14 Grand Engineering Challenges of the 21st Century

Good points, thanks for sharing this story!

Very good. We have already made strides in personalized learning. We have Super learning developed in the old Soviet Union, plus genius training and many other types of accelerated learning.

I teach memory training and thhe techniques are out there.

What is the reverse engineering of the brain all about? Computers or health.... ;-)
Thanks, interesting.

They forgot:

1) Automated transit
2) Automating the rest of the public sector, in addition to education
3) Congestion pricing, and an electronic milage tax.

Wish they would get busy on that one Sam. The brain holds the key to a lot of ills.

Dan and John, reverse engineering is a method used when competitors get their hands on a new gadget. They find out how it works by taking it apart piece by piece. So, instead of normal engineering, where one builds a product by adding more and more pieces, reverse engineering starts with the finished product and breaks it down piece by pice. Reverse engineering of the brain suggests that we can find out how it works by starting with the finished product and looking at each part to find out how it works, with the ultimate aim of making artificial brains or at least parts of brains.

See also this article in Technology Review (published by MIT) on Reverse-Engineering the Brain

Lyla: "There are prototypes of every thing you mentioned being tested right now. I hope we all become 'green' to stop climate change before the climate changes us. :)"

I agree, Lyla, there already are many ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and they could be implemented right now, without the need for new technologies. What's needed is international resolve to act and local implementation of policies that work.

Having said that, I do see a great future for nanotechnology, such as nanotubes in desalination plants, nano-structured carbons for hydrogen storage, solar panels (Nanosolar, Nanogram), car batteries (Nanosafe by Altairnano, Nanoionic batteries by Foxx Power and nanowires) and Ultracapacitors that could increase capacity through nanotechnology, etc.

By the way, instead of seeking to develop carbon sequestration methods, I would prefer to see a feebate policy implemented with fees on fossil fuel funding rebates for clean and safe alternatives, such as solar and wind energy. See also the discussion under Jim's article on carbon capture. I do agree that we should put carbon back into the soil; that could also be implemented as a feebate policy, e.g. fees on fertilizers funding rebates on agrichar.

As to the point "Prevent nuclear terror", I see this primarily as a political challenge. We should move away from nuclear power (as discussed in my article The Nuclear Delusion) and we should aim for a Global Treaty Banning All Nuclear Weapons. The engineering challenge would be to make devices that could assist with verification and monitoring the conditions of such a treaty.

Sam--as always, an interesting article. Reading what you said about carbon sequestration surprised me, but then I followed your link and saw that the sequestration research is buried in scientific detail that threatens to collapse under its own weight. In 1994 I authored a booklet called The Carbon Catcher Program, a guide to basic soil-management practices that could lead to increased soil-carbon levels. I worked with Dr. Rattan Lal at Ohio State, who later authored several books on the potential of soil carbon sequestration, and a number of other professors and soil consultants. At the time, I couldn't get anyone in the federal government interested in the possibility of mitigating atmospheric carbon with soil management, so at least the idea is finally on the radar.

I finally got time this past Friday to make a call to the pyrolosis company you gave me a link to and hope they will respond next week. I think agri-char is a fascinating product. I've just about shepherded our school recycling program through the fundraising for our own building, and we're dreaming big for extending what we do to the organic waste we are just throwing away now, and giving something else back to our community via the soil. Keep the good articles coming!

These are great...I don't know that much about it, but sounds good!

Thanks, Gary, I hope to visit your school one day, perhaps that could inspire students to further study all these issues. Cheers!

Good list! These can be accomplished.

Bruce, nanotechnology has improved many aspects of generating and storing electricity - if you like, follow the links I gave above, e.g. to the nanosafe batteries of altairnano. Nanotechnology is indeed the technology to watch. As an engineering challenge, my personal favorite is making space elevators from carbon nanotubes. Actually, much of nanotechnology dates back to the previous century, as you can read in this article dating back to 1998, which brings us back to my earlier conclusion that it's not so much progress in engineering that we're waiting for, but instead the biggest challenge of this century is a political one.

very cool and very important, Sam. I think especially that #1, solar energy, is essential to the long term survival prospects of the human race. I think that one is also definitely do-able, unlike nuclear fusion which still has a question mark for me.
The only one I am not sure about is the virtual reality thing. Is it key to our survival for us to have a better game box 360 or to be able to live out our sex fantasies in perfect detail?I doubt it, unless there are other more important uses.

I do wish that more humans would be interested in this list, as opposed to Britney Spears' panty status or how much eye liner is on Amy Winehouse.

By the way, congrats. You are featured!

I hope those challenges have attainable solutions - what a great world we'd have then!

What about re-use the methane that cattle emit?

Chris, I agree! Some things that the Engineering Challenges website mentions under virtual reality are training in public speaking, training for pilots and surgeons, and the Second Life and Google Earth websites. This all seems worthwhile further development, but I would have preferred the space elevators instead.

Good comment, Bruce, the idea of space elevators has indeed been around for some time. Right now, global warming and the huge amount of emissions by the aviation and space industries warrent some further interest in the idea. Solar panels in space could provide the energy at the top, while carbon nanotubes could act as a conductor of electricity, which could be used for lifting loads and could be sent down to power buildings, traffic and industry at the bottom of the elevator.

Leslie: " What about re-use the methane that cattle emit?"

I agree that this is an important issue, Leslie, and perhaps it is possible to bio-engineer bacteria that do the fermentation without producing methane. It seems that kangaroos already manage this trick, but I do not know the fine details on that. Meanwhile, I suggest that we encourage a vegan-organic diet, e.g. by introducing a tax on the sale of meat.

Chris: "By the way, congrats. You are featured!"

Thanks for mentioning, Chris, I just saw it on the front page of Gather. It's like having your picture on the cover of the Rolling Stone! Cheers!

It seems this current administration has made it political in the way it has carried out policy concerning technology...

It really ought not be 'political' other than in the way societies and governments choose to implement those ideas and advances that Sam listed (from the National Academy of Engineering).

Is the ability to shoot satellites out of the sky political? It can be practical... and then it can be political...

It is "politics" because this administration has made it Politics...

The list is political in the sense that it does influence government allocation of R&D grants and subsidies for specific sectors. As said, one can question whether carbon capture and sequestration should get a higher profile than, say, batteries. In many respects, the technology is already there, as I said above. Also have a look at the nice article by Nate about nanoantennas and solar energy. My view is that we shouldn't wait for further engineering accomplishments, but take political action now on what clearly tops the list as the biggest issue, i.e. global warming.

We had a long discussion about this, Bruce, under my article The Nuclear Delusion. We should shift away from burning fossil fuel, to clean and safe alternatives such as solar and wind energy. Nuclear energy is a diversion that we can do without.

Nonsense, Bruce. These "intermittent" and "cost" arguments do not hold up to closer scrutiny, as we've seen in earlier discussions. If you're looking for an engineering challenge, then "Prevent nuclear terror" has plenty of scope for engineers to work on, e.g. in the areas of verification and monitoring of a treaty banning all nuclear weapons and in safely decommissioning nuclear plants and cleaning up sites.

If you have nothing else to contribute than bad language, Bruce, then you might as well not post at all. Solar energy is already price-competitive with fossil fuel, when using relatively low technology methods such as solar concentrators. As Nadine May calculated back in 2005, a surface area as small as 254 km² (98 miles²) covered with solar concentrators in the desert would theoretically suffice to meet the entire global demand for electricity for 2004. By adding storage facilities, e.g. molten salt, hydrogen or batteries, electricity can be available around the clock.

As described in Popular Science, Nanosolar can produce solar material at a cost of $0.30/watt, or $300 per kilowatt. Solar panels are commonly scheduled to remain active for 30 years, but let's conservatively estimate that it will last for 25 years (the warranty is 15 years) and will deliver the equivalent of 4 peak hours of sunlight per day. That would deliver 1kw*4h/d*365d/y*25y=36,500kWh over its lifetime, so the cost per kWh is 300$/36,500kWh=.008218$/kWh or ~ 0.8 cent per Kilowatt hour. That is less than 1 cent/kwh and cheaper than electricity currently produced by newly-built coal-fired power plants or nuclear plants.

Further advances in nanotechnology, such as nanowires, promise to deliver flexible panels with substantially higher output per square foot, making it attractive to install them on buildings and parking lots. When you install panels at home, there will be some extra cost, as you'll have to pay retail prices and you'll have to add cost for installation, inverters, wiring, batteries, etc, but homes in sunny areas will have more than 4 peak hours of sunshine, while electric cars could provide the necessary batteries. Moreover, consumers will rarely pay less than $0.10/kwh due to the cost of the grid. As more wind power becomes available, cost of off-peak power should fall, making it attractive for consumers to buy such energy at low rates, store it in batteries and feed it back into the grid at peak times. Attractive feed-in tariffs - such as in Germany - could help establish a more distributed grid, as described in my article The Distributed Grid.

I'd say one of the greatest technological advances of the 21st century would be for the bruce fellow to conduct an 'intelligent' discussion...
But wait...
that might not be something technology can attend to...
Oh oh... I may end up with a bunch of "1's" again ... ;)

good points...

A interesting and informative little article. I would only support fusion if its commercialization did not bring with hit the same ills, cancers and environmental harm that came with the age of the friendly atom. Nuclear energy is neither clean, nor safe, and I state this as a person living less than three miles from a nuclear reactor.

On sequestering of carbon...we needlessly destroy the best sequestering technology on a daily basis...TREES. 100 million trees are destroyed each year to put junk mail in our hands, and 100,000 trees or more are destroyed just in the United States each year to maintain utility easements because utilities are too cheap to upgrade their equipment, even though the technology is there to eliminate over 90 percent of utility easement clearing. Preserve our trees, restore canopy cover, and we go a long way to reversing the damage we have caused.

Green Cosmic Rabbit...Sherwood

well thought out.

Let me add a little correction to my above post. Nadine May calculated that an area 254km by 254 km would suffice to supply all electricity the world consumed in 2004. That of course adds up to 64,516 km² (or 64.5 billion m²) - given 6.4 billion people on the planet, this means that it would take about 10 square meters (108 square feet) per person, to generate electricity in this way.

As I mention in my article Reinventing the Wheel, using concentrated solar thermal energy, facilities to power the entire US grid – day and night - could fit in a 92 mile-sided square piece of desert land, at a price of about $0.10/kwh. This corresponds to less than 10% of the Federal land in the state of Nevada, land that could be made available without taking away land used for farming.