MAJOR CHALLENGES IN THE TECHNOLOGICAL ENVIRONMENT

                Engineering and technologies on its boom in the present century aims in achieving the “perfect life” and perfect living conditions. While tackling various problems around the head, more& more barriers comes forward with its tightened fists.

               “Hats off” to those scientists who fight amidst of these challenging conditions. But to what extend are they successful in tackling these problems.

 The paper is about those challenges faced in various sub fields of engineering and certain suggestions which would help in reducing the impacts offered by the challenges.

MAKING SOLAR ENERGY MORE ECONOMICAL

As a source of energy, nothing matches the sun. It out-powers anything that human technology could ever produce. Only a small fraction of the sun’s power output strikes the Earth, but even that provides 10,000 times as much as all the commercial energy that humans use on the planet.

1) Why solar energy

Already, the sun’s contribution to human energy needs is substantial — worldwide, solar electricity generation is a growing, multibillion dollar industry. But solar’s share of the total energy market remains rather small, well below 1 percent of total energy consumption, compared with roughly 85 percent from oil, natural gas, and coal.

Those fossil fuels cannot remain the dominant sources of energy forever. Whatever the precise timetable for their depletion, oil and gas supplies will not keep up with growing energy demands. Coal is available in abundance, but its use exacerbates air and water pollution problems, and coal contributes even more substantially than the other fossil fuels to the build-up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

For a long-term, sustainable energy source, solar power offers an attractive alternative. Its availability far exceeds any conceivable future energy demands. It is environmentally clean, and its energy is transmitted from the sun to the Earth free of charge. But exploiting the sun’s power is not without challenges. Overcoming the barriers to widespread solar power generation will require engineering innovations in several arenas — for capturing the sun’s energy, converting it to useful forms, and storing it for use when the sun itself is obscured.

Many of the technologies to address these issues are already in hand. Dishes can concentrate the sun’s rays to heat fluids that drive engines and produce power, a possible approach to solar electricity generation. Another popular avenue is direct production of electric current from captured sunlight, which has long been possible with solar photovoltaic cells.

2) How effective is the solar energy?

But today’s commercial solar cells, most often made from silicon, typically convert sunlight into electricity with an efficiency of only 10 percent to 20 percent, although some test cells do a little better. Given their manufacturing costs, modules of today’s cells incorporated in the power grid would produce electricity at a cost roughly 3 to 6 times higher than current prices, or 18-30 cents per kilowatt hour [Solar Energy Technologies Program]. To make solar economically competitive, engineers must find ways to improve the efficiency of the cells and to lower their manufacturing costs.

Prospects for improving solar efficiency are promising. Current standard cells have a theoretical maximum efficiency of 31 percent because of the electronic properties of the silicon material. But new materials, arranged in novel ways, can evade that limit, with some multilayer cells reaching 34 percent efficiency. Experimental cells have exceeded 40 percent efficiency.

Other new materials for solar cells may help reduce fabrication costs. “This area is where breakthroughs in the science and technology of solar cell materials can give the greatest impact on the cost and widespread implementation of solar electricity,” Caltech chemist Nathan Lewis writes in Science

A key issue is material purity. Current solar cell designs require high-purity, and therefore expensive, materials, because impurities block the flow of electric charge. That problem would be diminished if charges had to travel only a short distance, through a thin layer of material. But thin layers would not absorb as much sunlight to begin with.

DEVELOPING CARBON SUBSIQUENT METHODS

The growth in emissions of carbon dioxide, implicated as a prime contributor to global warming, is a problem that can no longer be swept under the rug. But perhaps it can be buried deep underground or beneath the ocean.

1) Why is carbon dioxide (CO₂) a problem?

In pre-industrial times, every million molecules of air contained about 280 molecules of carbon dioxide. Today that proportion exceeds 380 molecules per million, and it continues to climb. Evidence is mounting that carbon dioxide’s heat-trapping power has already started to boost average global temperatures. If carbon dioxide levels continue upward, further warming could have dire consequences, resulting from rising sea levels, agriculture disruptions, and stronger storms (e.g. hurricanes) striking more often.

Advanced methods for generating power from coal might also provide opportunities for capturing carbon dioxide. In coal-gasification units, an emerging technology, coal is burned to produce a synthetic gas, typically containing hydrogen and carbon monoxide. Adding steam, along with a catalyst, to the synthetic gas converts the carbon monoxide into additional hydrogen and carbon dioxide that can be filtered out of the system. The hydrogen can be used in a gas turbine (similar to a jet engine) to produce electric power.

2) How do you store CO₂?

Several underground possibilities have been investigated. Logical places include old gas and oil fields. Storage in depleted oil fields, for example, offers an important economic advantage — the carbon dioxide interacts with the remaining oil to make it easier to remove. Some fields already make use of carbon dioxide to enhance the recovery of hard-to-get oil. Injecting carbon dioxide dislodges oil trapped in the pores of underground rock, and carbon dioxide’s presence reduces the friction impeding the flow of oil through the rock to wells.

Depleted oil and gas fields do not, however, have the capacity to store the amounts of carbon dioxide that eventually will need to be sequestered. By some estimates, the world will need reservoirs capable of containing a trillion tons of carbon dioxide by the end of the century. That amount could possibly be accommodated by sedimentary rock formations with pores containing salty water (brine).

Sedimentary rocks that contain brine are abundantly available, but the concern remains whether they will be secure enough to store carbon dioxide for centuries or millennia. Faults or fissures in overlying rock might allow carbon dioxide to slowly escape, so it will be an engineering challenge to choose, design, and monitor such storage sites carefully. 

Concerns about leaks suggest to some experts that the best strategy might be literally deep-sixing carbon dioxide, by injecting it into sediments beneath the ocean floor. High pressure from above would keep the carbon dioxide in the sediments and out of the ocean itself. It might cost more to implement than other methods, but it would be free from worries about leaks. And in the case of some coastal sites of carbon dioxide production, ocean sequestration might be a more attractive strategy than transporting it to far-off sedimentary basins.

MATERIALS MANAGEMENT: ENVIRONMENTAL CHALLENGES

There are several sustainability-related challenges associated with the traditional management of materials. These include: 

1.       Locating and Providing Environmentally Preferable Purchasing

2.       Material Diversion 

1.1)  Durability -Disposable products and packaging squander valuable resources by creating a cycle of rapid production and consumption, resulting in the expansion of landfills. Products that can be cleaned, refilled, recharged, and reused can reduce waste and deliver cost savings over their lifespan.  

1.2) Recycled Content - Products created from existing (recycled) materials typically require less energy and water than those made from virgin materials.  When recyclables become the raw materials of industry, they reduce mineral and petroleum extraction as well as the harvest of timber. Recycling also stimulates economic growth, creating approximately five times as many jobs as landfills. 

1.3) Reduced Toxicity - Human health and safety are primary concerns when dealing with highly toxic, carcinogenic, and flammable products. Exposure can cause skin irritation, respiratory problems, or allergic reactions. Such products incur greater end-of-life costs because of the increased environmental risks and resulting remediation requirements. 

1.4) Energy Efficiency - Energy production is a huge drain on natural resources and one of the largest contributors to climate change. All energy inputs associated with raw material extraction, manufacturing processes, transportation, operation and product disposal should be evaluated and minimized through lifecycle analysis. Saving energy also means saving money - lighting retrofits alone can reduce energy bills by 33 percent. 

1.5) Water Efficiency - The amount of water required to extract, clean, and process raw materials is typically greater than the amount necessary for recycled materials. Water conservation is expected to be vital by the year 2025, when an estimated 40 percent of the world will live in water-scarce regions.

2.0) Material diversion

2.1) Traditional Recyclables

2.2) Household Hazardous Waste (HHW)

2.3) Organic Materials

2.4) E waste and appliances

3) Recycling Market Development - As the demand for eco-friendly materials rises, so does the opportunity for business expansion and conception. Profitable ventures like curb side recycling, which grew 500 percent in the last five years, are capitalizing on the by-products of material reuse. The need grows for businesses that can collect and process municipal waste, broker the sale of recycled materials, and manufacture and market goods for reuse. Government and consumer investment in recycled goods must be encouraged in order to continue market advancement and environmental benefit.

MANAGING THE NITROGEN CYCLE

Engineers can help restore balance to the nitrogen cycle with better fertilization technologies and by capturing and recycling waste.

It doesn’t offer as catchy a label as “global warming,” but human-induced changes in the global nitrogen cycle pose engineering challenges just as critical as coping with the environmental consequences of burning fossil fuels for energy.

1) Why is the nitrogen cycle important?

The nitrogen cycle reflects a more intimate side of energy needs, via its central role in the production of food. It is one of the places where the chemistry of the Earth and life come together, as plants extract nitrogen from their environment, including the air, to make food. Controlling the impact of agriculture on the global cycle of nitrogen is a growing challenge for sustainable development.

Nitrogen is an essential component of amino acids (the building blocks of proteins) and of nucleotides (the building blocks of DNA), and consequently is needed by all living things. Fortunately, the planet’s supply of nitrogen is inexhaustible — it is the main element in the air, making up nearly four-fifths of the atmosphere in the form of nitrogen molecules, each composed of two nitrogen atoms. Unfortunately, that nitrogen is not readily available for use by living organisms, as the molecules do not easily enter into chemical reactions. In nature, breaking up nitrogen requires energy on the scale of lightning strikes, or the specialized chemical abilities of certain types of microbes.

2) What is wrong with the nitrogen cycle now?

Until recent times, nitrogen fixation by microorganisms (with an additional small amount from lightning strikes) was the only way in which nitrogen made its way from the environment into living organisms. Human production of additional nitrogen nutrients, however, has now disrupted the natural nitrogen cycle, with fertilizer accounting for more than half of the annual amount of nitrogen fixation attributed to human activity. Another large contribution comes from planting legumes, including soybeans and alfalfa, which are attractive hosts for nitrogen-fixing microbes and therefore enrich the soil where they grow. A third contributor is nitrogen oxide formed during burning of fuels, where the air becomes so hot that the nitrogen molecule breaks apart.

3) What can engineering and technology do?

Maintaining a sustainable food supply in the future without excessive environmental degradation will require clever methods for remediating the human disruption of the nitrogen cycle. Over the past four decades, food production has been able to keep pace with human population growth thanks to the development of new high-yielding crop varieties optimally grown with the help of fertilizers.

Engineering strategies to increase denitrification could help reduce the excess accumulation of fixed nitrogen, but the challenge is to create nitrogen molecules – not nitrous oxide, N₂O, the greenhouse gas. Similarly, technological approaches should be improved to help further control the release of nitrogen oxides produced in high-temperature burning of fuels. A major need for engineering innovation will be in improving the efficiency of various human activities related to nitrogen, from making fertilizer to recycling food wastes. Currently, less than half of the fixed nitrogen generated by farming practices actually ends up in harvested crops

For instance, technological methods for applying fertilizer more efficiently could ensure that a higher percentage of the fertilizer ends up in the plants as organic nitrogen. Other innovations could help reduce runoff, leaching, and erosion, which carry much of the nitrogen fertilizer away from the plants and into groundwater and surface water. Still other innovations could focus on reducing the gas emissions from soils and water systems.

PREVENTION OF NUCLEAR TERROR

The need for technologies to prevent and respond to a nuclear attack is growing.

Long before 2001, defenders of national security worried about the possible immediate death of 300,000 people and the loss of thousands of square miles of land to productive use through an act of terror. 

From the beginnings of the nuclear age, the materials suitable for making a weapon have been accumulating around the world. Even some actual bombs may not be adequately secure against theft or sale in certain countries. Nuclear reactors for research or power are scattered about the globe, capable of producing the raw material for nuclear devices. And the instructions for building explosive devices from such materials have been widely published, suggesting that access to the ingredients would make a bomb a realistic possibility. 

Consequently, the main obstacle to a terrorist planning a nuclear nightmare would be acquiring fissile material — plutonium or highly enriched uranium capable of rapid nuclear fission. Nearly 2 million kilograms of each have already been produced and exist in the world today. It takes less than ten kilograms of plutonium, or a few tens of kilograms of highly enriched uranium, to build a bomb.

1) What are the challenges to preventing nuclear terror attacks?

Challenges include: (1) how to secure the materials; (2) how to detect, especially at a distance; (3) how to render a potential device harmless; (4) emergency response, cleanup, and public communication after a nuclear explosion; and (5) determining who did it. All of these have engineering components; some are purely technical and others are systems challenges.

Some of the technical issues are informational — it is essential to have a sound system for keeping track of weapons and nuclear materials known to exist, in order to protect against their theft or purchase on the black market by terrorists.

Another possible danger is that sophisticated terrorists could buy the innards of a dismantled bomb, or fuel from a nuclear power plant, and build a homemade explosive device. It is conceivable that such a device would produce considerable damage, with explosive power perhaps a tenth of the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima.

2) What are the possible engineering or technological solutions?

A possible engineering or technological solution would be the development of a passive device, situated near a reactor, which could transmit real-time data on the reactor’s contents, betraying any removal of plutonium. (This sort of device would be especially useful if it could also detect signs that the reactor was being operated in a way to maximize plutonium production rather than power.) Such devices are already being designed and tested.

ENHANCING VIRTUAL REALITY

True virtual reality creates the illusion of actually being in a difference space. It can be used for training, treatment, and communication. To most people, virtual reality consists mainly of clever illusions for enhancing computer video games or thickening the plot of science fiction films.

But within many specialized fields, from psychiatry to education, virtual reality is becoming a powerful new tool for training practitioners and treating patients, in addition to its growing use in various forms of entertainment. Virtual reality is already being used in industrial design, for example. Engineers are creating entire cars and airplanes "virtually" in order to test design principles, ergonomics, safety schemes, access for maintenance, and more.

1) What are the practical applications of virtual reality?

Virtual reality offers a large array of potential uses. Already it has been enlisted to treat people suffering from certain phobias. Exposing people who are afraid of heights to virtual cliff edges has been shown to reduce that fear, in a manner much safer than walking along real cliffs. Similar success has been achieved treating fear of spiders.

2) What technological advances are needed?

For virtual reality systems to fully simulate reality effectively, several engineering hurdles must be overcome. The resolution of the video display must be high enough, with fast enough refresh and update rates, for scenes to look like and change like they do in real life. The field of view must be wide enough and the lighting and shadows must be realistic enough to maintain the illusion of a real scene. And for serious simulations, reproducing sensations of sound, touch, and motion are especially critical.

While advances have been made on all of these fronts, virtual reality still falls short of some of its more ambitious depictions. Fine-grained details of the virtual environment are impossible to reproduce precisely. In particular, placing realistic “virtual people” in the scene to interact with the user poses a formidable challenge.

“Rendering of a virtual human that can purposefully interact with a real person — for example, through speech recognition, the generation of meaningful sentences, facial expression, emotion, skin colour and tone, and muscle and joint movements — is still beyond the capabilities of real-time computer graphics and artificial intelligence,” write neuroscientist  Maria V. Sanchez-Vives and computer scientist Mel Slater.

EFFECTIVE EXCHANGE OF INFORMATION AND HANDING OVER THE TECHS

 Technologies once found out, & if kept unrevealed there will be no output for the effort taken. Newly emerging technologies should be given well exposure to the world population and should be brought into use to the max commonest extend; then it can be listed as an effective technological advancement.

Presently a major share of new emerging technological advancements is a far concept or information about it is not even accessible to a major stratum of the world population.

Newly emerging technologies are nowadays trade secrets of many MNCs and is most probably not shared with other companies or not even shared with the coming up generation. The young generation is not effectively exposed to the major emerging technological advancements, due to ineffective media influence in the younger generation.

1) Causes of ineffective exchange of information

·         Newly emerging technologies are being patented by MNCs, and thus info about the technology is not published.

·         Information on  Internet  is not published in most common websites, if done so common people would also  be able to get info about it 

·         Technology secret just get stagnant in  a very few hands or very low stratum of world population

·         Most of the technical syllabuses do not include the recent improvements or developments in technological fields.

·         Technologies of great expense are not affordable by most of the firms or companies and hence do not get in common use.

·         Very small amount of technical experts are taking initiative to conduct technological symposiums, seminars, or group discussions so that students will be able to take part in it and would get an exposure to the recent developments and updates.

CONCLUSION

Due to man’s enormous and unending needs the world and technologies are at its full throttle. The life has become a race for betterment of the life. Look around and see that the Life is totally different from the olden days. With the advancement of technologies and new discoveries even old theorems and postulates, once by hearted is been altered or changed completely. Even though the technologies have grown much farther; truth is that the major strata of of the world population are either unaware or unexposed to these advancements, due to the communication inadequacy. This points out to another great challenge to the technologists and the whole technological field......... 

AUTHORS: JIJU.TK, RAYMOND SPENALY