Engineers!
Most people will agree that in today’s world, the most pressing issues are global warming and the decimation of the earth’s natural resources. These issues are, fortunately, intimately linked through oil, and so it follows that their solutions will be linked as well. For the foreseeable future, they are the major challenges confronting the engineering world.
People are changing, and so is the environment. As generation after generation goes by, technology becomes more and more advanced. Consumers demand new product after new product. But they don’t realize that they are hurting the world. Each generation uses more and more resources as the population rises and the technology advances. The side affects are increases in carbon emissions and in consumed energy. We are destroying the world and its natural habitats, ruining it for the other plants, organisms, and animals we share it with. The world shouldn’t need to work for the people. People need to work for the world.
I believe that the only way this will happen is if we change the thought that energy is endless. We need to focus on the fact that the day when the last drop of oil is used is drawing nearer. The world and the people living in it need an alternative energy source. A new, clean source would slow global warming, and so would keep our environment healthy. A new source would make the earth a better place to live. Since this source isn’t naturally occurring, we need to engineer it. More specifically, we need to make it fit our requirements. It has to have a clean by-product; one that is easy to recycle or dispose of, and one that doesn’t affect global warming. It has to be energy-efficient to make, because the whole point is to conserve the earth’s remaining resources. It can’t be extremely expensive, because we want the average family to be able to afford this. And finally, like any good product, it has to be easy to use.
Some people say that with solar, wind, water, plant, nuclear, and electrical power, we don’t need a new source. They say that we can get by with electric cars that need to be charged every night. They claim that we can manage with nature’s unpredictable elements heating and lighting our homes, schools, and workplaces. According to them, global warming is a theory, a myth. It’s not that pressing of an issue.
But there is the inevitable fact that electrical power is produced by the very resources that are running out. Cloud cover can easily undermine the limited power of the sun, thereby eliminating solar power. Wind power is weak because the wind doesn’t always blow, and in some areas, it hardly gusts at all. Streams and rivers can freeze, become polluted, or change their courses in a matter of decades; and if you include flooding due to precipitation, water power can’t be used widely either. Plants can wither and die if the year is bad for growing, so an agriculturally grown source fails as well. We’ve been spoiled by the cheap and easy energy sources that oil and coal were to us. But frankly, no alternative energy source we currently have available is as powerful as oil was. No alternative energy source we currently have available can power the entire United States.
This is where the future of energy lies. In the hands of biochemical engineers, who will find and produce this source. In the hands of electrical, mechanical, and computer engineers, who will help adapt this source for public use. In the hands of industrial engineers, who will make this source cost-effective and consumer-friendly.
The future of the world as we know it rests in the hands of engineers.
Bibliography:
"Renewable Energy Sources." www.eia.doe.gov. 1 Mar. 2008 <http://www.eia.doe.gov/kids/energyfacts/sources/renewable/renewable.html>. Path: biomass; hydropower; wind; solar.
"National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) Home Page." www.nrel.gov. NREL. 1 Mar. 2008 <http://www.nrel.gov/>. Path: Science & Technology; Advanced Vehicles and Fuels.
Roberts, Paul. The End of Oil. N.p.: Mariner Books, 2004.