Greatest Technological Challenges of the 21st century

National Academy of Engineering has announced a list of 14 engineering challenges in the 21^st century chose by the expert committee individuals, who have contributed to the world through their technological innovations and leadership.

List of 14 greatest engineering challenges of the 21^st century:

• Make solar energy affordable
• Provide energy from fusion
• Develop carbon sequestration
• Manage the nitrogen cycle
• Provide access to clean water
• Reverse engineer the brain
• Prevent nuclear terror
• Secure cyberspace
• Enhance virtual reality
• Improve urban infrastructure
• Advance health informatics
• Engineer better medicines
• Advance personalised learning
• Explore natural frontiers

Interesting thing to note is that 9 out of 14 in the list are directly related to preserving our environment. The main objective behind creating this list is to emphasize on the fields to invest on research to achieve sustainability and to preserve life in this world. So, you can say that 21^st century is the century for the GREEN revolution.

Sources:

http://www.physorg.com/news122357469.html

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080215151157.htm

Aquaduct: Mobile Filtration Vehicle

This is an innovation which might help the poor in developing countries to meet their drinking water necessities. In most of the rural areas in developing countries like India, Africa etc,.. people (women especially) spend most of their time in a day traveling long distances to fetch drinking water. Also, bicycle is one of the chief modes of transport in rural areas and hence this idea is promising. Though the exact model shown here may not be affordable by the needy people, a modified and cheaper version will certainly do. This will atleast act as fuel for thinking in those directions.

One Lakh Rupee car (People’s Car) : India’s boon or bane ?

The much talked about and the much awaited india’s dream car, the one lakh rupee car will be unveiled by Tatas during an auto Expo in Delhi on January 9^th 2008 (http://www.ibnlive.com/news/tatas-to-unveil-rs-one-lakh-car-in-auto-expo/54915-25.html). What does this mean to different parties?

to Tata motors: It is going to increase their existing car market share. It could tap the low income group market, which is untapped by any car maker.

to the people of India and its ecomomy: Once this car is on the road then almost every household can afford to have their own family car. Considering the oil price touching $100 a barrel on the New Year’s eve – its going to lead to inflation indirectly. India imports most of the oil from other countries and provides it at a highly subsidized rate, which costs the treasury hundreds of billions of rupees every year. India was a favorite destination to all the MNCs who wanted to setup a shop here and because of which there was the ecomomy boom and middle class affordability to buy cars, which lead to heavy congestion on roads. In a largest democratic country, building new or improving the existing infrastructure is a slow process and hence at present sate the whole process seems to have reached a saturation state. This is leading more and more companies to choose other developing nations as their destinations. And, the cheaper car is just going to make this situation worse.

to the environment: Making a car that cheap doesn’t come with out any major limitations. They have to cut down on all those costly parts, which reduce emissions to the environment. Though, there is an opinion that this is just a start and as the time advances there will be advancement of technology and reduction in cost, which will help to build a safer and complete car for this price in the future. Considering the statistics this opinion doesn’t make much sense. Suppose that we can get the technology to reduce the present emissions per car by half. But then, we are going to add more and more cars on the road and the emissions equation doesn’t balance, it simply increases. (Unless you develop a hydrogen fuel based car, for which to be built at this cost will at least take a few decades).

The intial claims or leaks about the car seems to be very favourable (25 km per liter petrol, eco-friendly car meeting all the international emission standards) http://www.forbes.com/markets/2007/12/19/tata-budget-car-markets-equity-cx_rd_1219markets03.html. Anyway let’s wait for 3 more days ( the clock is ticking…) and see how it is going to impact.

Reason behind TOYOTA outwitting GM in car sales. (my thought)

I read about TOYOTA overtaking GM in car sales in the news published by many newspapers yesterday. And I noticed that all the top people in GM were saying that the reason for GM losing it to its competitor is because of its poor marketing strategy and thus failing to sell to its consumers especially Americans. Yes, I agree strongly that GM failed in marketing and production strategy and that is GM’s lack of green thinking in its production and marketing strategy.

TOYOTA came up with green cars like the Hybrid Car, which is more durable, fuel efficient etc and became a big success all over the world, especially in America. GM was making cars which made people very happy until early nineties when no one was bothering about gas price, energy security and climate change. Now a days people are more aware and are concerned about the environment and energy security issues. TOYOTA acted early by realizing what people needed or wanting to have in late nineties and came up with this novel idea of Hybrid car, which adopts the hybrid engine model. (The hybrid engine switches to electric mode when the battery is fully charged and when the battery is weak, it runs on gas while charging the battery and thus saving a significant % of fuel usage). While GM went on producing the gas-guzzlers, light trucks etc to make early money and pull out of its financial difficulties rather than focusing on the impending energy and climate change problems in the future.

As the author of Natural capitalism, Amory Lovins puts it - The 21^st century is the century of businesses which care about environment and sustainability, and which is very true in this case. When it was first published, not many cared about it ….. and now every one is seeing the results for themselves.

So ‘Go Green’ to succeed in this fast changing 21^st century world and to outwit your competitors J.

few more sources FYI :

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/4039110a30.html

http://www.forbes.com/markets/2007/04/24/toyota-general-motors-markets-equity-cx_vk_0424markets05.html

India Glittering :)

Beautiful picture of India taken from the space shows the mighty nation glowing bright in the night.

Australia to ban incandescent bulbs in a bid to reduce greenhouse gas emissions

Australia is going to be the first country in the world to ban the incandescent bulbs and replace it with the fluorescent bulbs in a bid to curb the greenhouse gas emissions. The environment minister Malcolm Turnbull said that australia is making a legislation such that incandescent bulbs will be totally phased out of the market by 2009.

Incandescent bulb works on the principle that when current passes through the filament the electrons in the filament gets excited, which then emit the energy in form of photons of light to come to the ground state. However, major portion of the energy is wasted in the form of heat and thus resulting in a loss of energy.

Since major production of electricity in australia is based on the thermal power which rely on coal this move will reduce a portion of the greenhouse gases. Though this alone cannot reduce the greenhouse gas emissions by singnificant portions required, the minister says that this is one of the basic steps were public can involve directly.

Now, speaking in the perspective of county like india, whose economy is booming right now and is facing a sudden surge in the energy demand, a move of this kind will really be beneficial. As more than 95% population uses incandescent bulbs, a ban on them could really ease the energy demand to a significant level. However, the economic status of major sect of polpulation is in a situation, where they cannot afford to buy the flourescent lamps, which costs around 5 times more than the incandescent. Few solutions can be like 1) to educate people about the money they are going to save on the electricity bills in the future during the bulbs life time. 2) reduce the cost of the fluorescent bulbs in the market by subsidizing etc,. can help in achieving the target in a few years.

courtesy: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17233145/

Virgin Earth challenge

The 'Virgin' brand, which is famous for its extra-ordinary ventures and for its highly energetic and adventurous founder has announced a $25 million challenge on friday 9th february 2007 to come up with an idea to reduce the anthropogenic green house gases.

click here to enter the contest: http://www.virginearth.com/

Here is a chance for you to become a millionaire overnite.

Gud luck :-)

courtesy: http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_local_southwest_brit/2007/02/heres_a_contest.html