The Big Green Apple

New York has been making headlines lately by announcing its steps to make the city greener.

Just a few weeks ago it announced that by 2012 it wants to make its cab driving greener by using hybrid taxis. Though taxis still create emissions (as opposed to electric cars like the Tesla) hybrid cabs are an ideal choice for New Yorkers. The traffic in New York is very dense which means they have to "stop and go" all the time, re-charging the batteries every time they break and using it when they drive.

The Master Plan - PlanNYC 2030
This is all part of a Master Plan for greening New York by the year 2030 (I'm amazed a city will plan for that long!). They even have a nicely designed website and a 158-page report to go with it. Here are some of the interesting measures that are part of "The Plan":

• Energy: Create the New York City Efficiency Authority (NYCEEA) responsible for reaching the city's demand reduction targets
• Transportation: Increase Capacity on key congested routes - Seek to fund five projects that eliminate capacity constraints
• Water: Encourage the installation of green roofs through a new incentive program (I don't know why this was put under "water")
• Air: Waive New York City's sales tax on the cleanest, most efficient vehicles
• Air: Partner with stakeholders to help plant one million trees by 2017
• Land/Open Space: Fulfill the potential of at least one major undeveloped park site in every borough
• Transportation: Complete the City's 1,800-mile bike master plan
• Transportation: Seek to use pricing to manage traffic in the Central Business District (CBD)

These are very ambitious goals for greening New York. The question is, whether they will achieve these. But with a good plan in place and a motivated mayor it's possible. But with 23 years to go in the plan, we have to wait and see.

But they're off to a good start. According to the SustainLane rankings (which ranks US cities' urban sustainability) New York is already in 6th place, just behind Oakland and before Boston with Portland leading the race. (article continues)

Mayor Bloomberg interviewed on green cabs



London Calling
London is another big city that is working on its green image. London's mayor Ken Livingstone has introduced a congestion charge of 25 pounds (about 50 dollars) for every day you drive in Central London. It's that high because it has to "hurt". And this actually only effects about 5% of the drivers.
People who live in Central London and who own a "gas-guzzler" will have to pay an additional annual fee with which you can buy a small car - 6000 pounds. (article continues)

Listen to London's Mayor Ken Livingstone being interviewed


Even Abu Dhabi is working on creating an almost zero-carbon, zero-waste city extension by 2009. It would be nice in the future to see a big city in one of the emerging countries like China or India to push towards greenery. Though China have set many new regulations, implementation by the local and regional government is still lacking.

It's very encouraging to see London's and New York's plans in place. The cities' high visibility and popularity will make them a role model for other cities who wish to become greener.

Is the society ready for robots?

In one of Isaac Asimov’s books a couple of humans built a robot to live in a space station and autonomously take care of that station without human intervention. The robot parts were shipped to the space station, and these human engineers on board built it to a fully functional robot. Maybe too functional, the intelligent robot turned against the two workers and it decided to take them hostage. The men tried everything to convince the robot that they built it, but the robot didn’t believe them, because a ”lesser” being can’t create something more advanced than itself. The robot explained : ”The Master created humans first as the lowest type, most easily formed. Gradually, he replaced them by robots, the next higher step, and finally he created me, to take the place of the last humans. From now on, I serve the Master.” The men tried everything in their power to convince QT-1, the robot, that it was human-built, but to no avail. I mean, would you believe that some apes created you?

That first paragraph was actually the beginning of an article I wrote about 4 years ago when I was still working as an assistant in (A.I.) robotics research. Even though that scenario is quite far away from becoming true, many people do fear a scenario where autonomous robots would take over the world. Is that possible? Is it ethical?

Robots and Ethics
Can robots be programmed to be ethical? The United States plans to replace a third of its armed vehicles and weaponry with robots by 2015. According to Ron Arkin of the Georgia Institute of Technology, they want to achieve this by implanting an "ethics chip" in the brain to create an artificial conscience. This will make it kill less innocent civilians. Is this a good thing?

Isaac Asimov, who wrote many interesting and thought-provoking robot novels, also had an idea of 3 robot laws (a 0th one was added later) that should stand above all and should be implemented in every robot, in order to keep the robots from killing humans or humans as a species.


Robot Developments
Japan is doing big steps towards humanoid autonomous robots. They're especially advancing in creating artificial emotions and robot mimicry. In the US they are working intensively on making robots learn - this means that robots will be "dumb" in the beginning - e.g. they will stumble a lot or do little to make it act like a human. But after a certain time it will have acquired new skills either through making many mistakes and then learning from them or also by mimicking behaviour.

But there's also the normal industrial robot. Usually industrial robots will create cars or other objects. There's a factory in Japan that has industrial robots that builds further industrial robots just like itself. Isn't that - in a sense - already reproduction?

Is this something that we want? It's hard to distuingish between "those scary robots that will hurt us" and "my robot that helps me with a lot of things around the house". There are many vacuum-cleaners that are intelligently cleaning your carpet already. In a next step it could turn into a butler. And one after that it could be a personal assistant. What if it accidentally hits while walking across the room while trying to get you some cookies? Is this a bad thing the robot did?

We can also use robotic development in order to use them for a really good cause. For example, intelligent robots could better find and rescue humans from a collapsed building. With their super-strength and exact sensors they can find humans under rubble and lift obstacles.

So when do you distuingish between good and bad when creating intelligent robots? It's a fine line, but I hope that the engineers working on these robots think about the long-term effects of every step in the development stage when creating an intelligent robot.

Further reading/watching and references:

• I, Robot (book by Isaac Asimov - don't let Will Smith on the cover fool you, the story in the book is actually quite old)
  
• I, Robot (movie with Will Smith, 2004)
• MIT's Kismet robot
• RoboCup - football-playing robots
  

Educating geeks with a business sense

Yossi Sheffi, a professor at MIT, makes clear that engineering students need to do much more than engineering to succeed in the 21st century.

The kind of engineer who can succeed and lead in this global market -- one that is increasingly fed by graduates of schools in China and India, notes Sheffi – may no longer be the type educated at MIT. The Institute is top-rated, but is mired in an approach “fit for mid-20th century manufacturing-based society,” and is now “resting on past laurels.” Yet, why change, Sheffi ponders. “We are #1. Rah rah.” But look at MIT’s School of Engineering “among friends,” he suggests, and you must admit there’s “significant calcification, duplication and conservatism.” He finds multiple fluid mechanics and thermodynamics courses among the various departments. “How many courses have ‘control’ in their name? 228!” Students are a key barometer of this stodginess, says Sheffi. There’s been a 20% decline in engineering graduates in the last eight years.

It's quite amazing (and to some extent a relief!) to see that even the best engineering schools will find big errors in their type of education. Further he suggests

... a School of Engineering-wide undergraduate program, where all the fundamentals courses are rethought and taught differently. This means sacrificing problem sets for case studies, and “learning how a subject fits into the grand scheme of things.” MIT should integrate humanities with engineering subjects, ensuring undergraduates understand business, ethics, legal language, environmental concerns, organization and process design. There should also be a formal leadership workshop, required time in a foreign culture and along the lines of the European Union, a five-year educational model. If MIT builds it, others will follow, assures Sheffi.

Before I changed departments at my university in my first year of study (electrical engineering) additionally to the "regular courses" we also had basics of mechanical engineering, physics, business and english as a foreign language. And even in the second part of the undergraduate study we had engineering ethics, project management, communication/leadership as compulsory courses. It was a good concept, but I still have recommendations to make.

Extracurricular activity
During my time working at an international student organisation (in my case, AIESEC), I learnt much more than I could have studying about project management at university. I learned about pressure, about failing, about dealing with mistakes - and about success, about determination and about teamwork. Much more than in a pseudo-teamwork environment set at university.

I was in the executive board for a year, and we had several occasions where we had to work intensively as a team, e.g. we were going to get kicked out of the office - we searched long and hard, looked for free spaces, asked around in our networks - and a few weeks before getting kicked out we got a really good office space - making our office one of the best from the 50 or so chapters in Germany. That's just not something you learn at university.

I am now active in the Sustainability Group at my university - unfortunately I am the only student there. We have about 10 members, many of them professors (by the way, GREAT place to network when you're the only student). But being member of some more sustainability groups and initiatives, I get a better feeling of real world problems.

Will this be on the exam or can I forget about it after class?
A professor once lectured on control engineering and made a short explanation on the real-world implementation of controls. He had worked for a medical company which developed testing equipment and he had demonstrated how controls are used in the real world.
He also - similar to Prof. Sheffi - made the case that students need to learn more than just engineering. They should also learn english, maybe even further languages, and get some internships to learn about the real world.

I was quite sad to overhear later that some students were talking about that lecture: "Man, that professor's crazy, telling us to learn two additional languages." - "I know, and what was up with the medical device? Weirdo."

I guess for them if it's not on the test, it's not important.

• Geeks and Chiefs: Engineering Education at MIT (link to page with video)
• Found via Educating Engineering Geeks (Curious Cat Science and Engineering Blog)
  

Smart Grids: Ready, Set, Wash!

(updated June 11th, 2007)

There have been several developments in the past years that have taken place in the electricity and energy distribution area. These are some of the important ones (focused a bit towards Germany)

* the liberalisation of the electricity market (it is now possible to change suppliers easily)
* the growth of de-centralised energy supply (especially through renewable energy)
* the necessity to use energy more efficiently - among others to curb global warming

The internet and communication technology have also developed rapidly and in the e-Energy study created by the Fraunhofer Society they have recommended possible measures to combine these new developments to reduce energy distribution problems.

Consumer participation for energy optimisation
One of the challenges for the energy industry is to keep the electricity supply stable - i.e. demands should be met. Since electricity is not being stored, having too much or too little demand/supply can be a problem.
Through the emergence of broadband technology, it is now very easy to have the consumer participate in the process of optimisation of energy use. Because currently the information flow between the consumer and the supplier is, well... bad! At the moment it's like getting some stuff at the supermarket where there are no prices and after a few months you get the bill (note: in Germany it's quite normal that you get your electricity bill and usage information once a year).

Idea: Demand Response with Smart Metering
So a demand response is needed. In a study by the U.S. Department of Energy Demand Response (RD) is defined as
"Changes in electric usage by end-use customers from their normal consumption patterns in response to changes in the price of electricity over time, or to incentive payments designed to induce lower electricity use at times of high wholesale market prices or when system reliability is jeopardized."
This would mean that at times when energy supply is too high, you would get an incentive to use up some energy (by paying less for electricity)! Maybe you'll get a message via your mobile phone to do your washing at a certain time. This would require dynamic pricing, so you would pay less for using energy during critical peaks. Or by a set tariff in the noon hours you would pay less and during morning and evening you would pay more for each kWh.
This does involve the consumer thinking about electricity consumption - maybe this could be the initial step for the consumer to think about how he/she is using energy. For some this might be the first time they ever thought about using energy efficiently. This might catalyse some more changes in consumer behaviour towards a more sustainable society. Or maybe I'm just dreaming.

• Powering up the Smart Grid (Climate Solutions, pdf)
• Adventures in the Smart Grid #1 (Gristmill, Patrick Mazza)
  
• Smart Meters FAQ (CBCNews)
  
• Press release for the Fraunhofer e-Energy study
• The Dangers of Advance metering (SmartGrid Newsletter)
• Time of Use Electricity Billing - Case Study (EnergyPriorities Blog)

Germans asked to reduce "Fahrvergnügen"

Due to global warming the United Nations has advised Germany to finally put speed limits on all its roads. Until now it was normal for a 210 km/h Porsche driver to overtake the 175 km/h BMW-driving businessman on the german "Autobahn". The debate has heated up in Germany and though the answers to this question are few (Yes/No/Maybe), the reasons for the different answers are plentiful.

Many Germans feel that having a speed limit is like taking away a human right (a german human right, in this case). But was it their right in the first place?


"Mis-allocation" of production capacity
On a german talk show an ex-environmental minister of Germany, Jürgen Trittin - he's the environmental minister who took over that job after the current chancellor Angela Merkel left that post, noted that the non-limit might not be the problem itself, but it's the cars that are engineered to take advantage of the streets that are not speed-constrained. In fact, only about 2% of german roads and less than 50% of highways have no limits, but the german auto industry is geared to build cars for these 2% - BMW, Daimler, Audi, Porsche are all working on "faster and bigger".

But his main concern with speed limits is not environmental sustainability or climate change but more for the safety on the roads. As you can see in the table, safety is an issue when considering speed limitations. Lowering your speed from 200 down to 125 can reduce the distance you need to get a full stop by over 55%! And the traffic would also flow better. This would reduce crashes, accidents, deaths. (Interesting fact: More than 4 out 5 people caught speeding in Germany are men.)

So introducing a speed limit might have only very small direct environmental impacts, but it can have so many useful positive indirect impacts. All the big car manufacturers would then start building less powerful cars and more research can go into efficiency, reducing pollution and safety.

(A notable fact: Looking for a news video clip on YouTube on speed limits, all I could find was guys showing off how they can drive as fast as they can on the german highway. Some up to 290 km/h!)


The CO2 constraint set by the EU
It would also go great with a new regulation set by the European Union. All EU car companies must now reduce their average emission of their car fleet down to 140 g/km by 2008 (2009 for Japanese/Korean producers). In a second step it wants to reduce the emissions down to 120 g/km until 2012 - this all sounds drastic, but the carmakers had a whole decade to sort this out themselves. Words were spoken, actions not taken. Voluntary agreements didn't work this time.

A typical Porsche spits out about 321 g of CO2 each km it drives and a BMW about 191 g/km which poses a big challenge for the luxury- and sports-type car makers. And unless the Hummer goes electric, it probably will never reach the EU market (470 g/km). But this shouldn't be a hindrance but a challenge for Germany's engineers. Other countries like France and Italy have less of a problem since their car fleet emits little CO2 already - Renault, Citroen, Fiat aren't famous for building big and fast cars.

Is Emissions trading the answer?
One idea put forward is to introduce an emissions trading plan, much like the carbon market set up by the EU recently. So a car company like Porsche has to buy certificates from a car manufacturer like Fiat in order to be able to produce cars with higher-than-allowed emissions. This would add extra costs to Porsche buyers (and would give Fiat a bigger price advantage) but on average an EU car would reach regulation standards. But this would dim any competitive thoughts: Porsche can just buy their guilt away.

And even an average emissions limit across the car fleet, in my opinion, also reduces innovation. Wouldn't it be possible for Porsche to buy a small car company which produces low emissions to get their emissions average lowered? (They probably wouldn't do this because of many other reasons - but with only 100,000 cars produced annually and such a big profit margin, it would be feasible for Porsche.) My thought is - in the long-term - to put a hard emissions limit on every car.


The road ahead
While in neigbouring countries speed limits are normal, the people there don't seem to be more stressed or having less fun driving their cars. On a trip to the Netherlands once I had to get used to that there is no road where I can drive over 120 (this is when I still had a car - a red Toyota Corolla). It took me about an hour to get used to this, but after that it was fine. I think people won't voluntarily drive with less speed, it would frustrate them to see other cars whizz by with 160 km / h. But with regulations in place, it might work ("I will if you will") and it would create a more enjoyable and safe driving experience.

Think UK - A public service ad from UK (on driving 30 mph - beware, a bit brutal)


Further reading and references:

• Talk of speed limits on autobahn revs up Germans (International Herald Tribune Europe)
  
• How clean is your brand? (pdf, European Federation for Transport and Environment)