Geo-engineering: or, how I learned to stop worrying and love the space mirror

It's amazing what engineers and scientists and other bright minds will come up with if they really have to. Often technology thrives when crisis erupts, wars have often been cited as pushers of technology and innovation.
Geo-Engineering against global warming is a very interesting feat of human kind and it does spruce up the mind and gives interesting and mind-blowing ideas. Here are some examples:

1. The Space Mirror! This is one of the most famous ones, of course. If you could just take a mirror big enough to reflect some of the sun's rays, we could get some global cooling! (Maybe a big white material instead of a mirror or a cloud-creating machine would do.)

2. Fertilise the ocean! Another one would be to fertilise the ocean by putting in some iron in a part of the sea that is lacking CO2-consuming planktons (and according to theory this lack of iron is the reason why the planktons don't exist) or how oceanographer John Martin said it with his Dr. Strangelove-accent: “Give me a half-tanker of iron, and I will give you an ice age.”

3. Storing CO2! Another would be to capture and store some CO2, this technology is currently being developed and implementation is currently on the way. Everyone's trying to become the first implementor.

These are just some of the ideas, but they can mostly be grouped into two categories: Keeping things out (e.g. sunlight) or hiding them where no one sees them (e.g. CO2 storing). One is a game with dice, the other a ticking time bomb. Feel free to choose which one is which.


One-time quick-fix vs. a sustainable growth solution
It does seem that we are looking for the easy way out - a one-time quick fix. If you had to choose a source of energy, what would be its characteristics? Available everywhere, de-centralised, no pollution at all, short investment payback time, you can use it for an indefinite amount of time, no harm to the environment? We have that! Solar energy! Wind power! Water! Of course the effects on the environment are debatable (especially wind power and water), but it's much less harming than coal or oil and it's less of a russian roulette than geo-engineering.

"I’d put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don’t have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that."

It sounds like the words of an environmentally-conscious venture capitalist from a few years ago. But in fact these are the words are from Thomas Edison in 1931!

Mr. Branson and the Climate
Even though many of these ideas might not be sustainable (or to say the least freakishly dangerous) they might offer a short-term quick solution until we get things in order. Even Virgin boss Richard Branson wants part of the action by offering the Earth Challenge Prize for 25 million USD to whoever finds a technology that reduces 1 billion tonnes of CO2 per year (to compare, in 2004 the US emitted about 5,8 billion tonnes, China's emissions were 4,7 billion tonnes). Even Leo DiCaprio, Cameron Diaz, George Clooney are putting their bit for the environment.

Planet B? I hope not
My only hope is that until we find the consciousness and technology to sustain a healthy life on earth we don't invent technology that can make life on another planet liveable. Why? Why would (probably the wealthiest) people living on Planet B care about earth? As long as we only have this one planet, we're all in this together. For better or for worse.



Further reading and references:

• Five ways to save the World (60 minute BBC documentary available on Google Video)
• How earth scale engineering can save the planet (Popular Science, 06/2005)
• US answer to global warming: smoke and giant space mirrors (Guardian, 01/2007)
• Current Thinking (New York Times article on Thomas Edison, free registration required)
  

It's the inside that counts - A Tesla vs Goliath story

Isn't it beautiful? Intuitively you would say it's a gasoline burning, 0-100 km/h in 5 seconds CO2-monster. Others, who know it already, may have recognised that this is the electric car from Tesla Motors.

The great thing about it is, that you don't need to pay off in performance what you make up in environmental costs. It drives 0-100 km/h in about 4 seconds, charges in several hours, no emissions, which means no emissions tests, really quiet and nice to look at. Oh wait, there's the maintenance thing that might put you off buying it: You have to check the brakes and tires within the first 150,000 kms (<- sarcasm). One of the facts about this car that especially pleases me is that it's not built by a big car manufacturer. Not for the reason that "car companies are bad" (I personally like Toyota a lot), but if you've seen the movie "Who killed the electric car?" you'll see that big car companies actually had a head start and for some reason - killed off the project. Many companies had an EV (electric vehicle) version of their cars - they were up and running, people loved them. Until collectively they just faded away, the companies took the cars back. Money was rather spent on research of the still very inefficient and expensive fuel cells. We don't expect a mass production of these cars any time soon. Now with Tesla Motors bringing out this electric car, it might have a chance again. The gouvernator of California already has one, so do many more celebrities. Since this is Tesla Motors' only product, it's a relief to know that they won't kill the project for reasons only Scully and Mulder can think of. News clip on Tesla Motors Car

"Who killed the electric car?" trailer

• "Who killed the electric car?" website (sony)
• Condi Rice and Aussi minister ride a Tesla (autobloggreen)
  

How CO2 is stealing the show

News about climate change is increasing. And more and more the focus is set on the big bad Greenhouse Gas called Carbon Dioxide, also known as CO2. The focus of many studies is how we can reduce CO2 emissions, be it through more efficient technology, by consuming less, by driving less and so on. Study after study are confirming: Yes, CO2 actually IS bad.

Maybe because CO2 is so specific and is (relatively) easy to explain we read about it in the newspapers. Some companies are betting on nuclear energy because it is almost CO2-free. CSS is an up-and-coming technology that stores the CO2 emitted by coal power plants. Some are putting their money on nuclear fusion, e.g. the international ITER project costs 5 billion Euro for construction and another 5 billion Euro to keep up and running. All noteworthy, but what happens when we have found a source of CO2-free energy? Are all our problems solved? Not quite.

One of the main reasons we start to care about CO2 is - selfishly - because our winters are getting warmer and oil is getting more expensive. It sort of initiated this green wave, which I hope lasts quite a bit. What happens when oil prices drop dramatically and we have a cold winter (which is possible for a short term), is global warming put into the book shelve next to Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth", picking up dust?


The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
What about biodiversity? What about the poor people especially in the third world most affected by nature's changes? What about overfishing? It is quite a shame that while the UN-backed IPCC (Climate Change Report published in 2007) report got as much notice as a Take That Reunion Tour the findings of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment from 2005 is comparable to the Spice Girls (something's happening, but no one really cares).

Similar to the IPCC report the Ecosystem Assessment is UN-backed, more than 1,000 scientists worked on it for a period of about 4-5 years. Even the structure is based on the IPCC report (and might I add, the design and layout of the Ecosystem report is quite much better). The board of members included renowned scientists, leaders and several nobel prize winners. And some of the scenarios were just as horrifying but not that many people took notice.

(The first image is a statistic on cod fishing in Newfoundland)

Mixing Engineering with Sustainability: A good idea?

Why should engineers even care about sustainability? Because they have a lot of power (no pun intended).

If you look at the inventions of the past 300 years, it is obvious that engineers often are the catalysts of something big. Let's take the steam engine, it was the key "enabling technology" for the industrial revolution. And things started getting really fast from then on. Without trains I wouldn't be able to go to work. Without airplanes I probably would take weeks or months to visit my parents in Asia (they probably wouldn't have met). Without computer chips I wouldn't be writing this blog. Without cell phones I wouldn't be annoyed by the 16-year-olds in the trains who can't get enough of listening to Justin Timberlake on their 1-inch screen with crappy sound quality (we're very, very sorry for that invention... really).

Now on to nuclear technology. Most people will associate it with something bad directly, and almost everyone will have a strong opinion. But nuclear energy is a great example of how one type of technology can be used and misused. Many will think of the atomic bomb. Some will think of nuclear energy. But did you know that you can use nuclear energy for fighting malaria? Did you know that the gamma radiography is a method of using nuclear technology for quality control? Among others, J. Neirynck, a french engineer, wrote in his (a bit provocative) book that there is no good or bad technology, it's how you apply the technology (the book's translation to english would be "The Divine Engineer").

Whereas nuclear technology was a somewhat "focused" problem, today the challenges faced by engineers are getting more complex and interconnected. One good example is climate change, where it's not just "cars are the problem" or "your house is using energy so inefficiently", but it's a whole list of things that need to be done. And while for decades nuclear energy and bombs have been the deciding factor in the DoomsDay Clock, for the first time environmental degradation moved the clock's time closer to midnight; 5 minutes to 12 to be exact (the symbolic meaning of midnight being, uhm, how do you call it, uhm... oh, yeah: THE END OF THE WORLD!!).



So, with the world being at a state as it is, it seems now more than ever we need responsible engineers. So, to paraphrase from the inspiring new economics foundation (creator of the "Happy Planet Index"), we need "engineering as if people and the planet mattered".


Follow-up and References:

• Book "Der Göttliche Ingenieur" (german, amazon.de)

Why Sustainability and Engineering

Welcome to the new Sustainability and Engineering Blog! Why does it even exist? Do we really need it? And do engineering geeks really need to know about sustainability?

Short background story
I changed the department at my university and am now studying electrical engineering in Cologne, Germany. As luck would have it, there's a sustainability workgroup at my new university campus and a lecture series on sustainability organised by them. I shared my interest with them and soon I was joining the discussions in the group. The only sad thing: Of about 10 members, I was the only student! At a university, where young fledglings are supposed to learn about their surroundings, think about society and their place in it, in the country of thinkers and poets ("Land der Denker und Dichter" - a german expression) at a university of about 15,000 students, there was one student (including me). The other members are professors and other faculty.

Oh, well, as I am part of several sustainability groups outside the university, I do see some motivated students, but I saw a big gap for engineers and engineering students. Why is that? I can't tell for sure, I hope this blog can contribute to solve a part of the question. Or maybe even prove the question wrong.

I will post on sustainability-related, engineering-related and sustainable-engineering related stuff here, be it some cool new product, maybe a comment on an interesting news story, something philosophical or experimental, or even provocative :-). Whatever should come my way.

More on dwrntb (= "do we really need this blog") in the next post :-).