Heat is on for an engineered future
18 February 2008
A group of extremely clever people recently got together and decided what problems needed to be solved to improve mankind’s lot over the next 50 years. They came up with a list of 14 main headlines but there was one that, for me, shone far brighter than the others - harnessing solar energy.
The list was compiled by a team of 18 people who despite being called ‘futurologists’ also had proper jobs leading the world in technology, science, engineering and academia. They were assembled by US National Academy of Engineering (NAE) who presented its report on Friday 15 February to the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
I thought the list these people came up with was fascinating and probably was a fairly complete summary of what fairly well-to-do people in the developed world are worried about. On the health side they wanted to reverse-engineer the brain, partly to find out how diseases work and partly so that progress could be made in artificial intelligence. More patient information was another one – even though many people are already concerned about the amount of central data that is held on them. And better medicines need to be developed that can be tailored to suit the needs of the individual – even though what would really make a difference to the world is to have cheap and effective drugs that can tackle problems like AIDs on a grand scale in third world countries.
Just to go off track completely for a short while, I was told recently of a family friend whose decaying health was resulting in her taking 29 pills every day. All of these were to treat symptoms, some symptoms caused by the medicines that she was taking to treat other symptoms. Which sends up a warning sign to me that this is not working. If I had been lucky enough to be the 19th member of the NAE team, maybe as the token idiot to make everyone else feel even more intelligent, then I would have suggested that the end game in medical treatment for the human race could have a more holistic nature, as believed by some of the more ancient and spiritual cultures, rather than the ‘if there is a problem, throw chemicals at it’ approach we seem to have today. I really am not a tree-hugging, all-you-need-is-love, type of guy, but I do think that some more radical thought could be given to our medical objectives.
But apart from the medical issues, so many of the other 14 key topics could be resolved, partially at least, by solving the BIG one. Where does the power come from? There are principally two suggestions – nuclear fusion and solar energy, and for me it is the latter that always seems the obvious, ultimate solution. That huge ball of energy that cannot be tapped for widespread commercial use. It must be very frustrating for the scientists, because if you solve that one, so many of the other big problems fall into place.
Lack of good clean water, for example. There is no shortage of water of the brackish variety, it just takes energy to process it into a useable format. Prevent terrorism is another on the NAE list. If there was limitless energy, would there really be such a big threat of terrorism? I don’t think so – countries would be far more inclined to keep themselves to themselves if there were no natural resources at stake ( I am aware at what a huge generalisation this is). Managing the nitrogen cycle and developing carbon sequestration methods are two more NAE priorities that would become, in the long term, of minimal importance if there was a cheap supply of limitless fuel.
Using solar energy is obviously not an idea or technology that is in its infancy. Recent progress in photovoltaics have made further applications viable and as a manufacturing industry it uses many of the same techniques used in electronics manufacturing, and therefore becomes a sub-set of it. It is a subject that we will cover in more detail in the future. In fact we have a news story this week about the progress that one company is making in this respect
‘DEK’s Solar Strategy .
But while the ‘killer app’ is most definitely there, the ‘killer tech (nology)’ isn’t there yet to make solar power the complete energy solution. When it does, peace and harmony will reign, and we would never need to worry about energy again – at least until the sun burns out and our solar system became a non-solar system, but at that stage it is probably time for the human race to throw in the towel.
Anyone interested in visiting the ‘Grand Challenges for Engineering’ (to give the project its full name) web site then click here .
Contact Details and Archive...
Most Viewed Articles...