployment is a very long process, and I think Asia Pacific plays a very important role in helping to commercialise this new technology.'
But the very phrase 'clean tech' irks Tesla's Yu. 'Typically, when you talk about clean tech, it's usually a trade-off between performance and cost. But clean tech cannot be charity tech - it's got to be technology that delivers value people want to buy,' he says.
'Personally, I don't see clean tech as an industry on its own,' says Japan-based Yu, visiting Hong Kong for the HKTDC's 6th annual Eco-Expo. 'I see it as an extension of the energy industry, an extension of the automotive industry, it's just the next generation of energy whether its wood, coal, oil or solar.'
Wu's sentiment is echoed by Yee Tak-chow, Hongkong Electric's general manager for corporate development. 'Clean energy has long been adopted by our ancestors, but somehow gradually disappeared or was ignored in modern life,' he says. 'Many of these were actually built on traditional engineering principles.'
According to Hong Kong-based Jari Vepsalainen, director of The Switch, a wind turbine component firm with manufacturing facilities in China and Finland, there is a huge need for all types of engineers to develop and implement clean tech in Asia. Talent is sought in mechanical engineering, electrical and electronic engineering and, crucially, in after-sales support, supply chain management and quality control, he says.
