If you had to guess, which living person would you say has made the single biggest difference to reducing carbon emissions? There are some figures in politics or activism who might come to mind. Al Gore got a Nobel prize for his contribution, though we might want to argue about that. Perhaps we could consider Pope Francis or the action inspired by Greta Thunberg.
Then again, perhaps it isn’t a public figure. Perhaps it’s a diplomat who brokered a pioneering agreement like the Kigali Accord, the most consequential climate treaty that nobody knows about. Or someone who is revolutionising an industry, making batteries cheaper or popularising regenerative agriculture.
The Millennium Technology Prize reckon they’ve identified a candidate: Bantval Jayant Baliga.
Born in India in 1948, Baliga followed his father’s footsteps into electric engineering, studying in India and then in the US. He went on to work for General Electric, and then became a professor at North Carolina State University, where he continues to run research projects. In the early 80s he invented a new kind of transistor called an Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor. General Electric spotted its possibilities immediately and fast-tracked its commercialisation.
IGBTs are now used in a vast range of applications across a wide range of sectors, including solar and wind power projects, and electric and hybrid cars. There will also be IGBTs in your microwave and fridge. Put all the green technology applications together, and it has been estimated that Baliga’s invention has saved 82 gigatons of CO2 across the last 30 years.
Quick reminder: a gigaton is a billion tonnes, and the world currently produces around 37 gigatonnes of CO2 a year. So 82 gigatons would be enough to offset the entire globe’s annual emissions twice over with room to spare.
I’d like to be able to explain IGBTs at this point and why they’ve been so useful, but I don’t really understand it. (Some kind of very clever switch?) Instead, here’s the video from the Millennium Technology Prize on why they’ve given this year’s award to Baliga:
The Earthbound Report 