March 26, 2008

U.S. academy studies ‘grand challenges for engineering’

The United States National Academy of Engineering has been conducting a fascinating exercise for the last few months.

With the growing complexities facing the world, the academy has made a stab at identifying the broad areas of what it calls the grand challenges for engineering.

Engineering, the academy says on its Web site, has, throughout human history, driven the advance of civilization.

It mentions the metallurgists who brought an end to the Stone Age, the shipbuilders who united many of the world’s people by enabling travel and trade, the invention of the mechanical clock, the printing press, the means for providing clean water, the development of electrical power and the telephone.

So it appointed a blue-ribbon panel of prominent engineers and scientists, led by former U.S. defence secretary William Perry, to consider the problem, and has recently published a list of the 14 “grand challenges” rooted in four broad areas of human concern: sustainability, health, vulnerability and the sheer joy of living.

Several are linked directly to the construction industry: restoring and improving urban infrastructure, providing everyone with access to clean water, making solar energy economical, and developing methods for carbon sequestration.

Construction Corner

Korky Koroluk

The solar power challenge was listed No. 1, and providing energy from nuclear fusion was No. 2, with carbon sequestration No. 3.

Engineering solutions for solar and fusion power must be both technologically and economically feasible, the panel warned, when compared with the continuing use of fossil fuels — which are likely to remain an important part of the energy mix for many years yet. And carbon dioxide is a significant greenhouse gas, which is why so many people are working on ways to capture it from burning fuel and somehow locking it away underground.

These are challenges that deal with the future itself, the panel warned, because the Earth is a place with finite resources, and its growing population “currently consumes them at a rate that cannot be sustained.”

It might be possible to meet all the challenges listed with the science and technology we already have or which is in the pipeline.

Thus, the panel believes that nuclear fusion, the joining of sub-atomic structures, might one day be possible, even though at present, the notion “stretches the limits of engineering.”

The problems of water quality and quantity will likely involve technologies for both large- and small-scale use.

“New technologies for desalinating sea water may be helpful,” the panel noted, “but small-scale technologies for local water purification may be even more effective for personal needs.”

The academy has developed a special website for the project, where people can leave comments and suggestions. It includes an informative video, and separate articles about each of the challenges.

You’ll find it at www.engineeringchallenges.org.

Most of the challenges have nothing to do with construction, but would be interesting to anyone who likes to solve problems. Health figures in several of them, including the challenge the panel calls reverse-engineering the brain.

The idea is that it might enable us to understand how the brain “performs its magic.” It might also help treat diseases while providing clues for new approaches to artificial intelligence. That, in turn, might make it possible to automate diagnosis and prescriptions for treatment.

It’s a laudable objective, but I confess that when I saw that phrase, reverse-engineering the brain, the first thing I thought of was that it might teach us how politicians’ minds work. But I imagine that’s a project that is beyond any engineer.

Korky Koroluk is an Ottawa-based freelance writer. Send comments to editor@journalofcommerce.com.

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