What the Future Demands from an Engineer

Through our years of development we have reached a stage where we are threatened by our own ingenuity in the past. It may be said that, it was the engineers who doomed the world with the inventions why should they should be trusted again? Well you know what, you have no other choice.

We argue as to why we can't go back to the way we had been living before, downgrade ourselves to save the planet, but as far as I know, we are not good for settling for less, I myself am not. We enjoy the convenience the development has brought about, and in many cases we can't live without them, we have been molded into this system as such. However, its not only the matter of convenience. We all acknowledge that we are living in a dying world, we have reached a stage where we might have to go back to being cavemen to actually save the planet. We are not only looking at retracing our footsteps but reversing the effects on the planet. To explain in the form of an example, we have released so much carbon-dioxide into the atmosphere, its time to suck it in.

Area of focus: ENERGY

Anything we do, we need energy; this is one of those things that has become an intricate part of our lives and we cannot do without. As technology advances, so does our demand for energy as can be seen in the figure below. So what is the problem? just build power plants, and the problem is solved? Not quite.

The source of energy is a big concern, though oil is a stable industry it is running out, so is gas and causing harm to the environment, nuclear energy is highly unstable, renewable energy is underdeveloped, weather dependent. The need is hence for a substitute for oil for the generation of electricity and for transport. We have the sources, but do we have the technologies to tap into these sources?

Energy utilization defines all the valuable requirements for life in today's world; food, the air we breathe, and the most precious, energy also plays and will play a huge role in is for the production of water in most parts of the world. There are very few sources of fresh water left and in arid areas (like deserts) desalination is required which uses up a lot of energy. The figure below shows the water resource distribution around the world.

Sources in focus: ALTERNATIVE ENERGY SOURCES

Alternative energy sources defines any source of usable energy that can be used to replace fuel sources in this case Petroleum without its undesired consequences. They can be further categorized into Renewable (which utilize sources such as sun, wind, water and other naturally available energy sources), Nuclear (including Fission, Fusion), Hydrogen and Fuel Cell technologies. These technologies are relatively, and in some cases far cleaner, than the conventional technologies. However they are riddled with their own problems.

Over the course of our posts we shall try to highlight these technologies, the problems associated with these technologies and showcase the engineering solutions proposed and being worked on to solve these problems and may be leave a few suggestions of our own.

Photos:
whyfiles.org ,eia.gov,islamicity.com

- Energy Engineers to the rescue
- OSSA