Engineering Challenges of the 21st Century

I'm not sure you can separate things; it's sort of a closed loop.

But, my guess is water. Global climate changes will disrupt existing supplies whether you go warmer/colder. Increased populations will drain the aquifers. Increased agriculture will increase salinity and evaporation. Industrial pollution fouls the water and kills some of the plants that serve to purify it.

TVP, I am going to disagree with you, water availability may well be a problem, but the planetary system has plenty of water, the engineering problem is supplying clean water in sufficient quantities to the right places.

That can be easily be solved with cheap efficient clean energy, and I would suggest that solving the issue of cheap efficient clean energy answers many other problems, including food production, and even travel to other planets.

Nuclear fusion anyone? The sun seems to have enough energy to do its thing!

No, we don't disagree. If we have the energy available, desalination/purification/delivery will solve the water problem. But, I'm betting we fritter away the time with one scheme after another until it's too late.

My point in picking water is the immediacy when it happens. You can run low on petroleum and still limp along for years. You can run low on food and semi-starve for at least several years. But water is a several days issue.

Hmmm. There's quite a difference between the "greatest" and "most important". The former implies doing the stunning while the latter implies doing the necessary. I also want to nitpick "challenge" a little for some reason. Some of the "greatest" things we could already do with existing technology if we just bolted it together. So there's no challenge in them, other than getting off the sofa.

In the most important catagory I've got to go with clean, affordable, renewable energy. With it you can take care of all (well, most) of the remaining important and greatest stuff. Without it you just can't - or at least you danged well shouldn't.

Greatest catagory is a little harder. Off the top of my head:

• Space elevator
• Space elevator Travel Scrabble
• Space elevator cup holder
• Space elevator joke "Penthouse" button.

Educating the public.

Think about it carefully for a minute. Not only is it the greatest engineering challenge it's also the most important. The main problem preventing innovation and development is self-inflicted. Without public and government support we don't get the resources to change the world for the better. Developing a new form of clean energy that will change the world is pointless if no one will use it.

Am I wrong?

Affordable energy with out it the world may face economic problems. May not be an immediate problem but is one we can't ignore.

since this is crazy talk...

I say nuclear control in ways they haven't. global warming in one event could be nuclear caused..our playing with it via bad fuel burns is something god does too with lightning near an oil rig.

so....

nuclear is the destructor..means nuclear must have an answer. An explosive one way, a thief another. Oh so ambivalent.Fusion I believe is what they are discovering. Nanotechnology will no doubt be a brain with it.

90% ocean is never going to be a water problem. The cycle to get fresh water is so simple god does it everyday with a thing called rain, and run off through the earth and back up again springs and puddles.Ridiculous thought to think we lose water.create a thief that makes it...

there is the thief concept again... like below zero and an oil bill.

Just when someone finally builds the perfect idiot-proof system, someone else comes along to prove that he's an even bigger idiot than the system can handle.

Just think about it: politicians, lobbyists, conspiracy theorists, free energy inventors, you name it.

Enough said.

In my perception what I shall look for is at grass root Social Engineering ( hope that requires brains too!) to enhance manpower, the most conservant form of natural energy.

Give the 'most exalted spieces' of this planet the blue print for a viable infrastructure , psycho-economical habitat whatever you may call, to conserve their guts to produce more children devoid of the PANICS of having them to admit in IT colleges or get them employed in high end Financial Institutions.

When will that thinking get materialised into an enginnering reality?

Hmm... I think I remember someone told many centuries ago something like:" Give me a fulcrum and with my lever..."

But obviously, the lever itself cannot move anything. It needs some force and force times the displacement is the work done (energy input).

Thus if you have enough energy available, you can move (do) anything you can imagine. I agree with the enough availability of clean and cheap energy issue.

Of course, people education (including politicians in this category) is a primary issue, but it's not an "engineering issue".

Fusion? perhaps, but it's still a promise. Who knows what other techniques can be discovered? Someone who lived a century ago could imagine the actual status of sciences and engineering?

I still believe in well minded people straining his brains to solve human race problems.

"Engineering will come up with whatever solution is required when it is required."

I am a complete believer in this as well. When people start crying about the end of the world as we know it (global warming for instance), I rest in confidence that there will be an engineering solution...

But I have been accused of naivete as well...

"Engineering will come up with whatever solution is required when it is required."

Edwards' Law: "You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem" (from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adages_named_after_people)

Getting away from this planet before the shit hits the fan!!!

Spencer.

I'm Dominic, the original poster of this thread. Thanks for your responses. It's interesting to debate such a topic because some day such a challenge will face many of us, and the question is, we will have the solution?

I disagree with the guy who said when it comes to engineering challenges 'the greatest' and 'the most important' are much different. If you separate the two it's a self-centered mindset because my question evolved around the human race as a whole... not a group and certainly not what an individual might consider to be 'the greatest' or 'most important' in relation to their own life.

In short, the greatest engineering challenge has to be the most important of all because it effects the most precious existence of this plant - HUMAN LIFE!

Welcome Dominic, thankyou for registering. I look forward to hearing from you again!

I think energy is really coming to the forefront for the next 50 years or so. Green energy in particular. How do we satisfy the competing needs of more energy and less impact on the environment? Reconciling politics and science is what engineering is all about.

You can compare you thoughts with that of others as the National Academy of Engineering is inviting everyone to help determine the Grand Challenges for Engineering during the next 100 years.

http://theprofessionalengineer.com/2007/12/19/grand-challenges-for-engineering/

Getting guests to register. Doh

1 problem solved, thanks Dominic28

Having sane disscusions by high level politicans, please follow the link & sign the petition http://www.sciencedebate2008.com/www/index.php let's join together & make our numbers count! What happens in the US affects the rest of the world, don't be shy!

I think Steve S has a good view, with abundant, affordable & clean energy, most anything is possible.

'if humans survive long enough on earth'

Indeed and the quality of surviving.