The Century's Top Engineering Challenges

coondoggie writes "The National Science Foundation announced today 14 grand engineering challenges for the 21st century that, if met, would greatly improve how we live. The final choices fall into four themes that are essential for humanity to flourish — sustainability, health, reducing vulnerability, and joy of living. The committee did not attempt to include every important challenge, nor did it endorse particular approaches to meeting those selected. Rather than focusing on predictions or gee-whiz gadgets, the goal was to identify what needs to be done to help people and the planet thrive, the group said. A diverse committee of engineers and scientists — including Larry Page, Robert Langer, and Robert Socolow — came up with the list but did not rank the challenges. Rather, the National Academy of Engineering is offering the public an opportunity to vote on which one they think is most important."

Comments

One is solved!

[Anonymous Coward]

The final choices fall into four themes that are essential for humanity to flourish -- sustainability, health, reducing vulnerability, and joy of living. The last one is solved with World of Warcraft and Starcraft.

Re:One is solved!

[somersault]

Unfortunately it conflicts with sustainability if everyone is playing WoW. There won't be no more babies!

Disclaimer: I have a fairly addictive personality, so I've not tried WoW as I'd get addicted. I've seen my friend play it and it looks pretty dull as games go anyway - I'll stick to my MUDding thanks. Oh and I also have friends IRL which sometimes stops me playing computer games at all these days :)

Re:One is solved!

[ZeroExistenZ]

Unfortunately it conflicts with sustainability if everyone is playing WoW. There won't be no more babies!

That's the thing. Not everyone is playing WoW. It's natural selection at its finest.

Maybe it's a ploy to get people with addictive behaviours filtered out of the gene pool ;)

Re:One is solved!

[somersault]

Unfortunately the sex addicts have a bit of a head-start when it comes to natural selection, addictive personalities ain't going nowhere*.

Yes that's the second time I used a double negative in the same thread.

Re:One is solved!

[ZeroExistenZ]

Succcessful sex addicts at that. This is slashdot.

Re:One is solved!

[somersault]

Fair point, duly noted. All these geeks must have come from somewhere though..!

Re:One is solved!

[gfody]

why isn't "Survive 2012" on this list? Modernized health informatics won't do us any good when we're all wiped out in the pole shift of 2012!

Re:One is solved!

[superwiz]

Fair point, duly noted. All these geeks must have come from somewhere though..! They do. It's called survival of the fittest. Unfortunately efficiency brought about by successful geekdom allows for wasteful use of resources that temporarily suspends the need for cultural worship of the most useful. This is corrected by eventual overpopulation which leads to another level of strain on resources as well as by the overconsumption that is caused by the overpopulation of inefficient and untalented. Please, don't try to put any slurs or sterotypes that you think I am trying to euphemise here. These trends occur essentially in all societies that ever discover the benefits of geeks. Umm... I've outlined it all in http://science.slashdot.org/~superwiz/journal/169837, but the first 2 paragraphs are a bit dated (they was written on the hills of the Virginia Tech massacre).

pirates

[genican1]

they forgot #15... Stoppping the pirates!

Re:pirates

[Anonymous Coward]

they forgot #15... Stoppping the pirates! So you support global warming then?

I'm confused

[MadUndergrad]

How many months in Iraq does "preventing nuclear terror" cost?

Re:I'm confused

[pha7boy]

about the NSF yearly budget each month... or there about.

Re:I'm confused

[Nazlfrag]

The ideal number would be zero, though it's a little late for that.

"Prevent nuclear terror"

[Sylos]

How is that an engineering feat? Seems more like a people feat.

Re:"Prevent nuclear terror"

[Zeinfeld]

How is that an engineering feat? Seems more like a people feat.

Ever heard of social engineering?

Seriously, what is securing cyberspace if not a people problem? The machines don't cause the problems, people do.

Securing cyberspace is easy, building systems to secure cyberspace that users can actually use is the hard part. People have been telling me to get a Mac as the solution to all my usability problems for years. So today I bought one.

OK so the Mac is nicer in many respects, but mostly as far as I am concerned on the hardware package side than the software. But the security usability is no better. None of the assistants in the shop were able to solve the simple security tasks I proposed. Which is good for me I suppose since there would be no point in trying to solve an already solved problem.

Now securing the fifty year old banking IT system, now that is much harder than securing the Internet, and that is the system the criminals are attacking because that is where the money is.

Re:"Prevent nuclear terror"

[Sylos]

yeah. Social engineering totally slipped my mind. I need to think more and post less.

Re:"Prevent nuclear terror"

[Brother Seamus]

Like I always say, every problem has an engineering solution.

Re:"Prevent nuclear terror"

[ILuvRamen]

well duh, britain's intent recognition technology and the american uranium detection X-ray-like scanner. You can engineer something to do anything and I think that's important. Just be happy they didn't put "Make perpetual motion device" on the list.

Re:"Prevent nuclear terror"

[btgreat]

When I read it, I was thinking engineering ways of containing nuclear terror - limiting its effects or making ways of preventing nuclear bombs from being detonated (who knows). I think there might be more to it than social engineering.

Re:"Prevent nuclear terror"

[sumdumass]

Well, besides social engineering that I already have seen others mention, How about a system that can distinguish nuclear threats and possibly disarm them before or after that.

Imagine a pack of antinuks on the corner of every street that can dispense some harmless chemical that would negate all effect of radiation in the case of s dirty bomb attack. OR how about more accurate sensors with longer range that can detect nuclear material that is even shielded accurately, automatically listen for radio frequencies and then jam any unauthorized communications within a fraction of a split second so it couldn't be detonated remotely. Or maybe it could cause the circuit boards to melt and shut off making it useless as a weapon.

I would say that the best thing about Mutually assured destruction is that a good majority of people with nukes wouldn't use them. Now if we were able to make something that would cause then to be totally ineffective, maybe even the ones the governments have, we could prevent nuclear terror.

Re:"Prevent nuclear terror"

[polar red]

>Make perpetual motion device
Well, that shouldn't be a target, it should read : Make available a cheap energy source; You can't do anything with a perpetual motion device, if you can't make (cheap)energy with it.
and what about passive housing?

Re:"Prevent nuclear terror"

[Mushdot]

No, what would happen is that the country that could neutralise nuclear radiation or even prevent detonation of nuclear weapons would quite simply be more prepared to use their nuclear weapons knowing that retaliation would be ineffective.

Re:"Prevent nuclear terror"

[dasunt]

> Provide energy from fusion

Shouldn't a list of the greatest engineering challenges be written by someone who understands the issues?

I'd like to see the reasoning behind why they are promoting theoretical fusion designs over working, proven fission designs. It better not be based on the fallacy that fusion doesn't result in radioactive waste.

Re:"Prevent nuclear terror"

[ApharmdB]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusion_power#Waste_management

Re:"Prevent nuclear terror"

[thanatos_x]

Engineering: Is there anything it can't solve?

Re:"Prevent nuclear terror"

[Anonymous Coward]

English Major:Stop making fun of my major. I'm not an English major. I'm a words engineer.
Engineer:What exactly do you do?
English Major:Well, for one thing, I figure out words to add engineer to.

Engineering: Is there anything we can't slap that word onto?

Re:"Prevent nuclear terror"

[JasterBobaMereel]

* Prevent nuclear terror
* Secure cyberspace

Both of these are impossible ...

If people get hold of any nuclear material (e.g. granite contains radioactivity) and concentrate it to produce a dirty bomb then this is always a possibility ...

If people have *any* access to cyberspace then security will be compromised ....

Re:"Prevent nuclear terror"

[coolGuyZak]

Words engineer doesn't sound haughty enough. Here's a few alternatives:

• Verbal Engineer
• Communication Engineer
• Locution Engineer
• Narrative Engineer

Re:"Prevent nuclear terror"

[El Torico]

Let's go through this sentence by sentence.

Imagine a pack of antinuks on the corner of every street that can dispense some harmless chemical that would negate all effect of radiation in the case of s dirty bomb attack.

Interesting possibility - a dirty bomb (aka a radiological dispersal device or RDD) would produce a significant amount of alpha contamination. It may be possible to use some form of powder with a high surface area to which the alpha particles could "stick", but that's just a SWAG. There would be blast damage and some beta radiation to clean up too.

OR how about more accurate sensors with longer range that can detect nuclear material that is even shielded accurately,....

Improvements over existing radiation detectors will happen, but it is possible to thoroughly shield radioactive materials to avoid detection. No, I won't tell you (or anyone else) how.

...automatically listen for radio frequencies and then jam any unauthorized communications within a fraction of a split second so it couldn't be detonated remotely.

Well, that's quite a bit to ask for from one device or system. How would it be able to determine "unauthorized" in a fraction of a second? You are assuming the device would be remotely detonated. A suicide dirty bomber would defeat your system.

.Or maybe it could cause the circuit boards to melt and shut off making it useless as a weapon.

Again, a lot to ask. I don't mean to be condescending, but you really need to look at the physics and technology of nuclear weapons if you want to devise countermeasures for nuclear terrorism.

The first idea of the "contamination sawdust" is the most interesting; the improved radiation detectors the most likely.

Re:"Prevent nuclear terror"

[jmdc]

What security tasks did you propose to the assistants in the shop? Was it a random store, or one of the apple stores? If it was the Apple Store, were you just talking to the sales reps, or did you get to talk to a "Mac Genius"?

Re:"Prevent nuclear terror"

[puff3456]

How is that an engineering feat? Seems more like a people feat.

Ever heard of social engineering? Social engineering is a word, however it is a distinctly different use of the word "engineering." Engineering as in the scope of TFA is referring to the application of math and physics to solve a problem, where social engineering would refer to a calculated manipulation of people to achieve some desired outcome, not equivalent uses.

Re:"Prevent nuclear terror"

[khallow]

I suppose we could pre-kill people so that the nukes can't get them. That is a sort of engineering project. But there are a couple of ways in which you can "prevent nuclear terror". First, set up detection systems for decay radiation from fissionables. Second, disperse and harden targets so they are far less vulnerable to nuclear weapons.

Re:"Prevent nuclear terror"

[pseudorand]

Not so. You could alter the space-time continuum to prevent nuclear fusion from being possible. Of course, you'd shut down the sun, which could be bad, but there wouldn't be any nuclear terror. Besides, we've got enough fossil-fuels and geothermal for at least a generation, especially if we don't have to worry about global warming anymore.

Re:"Prevent nuclear terror"

[sumdumass]

I see what our saying but, assuming the task is to prevent nuclear terror, and it is an open engineering task, I would assume that getting it into every countries hands would be part of the task. Whether this is open research that any country could build from, or development from a country that doesn't look at the nuclear advantage as anything more then a deterrent against a nuclear attack or just worked on openly, it doesn't matter. There are a lot of ways to achieve a multilateral effect.

Re:"Prevent nuclear terror"

[sumdumass]

Interesting possibility - a dirty bomb (aka a radiological dispersal device or RDD) would produce a significant amount of alpha contamination. It may be possible to use some form of powder with a high surface area to which the alpha particles could "stick", but that's just a SWAG. There would be blast damage and some beta radiation to clean up too.

While this might be a reality, it cold take the terror out of the nuclear. Massive cleanup is going to happen from about any bomb attack so I think it would be acceptable to say that without the effects of the radiation, it would be just another terror bombing. It would also be likely that it would make the extra costs in making a nuclear weapon of such caliber uneconomical for the damage increase over a regular bombing attack.

Improvements over existing radiation detectors will happen, but it is possible to thoroughly shield radioactive materials to avoid detection. No, I won't tell you (or anyone else) how.

Well, I acknowledged shielding and possibly making that ineffective. That would be an interesting engineering feat though, developing sensor and detectors that make current shielding techniques obsolete. It may not be by detecting the nuclear radiation itself, but rather the shielding material when used in enough mass and configuration to throughly shield radioactive material. If it is enough to cause someone to take a look at it and determine it's intent, we could remove a lot of the threat. Of course I am assuming that tinfoil or lead isn't going to be used as the only material shielding it. Lead for example is already considered toxic to some in large quantities.

Well, that's quite a bit to ask for from one device or system. How would it be able to determine "unauthorized" in a fraction of a second? You are assuming the device would be remotely detonated. A suicide dirty bomber would defeat your system.

Well, it would be preprogrammed and initiated only when a threat is detected by a person or another device. It would also be the engineering feat the article describes. But don't look at any one thing I mention as a complete package. If it was that easy to figure out and was already in existence, we wouldn't need engineering feats to accomplish it. But more importantly, to effectively defeat nuclear weapons as a device of terror, it is going to take more then one approach. Don't look at this as putting a man on the moon, look at it as stopping anyone else from putting a man on the moon. Obviously, there will be way to get around anything you have to stop them so you need multiple ways to address whatever angle they employ in their attempts to do so.

Again, a lot to ask. I don't mean to be condescending, but you really need to look at the physics and technology of nuclear weapons if you want to devise countermeasures for nuclear terrorism.

The first idea of the "contamination sawdust" is the most interesting; the improved radiation detectors the most likely.

Oh yea, It is a lot to ask. But I wasn't asking for what I mentioned specifically, I was going through some ideas out about different approaches I could see with a little imagination and 30-40 seconds of thinking about what it could materialize as.

I think that a benefit of the "contamination sawdust" idea might be that it wouldn't need to be deployed instantly, just soon enough after an incident to negate the damage to life from a dirty bomb. My understanding is that Exposure alone won't kill you or damage you, it would depend on the amount of exposure and the length of time which might minimize false alarms. Also, it might be possible to add an aroma or something that would be similar to giving people potassium iodine or whatever it was that protected the thyroids and slowed the bodies absorption of radiation. This could help protect first responders and people trapped in the effected area for whatever reason.

Re:"Prevent nuclear terror"

[Sandbags]

Many of these are not so much engineering feats as they are research feats. Although social engineering certainly is in this category, some of these don't belong on the list.

Some of these shuold also not be on a 21st centurt list, but a 10 year list. We'll be, for example, making solar power affordable by then with little doubt.

Here are a few engineering feats I'd like to see:
- Install a superconducting electrical grid across each major continent
- BUILD enough solar/wind/etc clean power plants to supply all homes and businesses with 100% renewable clean power
- engineer retroviruses to target and correct or simply prevent disease/cancer/deformity/etc.
- build fully automated mass transit for every city in the world and eliminate 80% or more of commuting in personal vehicles in major cities.
- design and build self driving vehicles that operate as a mesh network, cars talking to other cars as well as GPS positioning, and eliminate the need for traffic lights entirely (Minority Report style autonomous driving, just with vehicles we'll actually drive) No more traffic, no more accidents, no more insurance.
- develop localized terraforming (convert desert into forrest, wasteland into cropland)
- Develop planetary terraforming (not just CO2 sequestration, but other things as well). Reverse global warming. control rainfall.
- pass laws to make cash illegal (no cash = no drug trade, no black market, no tax evasion, no criminals on the run, no reason to mug someone, no politicians getting paid under tables, utopia...)
- crack quantum mechanics and build optical quantum CPUs.
- not just improve VR, but make it nearly as real as RL.
- eliminate stupidity from gevernment. If you both figure out how to do it and then actually get it implemented, we can considder it the most astounding single achievment of the human histroy.

Re:"Prevent nuclear terror"

[Cederic]

Neither of these are impossible.

If people get hold of any nuclear material

If people have *any* access to cyberspace Spot the commonality here? Guess the solution.

Sure, some people might object to ending the entire species merely to remove security threats, but it's definitely achievable.

Re:"Prevent nuclear terror"

[geekoid]

"Unlike fission reactors, whose waste remains dangerous for thousands of years, "

hahaha.
I love wikipedia, but you really need to be care full when citing it. Especially when dealing with hot topics...yes that was intentional.

Modern reprocessing technique get it down below 500 years. With what seem to be just down the road, I would be surprised if it's under 250 years soon.
500 years is a long time, but not unmanageably long.

I mean fusions is better, unfortunately we don't have any practicable devices.
There is no reason we can't use fission while we continue to work on Fusion hot and cold. Hell of a lot better for the world the bio-fuels.

Re:"Prevent nuclear terror"

[Zeinfeld]

What security tasks did you propose to the assistants in the shop? Was it a random store, or one of the apple stores? If it was the Apple Store, were you just talking to the sales reps, or did you get to talk to a "Mac Genius"?

One of the most basic tasks you could imagine - set file protections to make sure the kids could not view certain files. It sounds as if the ACL system should work fine, but actually it fails some pretty basic usability criteria regardless of platform.

Re:"Prevent nuclear terror"

[Zeinfeld]

Social engineering is a word,

No, its two words.

The term is used in computer security to mean attacking the human component of a security system. Securing the Internet is easy, its securing whats on each end thats hard: users, the banking system, etc.

And yes, the term is bogus, it was invented by a bunch of crackers who are into junk science in a big way. Neuro-Linguistic Programming and similar garbage.

The biggest challenge, by far

[stox]

Getting funding for the top 14 engineering challenges.

Re:The biggest challenge, by far

[Zeinfeld]

Getting funding for the top 14 engineering challenges.

Well that is the point of the exercise here, NSF trying to get money from Congress. But its more of an aspirational list of goals and the real problem is that the feedback system is out of whack.

You might imagine that either industry or academia would care about stopping Internet Crime, but what Industry actually cares about is making the numbers at the end of the quarter and the best way to do that is to make your bank, business or other crime target a less attractive target than the business next door.

Academia is meant to do basic research, but the measurement of production is minimum publishable units, publish or perish. And to get a paper published it has to be novel rather than important or useful. So we know how to do secure email in principle but nobody uses it in practice - across the Internet at least. The academics never quite finished the job and the incentives are not quite right for industry to be bothered.

Often an academic will solve a problem long before it is understood to be a problem. By the time the problem is recognized and the time is right to finish the job and make it useful the field has moved on. Nobody is going to get the credit for pointing out that Fred proposed a solution for a problem twenty years ago.

Most academic papers in info security are describing solutions to boutique cryptographic puzzles. Real world constraints are irrelevant. So at FC this year there was a paper that started with the idea of stopping counterfeiting of currency by printing barcodes on the notes. Good, interesting. The scheme then involved people scanning them with their cell phone camera. WTF ???? Wrong problem, the challenge the fed is trying to solve is to spot the introduction of fake notes quickly, they can do that with scanners in banks. The banks can be persuaded to install scanners but no consumer is going to spend time scanning their change at the convenience store with a cell phone.

Re:The biggest challenge, by far

[idiotwithastick]

I agree. The saddest part is that the NSF only secures $20 million for this type of funding, while the Pentagon launches $10 million missiles at satellites tonight.

Re:The biggest challenge, by far

[flyingsquid]

Getting funding for the top 14 engineering challenges.

Well, it wouldn't be such a challenge if, you know, all the goals weren't so incredibly LAME. "Health informatics"? Bo-ring! Here's *my* list of challenges:

(1) Flying car.

(2) Cure for the hangover.

(3) Sex robot. As kinky as Madonna with the flexibility of a contortionist.

(4) Plug-in memory expansions so you can learn useful skills, equations, etc. without sitting through boring lectures and tests.

(5) Baldness cure.

(6) Beer that makes you skinnier instead of fatter.

(7) Dog-cat hybrid. Like a cat, it doesn't need your attention constantly, but it pays attention when you want it to, like a dog. It's comes when you call it like a dog, but it's clean like a cat. Plus, it barks AND purrs.

(8) Teleporter. I'm sick of commuting.

(9) Perpetual youth.

(10) Ballpoint pen that doesn't run out of ink just when you need it most.

(11) Formulas that make you grow bigger or smaller, just like Alice in Wonderland.

(12) Television remote with built in homing device and tiny little robot legs. So even if you misplace it, it always finds its way back to where it should be.

(13) A version of Microsoft Office that doesn't, you know, suck so much.

(14) Slashdot editors who are genetically engineered so that they can actually spell and are familiar with basic punctuation and grammar.

Re:The biggest challenge, by far

[i_b_don]

"Well that is the point of the exercise here, NSF trying to get money from Congress. But its more of an aspirational list of goals and the real problem is that the feedback system is out of whack. "

you know.... the NSF's idea of "securing the internet" scares the shit out of me and is actually the exact opposite of what my definition is for the said task. So frankly, the money that they're trying to get from congress is, IMHO, not forward progress.

d

Re:The biggest challenge, by far

[i_b_don]

Ok... mod me stupid.

I read NSF and heard "NSA".

me - dumbshit

Re:The biggest challenge, by far

[Anonymous Coward]

Formulas that make you grow bigger or smaller, just like Alice in Wonderland.

Could the effect of such a formula be, um, localized?

Re:The biggest challenge, by far

[felipekk]

According to my SPAM folder, yes.

Re:The biggest challenge, by far

[Anonymous Coward]

same difference. govt knows no bounds, ask and ye shall receive. this is bridge to know-where material.

Re:The biggest challenge, by far

[wall0159]

Based upon your list, I'd conclude that you're

1) a nerd
2) a drunk
3) virginal
4) ignorant
5) bald
6) overweight
7) lonely
8) lazy
9) middle-aged
10) a stained-shirt wearer
11) have an inferiority complex
12) TV obsessed
13) a nerd (did I say that already?)
14) somewhat OCD

but hey! it's just a list ;-)

(ps. I'm just taking the piss - please take this in the spirit in which it is intended.)

Re:The biggest challenge, by far

[innit]

> (2) Cure for the hangover.

Easy. A fry-up, it works every time. You need an injection of calories to kick-start your metabolism. That and plenty of water. Have a fry-up within 30 minutes of waking up, and within 2 hours you'll be right as rain.

Re:The biggest challenge, by far

[Anonymous Coward]

(6) Beer that makes you skinnier instead of fatter.

it's called coke. (no, not the drink)

Re:The biggest challenge, by far

[ninevoltz]

1. ? 2. ? 3. ? 4. ? 5. ? 6. ? 7. ? 8. ? 9. ? 10. ? 11. ? 12. ? 13. ? 14. ? 15. Profit!

Re:The biggest challenge, by far

[dasunt]

12) Television remote with built in homing device and tiny little robot legs. So even if you misplace it, it always finds its way back to where it should be.

I know you were being tongue-in-cheek, but I think this idea would work.

Consider a roomba, it is smart enough to find its base station and recharge itself. Why can't a remote?

The base station could be something as simple as a RFID sticker. Ideally, it would be more complex and have a power source so that the remote would recharge itself, but an RFID tag would work.

The hardest thing would be to give the remote an effective movement ability. But it should be possible.

When the remote finds it isn't next to the base, it uses triangulation to find where it should be then attempts to get as close as possible. When it is near to the base station (or as close as possible) it shuts down.

A button on the base station and a small buzzing speaker could help find severely misplaced remotes.

The only flaw that I could see is that robots tend to be poor at climbing up table legs. This could be solved by having a base station about the size of a stand-alone floor ash tray, with a tiny little elevator in it. All the remote has to do is find its way to the floor, then to the base of the base station.

Re:The biggest challenge, by far

[master_p]

You forgot one...Duke Nukem Forever to be released.

Re:The biggest challenge, by far

[sydbarrett74]

Dog-cat hybrid. Would this be called a dag or a cot?

Re:The biggest challenge, by far

[RobBebop]

(4) Plug-in memory expansions so you can learn useful skills, equations, etc. without sitting through boring lectures and tests.

(9) Perpetual youth.

(10) Ballpoint pen that doesn't run out of ink just when you need it most.

(11) Formulas that make you grow bigger or smaller, just like Alice in Wonderland.

I think you would be interested in this....

Free Audiobooks:

Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
read by Cory Doctorow

Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow
read by Mark Forman, as part of his weekly podcast

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

Re:The biggest challenge, by far

[Lord Ender]

There is a baldness cure. It's called Propecia. Unfortunately, it costs about $60 per month, and you have to take it for the rest of your life.

Re:The biggest challenge, by far

[Anonymous Coward]

What problem exactly is printing barcodes on bill supposed to solve? A barcode is just a bunch of numbers. How is it any more secure than just printing one on the bill's face? They already do that in the form of serial numbers.

Re:The biggest challenge, by far

[jdjbuffalo]

Until the patent runs out and then it will be $5-10 per month...

Re:The biggest challenge, by far

[cayenne8]

"Easy. A fry-up, it works every time. You need an injection of calories to kick-start your metabolism. That and plenty of water. Have a fry-up within 30 minutes of waking up, and within 2 hours you'll be right as rain."

Ok...I give up...what is a "fry-up"? Never heard the term before. I'm guessing some sort of fried food for breakfast after a night of drinking?

Re:The biggest challenge, by far

[oldhack]

Guess this is meant for "tube" speakers in D.C. Science News has this piece on proposed federal R&D funding, including that for NSF: http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20080209/fob7.asp

Re:The biggest challenge, by far

[PPH]

(15) Sharks with lasers.

Re:The biggest challenge, by far

[Lord Ender]

The patent expired a year ago, but somehow, Merck has stopped all the generic drug companies from making it. Bribes? Legal tricks? I don't know.

Re:The biggest challenge, by far

[LunaticTippy]

It's a UK term for a bacon & egg breakfast.

Re:The biggest challenge, by far

[Actually, I do RTFA]

(7) Dog-cat hybrid. Like a cat, it doesn't need your attention constantly, but it pays attention when you want it to, like a dog. It's comes when you call it like a dog, but it's clean like a cat. Plus, it barks AND purrs.

Train a cat correctly and you get all of these (except the bark and purr).

Re:The biggest challenge, by far

[Cederic]

that's not a fry-up!

Greasy bacon, sausages, plate-sized mushrooms, eggs, black pudding, bread and (for the strange fruit eaters) tomato, all fried in half-inch deep lard, served with (more) bread (buttered this time), breans, scrambled eggs, thick black coffee (or tea made from 3 tea-bags/cup) and toast to complete.

That's a fry-up.

My brother in-law enjoyed the breakfast I cooked him more than the wedding it preceded. (Having lived with my sister while growing up, I can understand why.)

Re:The biggest challenge, by far

[jdjbuffalo]

I'm sure it's legal tricks. Most of the big drug companies love doing that sort of thing...

Re:The biggest challenge, by far

[Lord Ender]

The FDA is investigating cases where drug companies have paid generics cash if the promise not to make certain drugs... so I wouldn't rule that out for Propecia.

Re:The biggest challenge, by far

[LunaticTippy]

And people say Brits can't cook. (it actually sounds like a good restorative to me)

Re:The biggest challenge, by far

[innit]

You can keep the mushrooms and the black pudding, but everything else is pretty much spot-on.

Here's what I want...

[Anonymous Coward]

I wanna PINK PONY!

what about DARPA's list?

[pha7boy]

that's what I would like to see. DARPA's list. Of course, that's probably classified. as for the NSF's list, "access to clean water" is not so much an egineering challenge as a bureacratic and resource management challenge. Same with preventing nuclear terror. I would much rather add "creating a functioning AI" (though not sure this is engineering), improve baterry techology, and redesign propulsion methods.

Re:what about DARPA's list?

[NoTheory]

I think it's an error to divide problem solving into purely technological, or purely social issues. Both serve as factors in the equation. If technology makes the economic barriers to solving a problem so miniscule that governments can be shamed into backing a widespread effort, or private funding can back partial solutions, then then further technological solutions are worth pursuing.

That said, there is also Social Tech. NSF funds all manners of research and sociological research is important too. So why not hit both factors?

Re:what about DARPA's list?

[mkiwi]

Agreed. "Engineer better tools for scientific discovery" and a few others are quite vague. Also, I would like to note that a lot of these challenges seem to be chemistry/bioinformatics-based. There's really not too much for mechanical, electrical, or structural engineers. I would like to see some things involving robotics outside of computational perception, which is a CS field.

There's definitely a trend in the list towards materials and chemical engineering applications (which makes sense given the make-up of the group) , which is ok provided not everything involves that. How about build a car that doesn't rely on gasoline and uses a much cleaner fuel? Robots with simple abilities like helping doctors, developing more efficient power supplies to increase available energy by 20%.

I know their focus is on Engineering challenges that can better quality of life for humans rather than technologies designed to explore space, and making big airplanes, but can we get a little more diversity in these topics? Reducing factory emissions and finding more efficient ways to control our waste seem to be very worthwhile causes. Less smog in Los Angeles and less trash in Italy/places where there is currently no where to put waste. How about designing a new communications structure and getting most of Asia and Africa hooked into the Internet? There are so many thing that aren't listed in this report that it makes me wonder how diverse the panel making these choices was.

Re:what about DARPA's list?

[TubeSteak]

as for the NSF's list, "access to clean water" is not so much an egineering challenge as a bureacratic and resource management challenge. Do you realize what you're asking for by calling the clean water issue a "bureacratic and resource management challenge"? You're asking for fundamental changes in laws & enforcement in poor countries that are rife with government corruption, lax/nonexistent oversight, pollution, contamination of water supplies and tribal divisions.

Turning the clean water issue into an engineering challenge means you can bypass all that crap & distribute the solution directly to the villagers who need it.

I caught this on the news the other day.
The idea is to dig a well, strap a playground whirl to a mechanical pump & have kids pump the water up into a big holding tank. It'll only be useful in villages where there's a school or a large number of children to keep the thing spinning, but it's a perfect engineering solution that means villagers don't have to use river water that people & animals have used as a toilet, trough & clothes/dish washer.

I would much rather add "creating a functioning AI" (though not sure this is engineering), improve baterry techology, and redesign propulsion methods. That's amazingly selfish... Access to clean water is & always has been "the century's top engineering challenge" somewhere in the world. The worldwide industrial revolution has made the problem worse in many countries, but there are still many many areas where finding clean water is the same problem it was a thousand years ago.

Re:what about DARPA's list?

[donscarletti]

Do you realize what you're asking for by calling the clean water issue a "bureacratic and resource management challenge"? You're asking for fundamental changes in laws & enforcement in poor countries that are rife with government corruption, lax/nonexistent oversight, pollution, contamination of water supplies and tribal divisions.

Turning the clean water issue into an engineering challenge means you can bypass all that crap & distribute the solution directly to the villagers who need it.

If the engineering solution involves something that has any monetary, government corruption will make it infeasible. If it involves anything but extremely small scale and localised cooperation then lax/nonexistent oversight will make it infeasible. If the solution involves taking water in its current state from the environment in any way then pollution and contamination of water supplies will make it infeasible. If it involves anything that is possible to destroy to impoverish its users then tribal divisions will make it infeasible. I guarantee that any possible solution for any engineering problem is either stealable, destroyable, polluteable or can be distroyed by arguing.

Engineering HAS a solution for this problem, have a clean government to provide strong oversight, manage pollution and contamination and overcome divisions to retain the harmony that lead to this. We can build pipes, wells and treatment plants very effectively, even servicing huge countries like Canada and countries with massive populations like the United States. Development is easy, it's just a natural product of peace and desire to improve the lives of one's people. I have a strong feeling that India's growing middle class will lead the way for that country to become mostly clean and healthy in a few decades time, the Chinese government is somewhat working on fixing the problems with its basic services to poor rural areas and is furiously trying to clean up the worst of the pollution in time for the Olympic games. The poorer nations of South America seem to be creating public services like fresh water, unfortunately sometimes it's a little rocky like in Bolivia but they're getting there. Soon the only nations on earth without these services will be the nations (predominantly African) torn by civil and ethnic strife and that's the problem. That's the only problem since even if the water wasn't killing people, people would be. That's why people problems must be addressed first.

Re:what about DARPA's list?

[pha7boy]

here's where I disagree. It's a question of resource management. You're right

Turning the clean water issue into an engineering challenge means you can bypass all that crap & distribute the solution directly to the villagers who need it. Yet you can spend lots of resources finding solutions to problems that can easily be solved with current technology while ignoring engineering problems for which we do not have a solution presently. I'll refer you to Paul O'Neil's book "The Price of Freedom" which came out in 2004. Toward the end he discussed the plans he had proposed for clean water access in Africa based on what is currently available, and in a way that removes large government spending/involvement from the process (i.e reduces the opportunity for corruption).

Again, I'm not minimizing the necessity for access to clean water. I'm just suggesting that rather then thinking of inventing new ways to get to water, we think of new ways to make the water we can already get to available to people. I don't think that's selfish. I just think that if you have limited resources, you should use them in such a way as to maximize returns rather then in ways that duplicate what is already available.

Re:what about DARPA's list?

[berbo]

clean water?

fewer resource wars?

My solution: Free for all

Re:what about DARPA's list?

[CaligarisDesk]

Here is DARPA's list: http://dodsbir.net/solicitation/sttr08A/darpa08A.htm/
For small business, at least.

• ST081-001 Advanced Development for Defense Science and Technology
• ST081-002 Novel Neural-Electrical Interfaces for Neural Device Control
• ST081-003 Early Detection of Infectious Disease Outbreak
• ST081-004 Probabilistic Logic for Knowledge Representation and Automated Reasoning
• ST081-005 Algorithms for Detecting Imminent Collisions
• ST081-006 Universal Self-Supervising Hierarchical Learning
• ST081-007 Wide Area Video Motion Blur Elimination
• ST081-008 Dynamic Multisensor Exploitation (DYME)
• ST081-009 Building Labels for Urban Environments (BLUE)
• ST081-010 Combat Video Analysis Engine
• ST081-011 High-Speed Diagnostic of Temperature and Intensity Variation on Diode-Laser Facets
• ST081-012 Microresonator-Based Active Silicon WDM-Modulator
• ST081-013 Front End Opto-Electronics for Future Radio Communications
• ST081-014 Small Low-Voltage Electro-Optic Modulators
• ST081-015 Transparent Organic Electronics for Displays and Spatial Light Modulators (SLM)

Re:what about DARPA's list?

[khallow]

But keep in mind that by using the word "engineering" you are restricted to technological solutions to social problems.

Re:what about DARPA's list?

[Anonymous Coward]

The idea is to dig a well, strap a playground whirl to a mechanical pump & have kids pump the water up into a big holding tank. It'll only be useful in villages where there's a school or a large number of children to keep the thing spinning, but it's a perfect engineering solution that means villagers don't have to use river water that people & animals have used as a toilet, trough & clothes/dish washer.

Child slave labor is pretty much a solution to most of the problems in the world today (clearing minefields, nuclear reactor repair, etc.), but what you write about is one of the few that won't be foolishly dismissed as "cruel".

Re:what about DARPA's list?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm suprised nobody has seriously bothered to combine desalination with power production. Using vacuum distiller technology that dates back to the 1890s, you could get a lot of freshwater distilled using plant process waste heat.

Now if modern industrialized countries would consider placing nuke plants such that seawater could be piped to them, you could easily build a large reservoir of desalinated freshwater using the waste heat. (Instead of having the cooling towers evaporate water into the atmosphere, they could do something much much more useful.) Heck if productivity is high enough, you could bottle and sell the surplus fresh water. Or set up a pipeline to nuke NIMBYs that have a water shortage, and rake in the extra dough.

I would add:

[Frank Grimes]

I would add: An electric battery with an energy density comparable to gasoline.

Re:I would add:

[rah1420]

Good luck with that. An oil company would buy up the rights and suppress that just like they did with the Ovonic battery.

See the section in the linked article entitled "Patent Encumbrance" and then go to Cobasys and try and buy a rack of Ovonic NiMH batteries to build your own plug-in electric vehicle. Let me know how that works out for you.

Re:I would add:

[nexuspal]

Heh, very close to done, on a previous article here on slashdot, a discovery come through that would do such a thing. In fact, IIRC, lithium ion batteries are already packing more power than high explosives, and close to as much energy as gasoline per unit of mass.

Re:I would add:

[Fractal Dice]

I would rephrase this as "create a better-than-nature method of using solar power to convert CO2 + H20 into gasoline + O2."

The way I see it, the only problem with the carbon we burn is that we're taking it out of the ground instead of out of the air. Gasoline is a already a pretty good battery - it just happens to be one that for now we can find lying around in the ground.

Re:I would add:

[Antique Geekmeister]

NiMH is utterly unsuitable for electric car use and many others. Its energy density is good, but it self-discharges at roughly 5%/day, meaning you'd have to recharge every 10 days or so or leave it constantly plugged in. This is one of the maiin reasons it's no longer used for laptops.

Re:I would add:

[cgraves]

I would add: An electric battery with an energy density comparable to gasoline. The problem is that gasoline combustion gets about 80% by weight of its reactants from the air (O2). Though the energy stored in batteries can be much more efficiently used, they store their oxidizer inside, so even if we could gasoline itself in a battery, it cannot be as dense. Unless it is an air battery, at which point you are looking more and more like a fuel cell.

But, yes hopefully we can approach "comparable".

Re:I would add:

[cgraves]

missing word: ...even if we could *use* gasoline itself in a battery...

Re:I would add:

[cgraves]

Depending on your definition of "better-than-nature", we can already do this. If better is more efficient, for instance. If you mean economical compared with fossil gasoline, then we're not there. Maybe with further technological development and a price on carbon emissions. This concept was discussed a bit on slashdot last month.

Re:I would add:

[sumdumass]

Why would you need a price for carbon emissions? Of course this idea of making everyone pay is ridiculous. All it will do is drive the cost of everything up and deflate the value of the currency and in the end, after the dust settles, we are simply back to where we started from.

For some reason people think that when you extract money from every company at once, that it would come out of existing profit or something like what would happen if you fined a specific company with lots of competitors. But lets say you tax telephone providers for each line they sell. What happens? It doesn't come out of their pocket, there is a cost recovery fee at the bottom of the bill explaining that it went up X dollars because of Y tax. (and yes this has happened).

The idea that come companies would look for alternative energy sources and those that didn't would pay is sort of ridiculous too. First, No company produces everything from start to finish. Raw materials are collected, transported, energy is used in this process, then maybe some assembly is done, same with the energy, then maybe it is sold to another person who adds a few finishing touches and then places it in a store for you to go buy. If any single one of the people handling that doesn't goto alternative energy, your still paying for it. And currently, the costs of stabile and reliable zero carbon alternative emissions is so high, it would probably prevent any meaning full adoption as long as they had to pay the carbon tax.

This carbon economy sounds like a good things when spouted by a couple of circus clowns attempting to scam money from you, or some disillusioned do gooder who hasn't thought about the big picture and think that companies would be hurt by a tax or fine like you and I would when we have to pay a speeding ticket. But when you really examine the situation, the only way for it to do anything meaningful besides jacking the cost of everything up and causing inflation is if went ahead and developed reliable and cost effective alternative energy sources. I simply don't see why we can't skip the carbon tax step, make the development happen, and then simply faze it's use in.

Re:I would add:

[polar red]

Not completely, you need to compare the weight of the complete drivetrain; a petrol-driven engine weighs hundreds of pounds, and an electric motor weighs just a fraction of that, if you're using that for a car. I would say: the smaller the vehicle, the more the advantage is on the side of the electric vehicle. (not to say that you will never be able to power the TGV with a petrol engine ...)

Re:I would add:

[imsabbel]

Sorry, but make that 5% a months, and you might touch the truth.

Re:I would add:

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd think that if the technology was actually viable, the oil company that buys it would probably use it to crush its competition. There's a reason why shell etc. are active in photovoltaics and other alternative energy technologies.

Re:I would add:

[Eivind]

Why comparable ?

Ever since I learned about antimatter I've been dreaming of a battery powered of a small amount of the stuff. Yeah, I know about the problems with avoiding uhm, "spectacular" failure-modes. But the energy-density is gargantuan.

Cars that need to swap a tiny battery once-a-year ? Check ! Passenger-jets that emit zero pollution, and that replace tons and tons of jet-fuel with a small, easily swappable battery ? Check !

Okay, so I know this is totally unrealistic. It would however be very cool.

e = mc^2

0.5 gram of antimatter in a battery, reacts with 0.5g of normal matter, releases 0.001 * 300000000 * 300000000 J = gargantuan number. More energy than you could spend in a lifetime. All in a handy AA-cell.

Building a safe antimatter confinement-cell that size is left an engineering-challenge for the reader.

Re:I would add:

[DougWebb]

The way I see it, the only problem with the carbon we burn is that we're taking it out of the ground instead of out of the air.

Why take it out of the air, where it's feeding plants and supporting the entire ecosystem, rather than taking it out of the ground where it's not doing anyone any good? Do you want to starve the plants instead of fertilize them?

If you don't like taking it out of the ground, then how about let's take it out of our garbage. With today's oil prices ($100/barrel) it's economical to turn organic waste (farm refuse, but all kinds of plastic too) into oil. The last time I looked into the process, it cost about $50/barrel + the cost of getting the waste to the plant.

Re:I would add:

[MickLinux]

Ummm... how bout an electric generator powered by a small gasoline engine? I'd say the energy density is comparable.

More realistically, isn't the solar power already solved? As I understood it, they have plants that involve a small steam/electric turbine in the middle, and then acres of mirrors around it that reflect the sunlight to the turbine.

The cost of mirrors is relatively low.
The efficiency of moderately large turbines is relatively high.

When I look at Wikipedia, a relatively small (10 MW) experimental solar plant, Solar One, was slightly more expensive than wind power. That said, larger size can give higher efficiency.

Re:I would add:

[cgraves]

Of course the price on carbon would trickle down to the end user. Notice I didn't say tax; tax was your word. However, this added cost would be solving a problem and as you admit near the end it would accelerate the economic competitiveness of alternative energy technologies, making it a very valid and useful added cost in comparison with other costs that get passed down such as military -- and it would be a relatively smaller cost and potentially achieve some of the same outcomes.

Putting a price creates a market for alternatives, whether alternative energy or carbon capture and storage; whoever can do it the most cheaply and effectively for the greatest profit does it, like any market. The market then solves the problem. How is this "ridiculous"?

The fact that you believe that you've really examined the situation and other "scamming circus clowns" have not, and that you enjoy forcefully asserting that many parts of it are "of course ridiculous" with examples that don't prove your point, does not make you correct.

Re:I would add:

[Anonymous Coward]

Regular gasoline contains 44.4 MJ/Kg.
A lithium ion battery contains 160Wh/kg * 3600 Ws/Wh * 1 J/Ws * 1 MJ/1000000 J = .576 MJ/Kg.

Even taking into account energy densities of experimental Li-Ion batteries, which seem to be about 1600Wh/Kg for nanowire batteries, and assuming 20% efficiency of a gasoline engine, gasoline still provides more useful energy per Kg than a 100% efficient experimental battery-based system. Gasoline would provide 8.88MJ of useful energy per kilogram, while the battery would provide 5.76MJ of useful energy per kilogram.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_ion_battery
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanowire_battery

Re:I would add:

[sumdumass]

Of course the price on carbon would trickle down to the end user. Notice I didn't say tax; tax was your word. However, this added cost would be solving a problem and as you admit near the end it would accelerate the economic competitiveness of alternative energy technologies, making it a very valid and useful added cost in comparison with other costs that get passed down such as military -- and it would be a relatively smaller cost and potentially achieve some of the same outcomes

And if you read the rest of what I said, it was that you could avoid the inflation and other negetive effects and do it more efficiently if you just fund the research in the first place and faze the implementation of it in from a forced manor.

But more to the carbon tax. You right, it was my word. But that is because your words "and a price on carbon emissions" has the same effect. But seeing how you didn't use the word "Tax" and insist on clarifying that, now I am scared to how you think we could effect a price on carbon emissions. I mean if we didn't give it to the government, who would we give it to? Some self righteous organization? The UN? Al Gore? Big Oil? I mean who would be the benefit of this price on carbon emissions and to what connection to the enviroment and fixing it would they have?

I hope your not thinking of paying third world countries to not develop and compete in the real world and basically redistribute the wealth of richer nations in some form of world wide welfare program. I mean that isn't going to fix global warming as much as it is going to enrich poor leadership and oppress people. Look at what the idea of taxing the rich and giving to the poor has accomplished in the US or UK. We still have an alarming number of people living in poverty and somewhat oppressed.

Putting a price creates a market for alternatives, whether alternative energy or carbon capture and storage; whoever can do it the most cheaply and effectively for the greatest profit does it, like any market. The market then solves the problem. How is this "ridiculous"?

I think you missed the entire point of the post. If you attach the costs universally to every industry, it will only be passed to the consumer who will demand more wages and it will eventually equal out into the same situation we have today. IF the market could have solved this problem, it would have by now. We have been working on it since the late seventies and have had some of the best universities with the brightest minds working on the problem all around the world. Why is it that we haven't solved the issue yet? And if Global warming and carbon emissions is the problem, they why would he want to have a circle jerk for a couple of decades while our own people are suffering when we can skip that step and get it done as best we can.

You see, this is where actions like Kyoto fail miserably and fall into the scam department. If there was a serious problem that needed to be addressed, it would be more prudent to start a collaborative international research group dedicated to the problem and have it offer royalty free, any technology developed from it that can fix the problem. You would still have the market working, a facotry in Japan might be able to product a specific component cheaper with a modified process developed in this way or maybe someone in the US figures out how to double production using the same amount of resources. But getting us to a point where it is getting done and cost effective, reliable, and efficient seems to have alluded the world for many years. Instead, we want to dick around with a carbon tax to force countries to effectively do the same thing so we can pass money off to someone else when we can cut the bullshit and just get it done in the first place.

The fact that you believe that you've really examined the situation and other "scamming circus clowns" have not, and that you enjoy forcefully asserting that many parts of it are "of

Re:I would add:

[Cederic]

Carbon in air: causes global warming, will lead to the deaths of millions of species (let alone individuals within those species)
Carbon in ground: harmless, until you extract it and burn it, releasing carbon into the air
Carbon in garbage: harmless, until you extract it and burn it, etc

Given the continually decreasing numbers of plants in the world, and the continually increasing amount of carbon in the air, I think there's scope with reducing one without hurting the other.

Re:I would add:

[cgraves]

I would rather hear in detail about how you would like to get the funding for necessary research and changes without the driving force of a market, rather than paranoid / conspiracy theorist, putting words in my mouth with things I did not say or imply, and insults and hyperboles. If you have a point, the way you write really hides it well.

...if you just fund the research in the first place and faze the implementation of it in from a forced manor.

How do you propose phasing it in in a forced manner? Isn't that the purpose of a market? Where do you get the funding for the research? The same place a carbon pricing method would get its money. A market could "fund the research in the first place".

But more to the carbon tax. You right, it was my word. But that is because your words "and a price on carbon emissions" has the same effect. But seeing how you didn't use the word "Tax" and insist on clarifying that, now I am scared to how you think we could effect a price on carbon emissions.

There are several methods in global discussion to affect a price on carbon emissions, as I'm sure you're well aware. To be scared of how it could work is paranoid.

I hope your not thinking of paying third world countries to not develop and compete in the real world and basically redistribute the wealth of richer nations in some form of world wide welfare program.

No, no one here said anything like that.

If you attach the costs universally to every industry, it will only be passed to the consumer who will demand more wages and it will eventually equal out into the same situation we have today.

Again, no one said anything about that - attaching the costs universally to every industry.

IF the market could have solved this problem, it would have by now. ... Why is it that we haven't solved the issue yet?

Because the market has not been created. That is what we are discussing, the creation of this market.

You see, this is where actions like Kyoto fail miserably and fall into the scam department.

No one said Kyoto is doing a great job, though we can see it is your personal opinion that it is a scam.

If there was a serious problem that needed to be addressed, it would be more prudent to start a collaborative international research group dedicated to the problem and have it offer royalty free, any technology developed from it that can fix the problem. You would still have the market working, a facotry in Japan might be able to product a specific component cheaper ... Instead, we want to dick around with a carbon tax to force countries to effectively do the same thing so we can pass money off to someone else when we can cut the bullshit and just get it done in the first place.

Sounds like wishful thinking to have such global cooperation, and the opposite of the market approach. What incentive do you propose to "just get it done in the first place"? It seems money is quite a good incentive, which would be the point of the market.

Scamming circus clowns wasn't a swipe at people in particular, it refers to how they get you to look at one thing to shock you with another. A technique if you will.

I'm aware of such alarmist techniques, and you do come across as using them in your posts.

it is designed to redistribute wealth more then anything. You either have to tax everyone or increase the "price of carbon emissions" everywhere or it is a scam to pump money from one person to another.

It redistributes wealth from those who are emitting to those who are not. You just offered a valid option of "increasing the 'price of carbon emissions' everywhere". Is "everywhere" the key word that makes it not a scam to you? This seems to contradict your previous statements, which I agree with, about not applying such carbon pricing exactly the same to every

Re:I would add:

[Antique Geekmeister]

I got my numbers from personal experience, vetting them for UPS and laptop use. But this is what I get for being antique: they've apparently improved quite a lot in the last 5 years.

But hop over to Wikipedia. It's still a 20% self-discharge the first day, and 30% a month. There are some "low self-discharge" NiMH batteries out there, but they're only available in AA and AAA sizes. I somehow think that running a car on that is a bad idea, although I'd be happy for the technology to become cheapre.

Re:I would add:

[sumdumass]

I would rather hear in detail about how you would like to get the funding for necessary research and changes without the driving force of a market, rather than paranoid / conspiracy theorist, putting words in my mouth with things I did not say or imply, and insults and hyperboles. If you have a point, the way you write really hides it well.

It is quite simple really, Create an international research organization by treaty and have member countries participate by either paying the salary of the scientists they send or some monetary payment or a combination of both. If the 37 countries that signed onto Kyoto who have agree to emissions limits and regulation plus the US contribute one scientist and 1 million dollars each a year, that's rouhgly 38 and a half million a year in research. 1 million is really a drop in the hat as far as budgetary concerns go for a country. And after some initial expenses are taken care of, that number could drop a bit but there is no reason why it couldn't cause the research to expand into making it more efficient and so on. Each country could decide how they raise the funding. It could be either by reallocating current funding or by raising a tax. It doesn't even have to be universal in the funding amount. Poorer countries could contribute less and richer one could contribute more.

With the US tax revenue exceeding 2 trillion dollars, it shouldn't be too hard to fund a million or two without noticing. A tax increase of less then 1% of the current tax rates would provide more then enough. There really isn't a reason why we can't fully fund a research and make this happen unless the idea is to end up paying other countries or people who claim to have moral ground. As far as implementation, well costs are going to be controlled a little by the royalty free use of the technology, it wouldn't be that hard to offer a break on taxes for conversion an initial adoption, estimate a life expectancy of existing systems and then require by law a system swap out at a reasonable time like when they would be repairing or replacing existing energy systems. I wouls also allow a phased implementation too. Currently the law says that if you add to or redesign exhaust systems at generating stations that you have to replace it with certain tech. This causes them to simply repair the existing systems instead of going the all or nothing path. Make it so they could add Co2 scrubbers or whatnot without having to do everything else in the process as long as they can add to it later. What that means is, if the coal or fossil power stations can add a device to remove their Co2, let them do it without being concerned with nitrates or mercury or whatever at the same time by make the design of the co2 scrubber so that could be added on why it is in operation in the future.

Either way, your or mine, we are going to force them to do something by law. whether it is pay a carbon tax or go a certain route with exhaust. At least with my way, we aren't duplicating everything in each and every country.

ow do you propose phasing it in in a forced manner? Isn't that the purpose of a market? Where do you get the funding for the research? The same place a carbon pricing method would get its money. A market could "fund the research in the first place".

See above. Like i said, it isn't that complicated and if it really is a problem, then there is no reason why it isn't happening. This is why I said things like Kyoto was a scam. They know that with population growth, it would be impossible to meet the goals of the reductions and end up funneling money into foreign countries deemed poor. Over 3/4 of the countries who signed onto Kyoto have no limits on their emissions but are in a position to sell carbon credits. Of the 37 who are subject to the limits, roughly half of them aren't subjected to 1990 limits and have room to not develop their own markets and sell credits.

There are several methods in global discussi

Re:I would add:

[Roliel]

Problem with that is that, while e=mc^2, mc^2 does not equal the amount of usable energy released. A *lot* of that energy is lost in the form of heat, sound, the creation of other particles, and many other ways... many of which are very difficult (or currently impossible) to store and/or harness. Additionally, engineering a storage mechanism isn't the only other difficulty: engineering a cost-effective way to mass produce antimatter isn't easy.

Re:I would add:

[Eivind]

Mere details !

Like I said, the engineering is left an exercise for the readers.

As for efficiency, I know that, but honestly, with a zillion megawatthours in your pocket, a low efficiency is acceptable, the bigger problem is as you say what to do with the energy that you cannot use. Hard gammas are unpleasant. But even if it was "only" waste-heat, 200KW of waste heat from a car that spends 20KW cruising could be a problem to handle efficiently.

Re:I would add:

[rah1420]

Shouldn't be a problem for a BEV (Battery Electric Vehicle) that is constantly discharging and recharging. I can understand a self-discharge rate being problematic for something like a flashlight that sits in a drawer, but generally speaking you're either keeping your car plugged in at home or you're driving somewhere with the intent of driving home at some short time later - e.g., a commute to/from work.

I drive 60 miles to work per day. The Gen 2 EV1 would have been perfect for my needs and it uses NiMH technology. Hell, even a flooded lead-acid setup would have worked if I had access to a charging port at work.

Bringing this post back on topic, you're not letting your batteries sit all the time; they're constantly in use, so IMHO the self-discharge argument is a straw man.

Re:I would add:

[Antique Geekmeister]

What makes you think that first day discharge isn't in *addition* to that first day of use's actual consumption? In which case you've still paying for an extra 20% every time you recharge the vehicle, just to replace that first day self-discharge, and a vehicle used every day becomes the worst case for wastage for NiMH batteries.

You see, technologies with that kind of flaw don't need patent encumbrance to keep them from becoming popular rechnologies.

Re:I would add:

[imsabbel]

You surely doent have NiMh in your laptop.
And i have yet to see an USV thats not running on sealed lead acid.

Re:I would add:

[Antique Geekmeister]

You're right, I don't have NiMH in my laptop or any laptops I ws ever thought was a good idea. NiMH was temporarily popular in a few brands of laptops about, let's see: 8 years ago now, before lithium-ion batteries became so popular? That's when I looked into their recharge characteristics. And someone tried to sell the company I worked with around that time a smaller, higher power-density, UPS for modest usage that I also thought was a bad idea on the basis of the self-discharge behavior.

let's see

[Darth_brooks]

* Prevent nuclear terror

how exactly should we do this, hmmm? get rid of all the nuclear weapons on earth, destroy all knowledge relating to the atom, and shoot all nuclear waste into space? Better extinguish the sun while we're at it, and ignore that goal of fusion power since it is "nuclear" fusion. Why not just pick a less ambiguous goal like "end uphappiness."

* Secure cyberspace

* Enhance virtual reality

1996 just filed a lawsuit for trademark infringement.

* Advance personalized learning

* Engineer the tools for scientific discovery

W00t! Buzzword bingo!

There are some decent goals in there, but like so many projects laid out for engineers, they are engineering projects laid out entirely by non-engineers. There's no thought to implementation here, just feel good "hey we oughta" crap.

Re:let's see

[Torvaun]

Preventing nuclear terror is easy, just invent a better and more easily accessible weapon for them to use. Home gene-splicing labs would probably do it.

Re:let's see

[diablovision]

* Prevent nuclear terror

how exactly should we do this, hmmm? get rid of all the nuclear weapons on earth, destroy all knowledge relating to the atom, and shoot all nuclear waste into space? Better extinguish the sun while we're at it, and ignore that goal of fusion power since it is "nuclear" fusion. Why not just pick a less ambiguous goal like "end uphappiness."

Actually this one seems pretty unambiguous to me. Prevent terrorists from detonating a nuclear bomb on a city. It's pretty clear what the criteria for passing this challenge is. How to do it? Now that's why it's a called a *challenge*....Is it an engineering challenge? Not clear. But c'mon, don't be dense.

Re:let's see

[gmletzkojr]

That's true - since the car and gun have been invented, you rarely see guys on horseback riding by to shoot arrows at someone.

Re:let's see

[Sloppy]

Prevent nuclear terror

how exactly should we do this, hmmm?

Drugs.

"With an arm full of this stuff, I wouldn't be afraid of a supernova." -- Sulu

Carbon sequestration

[Raul654]

Right now, if we capture carbon dioxide (and we have the technology to do that already pretty efficiently) we have a huge problem of what to do with it. The best technology available today involved injecting it into the ground or under the sea - neither of which are good options. The technology that's being talked about is carbon mineralifcation - the technology to turn CO2 into graphite, or diamond, or soot. That's would be a huge help in fighting global warming.

Re:Carbon sequestration

[stoicio]

We already have technology to turn carbon dioxide into raw carbon.

Re:Carbon sequestration

[Titoxd]

Turn it into diamond... and then, all of a sudden, engagement rings become a lot cheaper.

Re:Carbon sequestration

[Raul654]

First, diamonds are *not* a rare commodity. That is a myth that the De Beers diamond cartel has spent a century trying to create. De Beers tightly controls the supply, so that they appear to be rare. It's also a self-reinforcing myth - people think diamonds are rare, so they don't sell old family heirlooms, and thus there is no secondary market for diamonds.

Second, we already have the technology to create diamonds in a lab. See the wikipedia article on the subject. (At this point, I should mention that De Beers also tightly controls the diamond cutter workforce -- any diamond cutter who cuts for a company other than De Beers is immediately cut off from doing any De Beers work)

Re:Carbon sequestration

[Titoxd]

I do realize that; it was more of a sarcastic remark about the absurd prices of diamonds. Unfortunately, even if there were a larger amount of diamonds due to synthetic manufacture, the price of diamonds wouldn't fall, as there would still be a premium on "natural" stones, even if they are chemically, physically, and gemologically identical (or superior) due to consumer expectations. Demand would still remain high (for the reasons you mentioned above, plus the fact that girls like them...

Re:Carbon sequestration

[mdsolar]

There is a form of diamond that appears easy to manufacture called Lonsdaleite. It is not gem quality but is thought to be just as strong. I calculate here that replacing all steel, wood and concrete in construction with this material would sequester at most a few percent a year of our current emissions. The place where carbon has to go is in the soil or the sea. In the soil, terra preta looks like a good bet. In the sea, calcium carbonate seems like the most natural place.

Re:Carbon sequestration

[limbacx]

Maybe we could feed it to the trees.

Re:Carbon sequestration

[Raul654]

They're not quite identical - synthetic diamonds tend to be pinkish in color.

Re:Carbon sequestration

[Raul654]

Artificial trees are one method for carbon capture. Natural ones just aren't efficient enough. A natural tree removes about 300 pounds of carbon per year from the atmosphere. An artificial one can remove about 90,000 tonnes. But as I said - the problem is, what do you do with it then?

Re:Carbon sequestration

[Anonymous Coward]

A natural tree removes about 300 pounds of carbon per year from the atmosphere.

But when the tree dies and decomposes, it returns that carbon to the atmosphere.

Re:Carbon sequestration

[Dahamma]

The technology that's being talked about is carbon mineralifcation - the technology to turn CO2 into graphite, or diamond, or soot. That's would be a huge help in fighting global warming.

Hah. ok, the obvious problem with this is that turning CO2 into coal is the opposite of what we have been doing for the past 200 years. How do you accomplish that? Put the energy back into the coal! But if we could do that, the first thing we'd do is use all of that energy to replace the energy we still obtain by burning coal (and other hydrocarbons) in the first place.

So, it seems like the only way to do that is to solve the "energy problem" that is putting so much CO2 into our atmosphere already. Once we fix that, then the surplus energy can be used to remove all the CO2 we have already put into the atmosphere...

I understand that's a total oversimplification, but the point is: cure the disease, not the symptoms!

Re:Carbon sequestration

[Mr. Roadkill]

The technology that's being talked about is carbon mineralifcation - the technology to turn CO2 into graphite, or diamond, or soot. That's would be a huge help in fighting global warming.

What would be really useful would be a way to take this carbon and sequester it in, oh, I don't know, liquid molecules consisting mostly of carbon and hydrogen. If the energy inputs for this were mostly from renewable sources like geothermal or solar, we could effectively get double-value CO2-wise out of whatever coal we burn for power. Efficiency wouldn't have to be brilliant to start with, just good enough to make this cost-competitive with pumping black goop out of the ground and refining it. Sure, we'd still be dumping all that CO2 into the atmosphere eventually, but with less mineral oil being burned there'd be much less of it overall. Ultimately we'd be well served looking for renewable sources of everything, but in the meantime every little bit of effort to reduce the amount of CO2 from fuels outside of that cycle can help. Liquid hydrocarbons are so damn convenient, and we've got a century of experience at using them for transport that is too good to just toss out the window.

Re:Carbon sequestration

[mdsolar]

Mineralization is often thought of a taking silicate rock and turing it into silica and calcium or magnesuim carbonate. Often serpentine is cited, though the associated heavy metals make me think this is a poor choice. Wollastonite might be better. If you want to produce elemental carbon, you need to add in energy. The conversion of silicates is exothermic, but removing oxygen from carbon dioxide to make pure carbon requires just as much energy as you got from making the carbon dioxide in the first place. Forming terra preta from biomass can get you to elemental carbon (bio-char) and produce some energy along the way, but the biomass has solar energy input to convert carbon dioxide. One can form methane pretty easily from hydrogen and carbon dioxide using the Sabatier reaction especially if you have a use for the excess heat from this exothermic reaction. The methane might be turned into polymers that have useful microstructures when the hydrogen is removed leaving a carbon residue similar to bio-char. Forming graphite or diamond would probably be limited to uses that are too small scale to accept much carbon.

Re:Carbon sequestration

[mdsolar]

Using renewable energy to form liquid hydrocarbon fuels is not sequestration but it can reduce emissions. In my opinion, we only need these fuels for aviation. Here is my thinking on how this might be done in a cost effective way: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/12/jet-fuel.html.

Re:Carbon sequestration

[Raul654]

The pre-supposition of carbon mineralification is that converting it into the target form must be do-able with relatively low energy (or even exothermically - that is to say, it generates energy doing it). Wikipedia says that reacting CO2 with magnesium (which is abundantly available) to produce limestone is exothermic.

Re:Carbon sequestration

[mdsolar]

That is not an oversimplification, it is exactly right. But, it does point to the need to plan for renewable energy capacity that can cover this cleanup expense.

Re:Carbon sequestration

[DigiShaman]

I should mention that De Beers also tightly controls the diamond cutter workforce -- any diamond cutter who cuts for a company other than De Beers is immediately cut off from doing any De Beers work

I don't know anything about the diamond market, but it would seem to me that precision computer calculated cutting machines would have made this manual labor a thing of the past. Unless of course, having that flawed human touch adds artistic value?

Re:Carbon sequestration

[Fleeced]

First, diamonds are *not* a rare commodity... [snip]

Second, we already have the technology to create diamonds in a lab. The parent wasn't suggesting we create diamonds for profit (at least, I didn't read it that way). He seemed to be suggesting using diamonds as a carbon-sink.

Re:Carbon sequestration

[WalksOnDirt]

However, extracting Mg metal from its ore is even more strongly endothermic. That energy still needs to come somewhere.

Re:Carbon sequestration

[cgraves]

Right now, if we capture carbon dioxide (and we have the technology to do that already pretty efficiently) we have a huge problem of what to do with it. The best technology available today involved injecting it into the ground or under the sea - neither of which are good options. The technology that's being talked about is carbon mineralifcation - the technology to turn CO2 into graphite, or diamond, or soot. That's would be a huge help in fighting global warming. Carbon mineralifcation is actually called mineral carbonation, and it is not what you say. It is converting silicate minerals into carbonate minerals by reacting their cations with CO2, a process that is constantly happening to rocks everywhere but on geologic timescales. As a stable, permanent carbon storage option, those studying it are looking to accelerate the reaction as an economic, industrial process. See here or here for information.

Turning CO2 into graphite, diamond or soot is the opposite in a way - it would be an energetically uphill process that must be driven by non-fossil energy or else you have no choice but to produce more CO2 in the process. One could see this as storing renewable or nuclear energy in solid carbon by splitting CO2, similar to recycling CO2 to liquid fuels.

Re:Carbon sequestration

[expatriot]

Diamonds are not actually cut. They are shattered in a controlled way because ...
Diamonds are hard.

They could be "sanded" down using diamond dust, but that does not produce the same jem-like apperance.

Re:Carbon sequestration

[DMUTPeregrine]

The problem is the large amount of energy used in creating synthetic diamonds. That's almost certainly enough to release more carbon than one would be storing.

Re:Carbon sequestration

[Fleeced]

The problem is the large amount of energy used in creating synthetic diamonds. That's almost certainly enough to release more carbon than one would be storing. Oh, I certainly don't disagree with this (at least based on current technology). Fact is, releasing the CO2 is what produced the energy in the first place. Chances are, bottling it up (or reducing it to come other form) will cost more energy than produced in it's creation. Perhaps it's my libertarian outlook, but personally, I'm optimistic that technology will produce viable alternatives in the free market to make "clean energy" the better (cheaper) option, and that government intervention is not necessary.

Re:Carbon sequestration

[Anonymous Coward]

How the hell is this mod'd insightful? Your first sentence "diamonds are *not* a rare commodity" would be true if De beers failed to "tightly control the supply." If people didn't hold on to their family heirlooms but flooded the market with them then it would be rare. But they do.

It's not a question of, you can buy diamonds, which are plentiful, in Chinatown, just nobody knows. IT REALLY IS RARE.

Peope keep it on their fingers. Off the market.

You're talking about what would happen if they DIDN'T. But that's not the economic reality!

If they tightly control the supply, it's a rare commodity. End of discussion. You want something that isn't a rare commodity? Try rice. Go ahead, leave your house and come back wtih ten pounds of it. Now try the same thing with diamonds, since, you know, they only APPEAR to be rare. Go ahead, prove how they're not really rare.

I'll buy them from you for $10 each, come back with ten pounds and you're set for life. What's that? Oh, when you said "they appear rare" you meant "they wouldn't be rare if they weren't tightly controlled, but they are"...? Well then...

Re:Carbon sequestration

[highlander76]

How is carbon fiber made? If mass sequestration would make making carbon fiber easier then we could get cheaper, lighter car panels (among other uses) leading to better gas mileage.

Re:Carbon sequestration

[oldhack]

Hell, two birds with one stone: fuse carbon into somtething else.

See, you don't need a MIT PhD to bullshit right along with these jokers*.

*The list makers, not the parent poster.

Re:Carbon sequestration

[penguinchris]

Real diamonds can be pink too - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond_color. In fact according to this article, pink is rare in natural diamonds and so it probably much more valuable (plus girls like pink.)

Re:Carbon sequestration

[Cederic]

So we make cheap solar energy and/or fusion energy a pre-req on the carbon sequestration thing.

See, simple engineering at its best. ;)

Re:Carbon sequestration

[Laur]

They're not quite identical - synthetic diamonds tend to be pinkish in color.

Untrue. Synthetic diamonds used to be mostly yellow (due to nitrogen impurities), however the processes have significantly advanced, and you can now get them in yellow, pink, blue, or crystal clear. Seriously, check out the current state of the art before commenting, you can start at http://www.apollodiamond.com/ and http://www.adiadiamonds.com/.

Re:Carbon sequestration

[Mr. Roadkill]

Of course it's not sequestration, but thanks for the clarification anyway... and I probably should have been clearer by using quotes around that word anyway. My point was that if we're going to the trouble of extracting CO2 from power plant waste gases and finding a way to extract the carbon from that, we may as well do something useful with it that reduces emissions from other sources. The comments in your blog about possibly getting things going with CO2 from lime kilns, followed by a fully distributed infrastructure involving people pumping hydrocarbons back into the gas supply mains, is very interesting. It does, however, rely on reliable base-load electricity from renewable sources and I don't think we're quite there yet. Who knows, this kind of tech could be a stepping-stone to reliable base-load electricity anyway... make hydrocarbons when the sun shines, burn them to fuel gas turbines when it doesn't and maybe even distribute excess gas production for other industrial or domestic uses like home heating. How would that affect your figures - centralised hydrocarbon production, and perhaps better insulation and more efficient gas furnaces for home heating? Or am I way off in terms of what could be reasonably produced?

Re:Carbon sequestration

[mdsolar]

I put the fuel production where the waste heat can be used. There is quite a bit of it in Fischer-Tropsch. I think that the waste heat could also be used to drive an air contitioning cycle in another season. If you don't use the waste heat, then the cost of the fuel pretty much doubles. Your idea of making some fuel and then using some fuel could make sense to even out electricity supply issues especially initially, but in a renewbale grid I think that we'll probably have a good bit of over-capacity so that base load won't really be a useful concept anymore. The wind resource is Maine is actually pretty good on the coast so I'd be surpised if with an Architecture 2030 class house with good insulation you'd need to worry too much about intermittancy. I suspect that the over-capacity in renewable energy will be put towards carbon sequestration for several decades or more, and after that it will be available to play with. I'm thinking space catapult or that kind of thing. One thing about huge challenges like this is that you end up with a lot wealth at the end. Industrial capacity after World War II, for example, did wonders for diet through mass production of refridgeration.

On centralized production, there is the issue of being able to use the waste heat to save on the cost of the fuel, and there are also beginning to be some problems with thermal pollution. France has had to shut down reactors in the summer for some years now and the Southeast drought in the US caused the same thing this summer. With the uncertainties of climate change, I suspect that more dispersed production will be more robust. That said, one place where waste heat could be used is in desalinization if one is willing to move the facility back from the ocean as the sea level rises. This may help regions whose aquifers face saline intrusions. On the other hand, reverse osmosis is being used more and more in desalinization so that this may not turn out to be a good heat application.

We had a nice salad last night from the indoor garden, so that is something to start with anyway.

SciFi

[michaelmalak]

Each item from the list sounds like the core plot device for a sci fi story either already made or that could be made.

Holy funding program Batman

[zappepcs]

What? World peace is not on the list?

* Make solar energy affordable
- Just wait till oil goes to 120/barrel

* Provide energy from fusion
- isn't that solar energy?

* Develop carbon sequestration methods
- I thought the atmosphere of Earth was doing a good job already?

* Manage the nitrogen cycle
- Fat chance with corn farmers working over time

* Provide access to clean water
- That would just ruin the coke/pepsi wars... not happening

* Restore and improve urban infrastructure
- Isn't this program already underway? I understand NYC has had some renovations. (yeah, that's low)

* Advance health informatics
- subcutaneous ID chips?

* Engineer better medicines
- Yeah, big pharma has been doing good at this one lately - check Chantix

* Reverse-engineer the brain
- Ok, this is a new idea, lets get behind this one guys, what do you say?

* Prevent nuclear terror
- GW has this one covered, right, he's the decider guy.

* Secure cyberspace
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA here's your sign

* Enhance virtual reality
- Why not worry about first life a bit more for a while?

* Advance personalized learning
- Yes, All those free or lowered tuition costs, online resources, open course materials... those are great ideas, hope someone does that soon.

* Engineer the tools for scientific discovery
- This will obviously become reality and really simple once the brain has been reverse engineered??? WTF

Ok, seriously, is it just me or does everyone else think perhaps not smoke so much weed should be on the list?

Re:Holy funding program Batman

[odourpreventer]

You were modded funny, but there are actually a few good points:

* Make solar energy affordable

SOLAR ENERGY IS AFFORDABLE! What solar energy isn't is competitive in today's free market.

* Provide access to clean water

There are plenty of solutions for providing clean water to everyone who need it. There are just too many political (including war) roadblocks to provide it.

I guess you find this obvious. It SHOULD be obvious.

Re:Holy funding program Batman

[upside]

Free education is just a matter of will, no engineering involved.

Re:Holy funding program Batman

[maxume]

GW is a net source of nuclear terror.

Or does nuclear terror refer to something other than people mispronouncing nuclear?

Who are these idiots?

[Anonymous Coward]

* Develop carbon sequestration methods
No thanks, I'd prefer real alternative energy solutions.

* Restore and improve urban infrastructure
Could you be any more vague?

* Prevent nuclear terror
I thought these were engineering challenges.

* Advance personalized learning
Give me a break.

Re:Who are these idiots?

[OakDragon]

No thanks, I'd prefer real alternative energy solutions.

I've often wondered why we don't see alternative energy startups these days. Of course, 10 to 15 years ago (and of course further back), we could assume that any serious capital that was capable of such a startup was already in the hands of people who did not desire such a thing. But these days, we have Warren Buffet, Mike Bloomberg, Bill Gates - these people have some some serious cash, and the "green" philosophy to perhaps make a go of it. Why don't we see a serious attempt at generating wind, solar, or tidal power?

Re:Who are these idiots?

[eh2o]

This list is carefully crafted to stay roughly within the scope of what the NSF currently funds. e.g., it omits almost everything having to do with medicine (the domain of the NIH).

They also tread carefully around current events, cover the asses of various government and corporate interests, and ensure future funding (at least for the next year or so) by including "security" topics that everyone knows are bogus ways of diverting funds (except for the rotton apples at the top of the barrel).

If we have learned anything it is that the future of engineering is interdisciplinary (e.g. bio-engineering, regenerative therapy/stem cells, genetic engineering, etc). This just shows how horribly shriveled and unimaginative the NSF research vision really is.

Re:Who are these idiots?

[Anonymous Coward]

* Advance personalized learning Give me a break

Indeed. I mean, isn't that what a book is? Gutenberg already covered that bit quite well.

Re:Who are these idiots?

[maxume]

First Solar is a solar startup. They are cranking along nicely at the moment.

There are serious efforts at generating power from wind all over the place. The really good resources are either already in use or enjoying high levels NIMBYism. Lesser resources are also actively being exploited. The payoff time on the capital expenditure for wind power is still a bit higher than it needs to be for it to really take off, but the technology itself is more or less mature, at least for big towers.

Re:Who are these idiots?

[Shadowlore]

Perhaps because there are fundamental problems to be addressed, and the likes of Bloomberg, Gates, and Buffet are nowhere near being like say, Howard Hughes?

It's one thing to appear to be solving problems, and donating money does that nicely. It's another to attempt to make money doing something that is actually hard and expensive.

Solar is very expensive. No, oil at 120 bucks/bbl ain't going to make it competitive. Remember (or find) all those posts from the anti-nuclear people about how nuclear power is just too damned expensive. Now know that solar is more expensive than nuclear.

An additional major factor is government regulation. If you've even looked at half, nay a quarter, of what it takes to get started in the power business you'd understand the staggering barrier this is. Donating money is much easier. Not that it really makes a difference in advancing the state of the art.

The third major barrier is the inculcated belief that the government should be doing this. People generally like to spout "Military-industrial complex" as a bad thing (it is), and some even understand they are referencing a speech by Eisenhower. However, most are entirely ignorant of the fact that he mentioned two specific threats. The second was a scientific-government complex.

Today we are reaping the "benefits" of failing to address BOTH/EITHER of his stated looming threats.

Why should anyone invest million or indeed billions into research that the government may suddenly take up the mantle of and give that money to someone other than you, someone with political connections (which happens under both Democrats and Republicans), that will then undercut you since they have a) government funding and b) government protection? Why, indeed.

The closest we have to people of the Howard Hughes caliber are people like Elon Musk (SpaceX) or ... crap spaced is name - the guy in charge of Virgin, or even perhaps Bigelow (not Bam-Bam). I'd list Rutan but he doesn't have the money behind him - he needs OPM.

Yet, like Hughes, their interests are not in the "mundane" such as terrestrial power generation using "alternative" means. It's in going new places.

Most "alternative energy"[1] advocates are saddles with ideological and political beefs combined with a seeming inability to stifle their expression of those long enough to get real work done. Thus would-be backers tend to shy away and people in general want to back away from such extremism. It boils down to: Those who can't and have money give money so they can feel/appear like they've done something. Those who can't and don't have the money bitch and thus feel like they are "making a difference".

What we need are those who CAN and HAVE the money. Unfortunately, they will run into two major barriers, the hard and the harder one: the laws of physics and the government respectively.

1. The phrase "alternative energy" is itself indicative of and suffering from the ideological slant. Solar and wind are in use, but they have their limits (in particular their sporadic, non-const nature), so they aren't necessarily an "alternative" since they are incomplete solutions yet in place. As a result, "alternative energy" has begun to wear the mantle of "impractical".

Re:Who are these idiots?

[rark]

They're trying down near Cape Cod but the NIMBY folks don't want wind turbines because they'll mess up the view.

Larry Page?

[Anonymous Coward]

The same Larry Page that was quibbling about how to outfit his party plane?

I would rather see a panel made up of real engineers and scientists. Yes, he helped found Google. But he is not a luminary figure that should be talking about how to save the world. He really does not belong in that group. There should be some circles you cannot buy your way into.

Wanna know my big engineering hurdle? We should first and foremost be thinking about population controls. Nail that one (figuratively, we want less kids) and we are well on our way to solving some real-world issues.

Re:Larry Page?

[drsmithy]

Wanna know my big engineering hurdle? We should first and foremost be thinking about population controls. Nail that one (figuratively, we want less kids) and we are well on our way to solving some real-world issues.

That's a social problem, not an engineering problem.

Re:Larry Page?

[HeyLaughingBoy]

We should first and foremost be thinking about population controls. Nail that one (figuratively, we want less kids) and we are well on our way to solving some real-world issues

Exactly what problem would this solve? The planet is by no means even close to being overpopulated.

Re:Larry Page?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Exactly what problem would this solve? The planet is by no means even close to being overpopulated."

So we should wait until it is?

Missing option: holes.

[w3woody]

I'm with Scott Adams: Holes.

To summarize, what we need is a better way to dig cheap holes.

Think of it: with a cheap way to drill a hole we can drill down close to the mantle of the earth for cheap geothermal. With a cheap way to dig a tunnel we can expand our freeway infrastructure by placing new roads below ground. Infrastructure can be run underground more cheaply--if we have a cheap hole to run them through.

Holes are the future.

Re:Missing option: holes.

[edwardpickman]

"I'm with Scott Adams: Holes.

To summarize, what we need is a better way to dig cheap holes.

Think of it: with a cheap way to drill a hole we can drill down close to the mantle of the earth for cheap geothermal. With a cheap way to dig a tunnel we can expand our freeway infrastructure by placing new roads below ground. Infrastructure can be run underground more cheaply--if we have a cheap hole to run them through.

Holes are the future."

I'd like to submit a proposal for genetically engineering gophers the size of a bus. They'd be a cheap source for tunneling and could be bred instead of expensive manufacturing. So long as they don't start digging up lawns or develop a taste for human flesh they could be a major resource and not use any fossil fuels.

Re:Missing option: holes.

[zippthorne]

It's not drilling the hole that's the problem. It's holding back the walls against hydrostatic pressure, while still having a usefully open space to pipe water down to be turned to steam. The places where we already have geothermal aren't drilling all the way down to the mantel. They're drilling down to a convenient pocket of magma close to the surface. There are many places with magma-resources that are yet to be tapped, but it is by no means practical for any arbitrary point on the earth's surface to simply keep drilling until they reach magma.

The necessary advance isn't a "hole drilling robot." It's incredibly strong, heat-resistant pipes, and some kind of trick for installing them while drilling without affecting the bore diameter or preventing bit replacement.

Re:Missing option: holes.

[dbIII]

In which case you need something with a very high compressive strength and capable of handling temperatures of hundreds of degrees celcius - like rock. Geothermal projects are not actually playing with lava or even really huge temperature differences.

Re:Missing option: holes.

[Anonymous Coward]

They could probably use carbon nanotubes for that..

Re:Missing option: holes.

[greyhueofdoubt]

I love that this was modded +4 insightful (as of this morning).

God bless you, slashdot. God bless every one!

-b

Re:Missing option: holes.

[Anonymous Coward]

Where is my whatcouldposiblygowrong tag?

Re:Missing option: holes.

[petermgreen]

how do oil drillers replace/remove bits without the cladding getting in the way?

"manage the nitrogen cycle?"

[qw0ntum]

Can someone please explain what it means to "manage the nitrogen cycle?" I've seen that twice in the past two weeks and I'm not entirely sure what they are referring to, and why we need to manage it. Yes, I've tried Google and Wikipedia.

Re:"manage the nitrogen cycle?"

[Zakabog]

"Yes, I've tried Google and Wikipedia."

Apparently you didn't look that hard - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrogen_cycle#Human_influences_on_the_nitrogen_cycle found that by typing "Nitrogen Cycle" in google. It was the first result.

Re:"manage the nitrogen cycle?"

[Mspangler]

I hope it means to get cereal grains to fix their own nitrogen so you wouldn't need nitrate fertilizers, especially with natural gas heading for its own production peaks. North American natural gas is expected to peak about 2010, unless the deep Gulf is more productive than they currently think.

If we don't come up with that, we'll need three or four thousand LNG tankers cruising to the middle east and back to keep the pipelines full. (Worse case admittedly, but eventually one of them is going to go boom, then the others won't be allowed to dock, and then ...)

"No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow." (S. Ivanova, 2260)

Re:"manage the nitrogen cycle?"

[andy314159pi]

Can someone please explain what it means to "manage the nitrogen cycle?"

It means peeing outside.

-1, retarded

[Anonymous Coward]

en tee

Engineering?

[unbug]

What do these guys see as an engineering challenge? How is "prevent nuclear terror" engineering? What the hell does "advance personalized learning" mean? Or "tools for scientific discovery"? Or "reverse-engineer the brain", for that matter? Probably I'm just too stupid to understand, but to me this whole thing looks like absolute gibberish.

This whole announcement is

[v(*_*)vvvv]

pure flaimbait.

Just look at the response it is getting.

The complete list

[lawrencebillson]

For those suffering: * Make solar energy affordable * Provide energy from fusion * Develop carbon sequestration methods * Manage the nitrogen cycle * Provide access to clean water * Restore and improve urban infrastructure * Advance health informatics * Engineer better medicines * Reverse-engineer the brain * Prevent nuclear terror * Secure cyberspace * Enhance virtual reality * Advance personalized learning * Engineer the tools for scientific discovery I suggest adding an item about faster web servers.

Advance health informatics

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes this is this biggest problem facing Mac users everywhere.

My top challenges

[syousef]

1. Socks that don't have to be paired every time they're washed.
2. A device to selectively block out the sound of an episode of "The Golden Girls" my wife insists on putting on to fall asleep to
3. A device that detects reality tv and automatically adds a warning "This show is for morons. Watching by non-morons may lead to brain damage" across the screen
4. A filter for slashdot trolls.
5. A robot capable of doing all your arguing for you in a flame war.
6. An irrationality meter that warns you how irrational a person you're talking to is being at the time.
7. A superstition meter
8. Something to prevent assholes on public transport from touching my personal property (especially people bumping my laptop with oversized baggage and not even realizing it)

Re:My top challenges

[jomegat]

1. Socks that don't have to be paired every time they're washed.

Amputate one of your feet. Or try this instead:

1. Go out and buy a 10-20 pairs of socks - all the same kind and color.
2. Throw away all your old socks.
3. Now every sock you own matches every other sock you own.
4. When they need to be replaced, replace them all, because the odds of anyone finding the same type and color sock in a few years are vanishingly small.

OK, they still have to be paired, but the task becomes a lot easier. And you get to keep both your feet.

Re:My top challenges

[Propaganda13]

1. Socks that don't have to be paired every time they're washed.
2. A device to selectively block out the sound of an episode of "The Golden Girls" my wife insists on putting on to fall asleep to
3. A device that detects reality tv and automatically adds a warning "This show is for morons. Watching by non-morons may lead to brain damage" across the screen
4. A filter for slashdot trolls.
5. A robot capable of doing all your arguing for you in a flame war.
6. An irrationality meter that warns you how irrational a person you're talking to is being at the time.
7. A superstition meter
8. Something to prevent assholes on public transport from touching my personal property (especially people bumping my laptop with oversized baggage and not even realizing it)

1. Buy the same socks
2. Get a divorce
3. TV Guide
4. Done
5. In a flame war, you don't have to respond to the person or have an intellectual viewpoint. Just write a script for it.
6. meter is pegged already
7. no clue
8. It's called a car

Re:My top challenges

[jaxtherat]

1. Socks that don't have to be paired every time they're washed.
2. A device to selectively block out the sound of an episode of "The Golden Girls" my wife insists on putting on to fall asleep to
3. A device that detects reality tv and automatically adds a warning "This show is for morons. Watching by non-morons may lead to brain damage" across the screen
4. A filter for slashdot trolls.
5. A robot capable of doing all your arguing for you in a flame war.
6. An irrationality meter that warns you how irrational a person you're talking to is being at the time.
7. A superstition meter
8. Something to prevent assholes on public transport from touching my personal property (especially people bumping my laptop with oversized baggage and not even realizing it) Here are my solutions:

1. tie pairs of socks together when you put them in the laundry basket.
2. ipod/earmuffs/going for a jog/asking nicely.
3. not watching tv, only things you buy on DVD or torrented off the 'net.
4. New Project To End Stupidity Online it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/12/1943216
5. you + jager bombs.
6. sorry, that's a tough one.
7. you mean one of them thingies scientologists banned from being sold on ebay?
8. implement either a horrid or weird and socially unacceptable appearance (bubonic plague, mohawk, crossdressing etc... go nuts!) No-one will come near you enough to bump your laptop ever again. :)

Re:My top challenges

[syousef]

Already thought of this. Steps 2 and 4 are the main problem.

I'm too stingy to throw away perfectly good socks. A year or 2 ago. I did go out and buy a bunch of the same sock but didn't throw away my old ones. It makes the odds of finding a pair much higher. Unfortunately the brand I picked turned out to be not very well made with some socks significantly smaller/shorter than others. So that's fun I'm still living with at the moment.

Also while I'm no fashion victim wearing the exact same socks every day is a bit boring. Then there's warm vs. thin socks for winter vs. summer.

Re:My top challenges

[syousef]

1. See my reply to other poster.
2. No way. She rocks even if our taste in TV differs.
3. Got one. Doesn't change the wife from wanting to watch stuff. See 2.
4. Where???
5. A script that can answer as well as I can? Where?
6. where?
8. It's called a traffic jam.

Re:My top challenges

[syousef]

1. They don't wash properly if you do this. (Buying the same sock not a good option either. See replies to other posters)
2. Good idea. I do leave sometimes but I also like to crash in front of the tele and spend time with her.
3. Tell my wife that.
4. *chuckle*
5. Huh?
7. No, I don't mean a device made to scam people.
8. Love it. Out weird the weirdos. Unfortunately it may affect career, so not practical.

Re:I AM A FUCKING TROLL

[calebt3]

+1 Inciteful.

Cold Fusion

[grayshirtninja]

Fusion pow'r is the
only goal on that list that is
worthwhile. Like a pie.

Too bad it is too
far-fetch'd. Solar power has
a much better chance.

How about...

[JimboFBX]

Fixing our gas wasting traffic system.

Re:"Prevent nuclear terror" - also

[sien]

Apparently nuclear war is just dandy. It's nuclear terrorism we have to worry about.

The declared nuclear states (and Israel with it's undeclared undeclared weapons) and their delivery systems and willingness to invade other non-nuclear states is just fine, it's the people with no weapons and little realistic hope of getting them.

The List (with annotations)

[RobBebop]

1. Make solar energy affordable - Done
2. Provide energy from fusion - This is something I don't know anything about.
3. Develop carbon sequestration methods - More information
4. Manage the nitrogen cycle - More information. I feel like on a basic, local level this can already be accomplished easily. On an advanced/global level though... Manage it? In the next 100 years maybe we can gather some data points so we can UNDERSTAND it. Until then, any attempts to "manage" it would be foolish
5. Provide access to clean water - Tried and true method and 1, 2, 3 Orgs doing it.
6. Restore and improve urban infrastructure - And run on-time and build more parks - but who will fund it?
7. Advance health informatics - This "engineering goal" is too general to discuss. It's like, make it easier to get useful data on our health. Duh!
8. Engineer better medicines - I think "Engineer better robots" would be a more worthwhile engineering goal... but that's just me.
9. Reverse-engineer the brain - Teaching it, and studying it
10. Prevent nuclear terror - This is a political bombshell that I won't go near, but from what I see the strategy is (a) deterrence, and (b) threaten anybody with a nuclear project.
11. Secure cyberspace - Ha!
12. Enhance virtual reality - In a practical way or just enough so that my brain can be tricked into thinking that an incredibly hot women is going down on me?
13. Advance personalized learning - Not sure what this is...
14. Engineer the tools for scientific discovery - Another overly general one, but I'd like to think "discovery" is a misspelling of "exploration". Lately I've been thinking that our satellites are similar to the Triremes of Greece times (which are bound to stay close to our shores), the Apollo/Space Shuttle is like Viking ships (which couldn't (or weren't) be used to setup a new settlement), and then this would be the equivalent of the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria (except they will be called Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, and Lincoln).

I am going to be fair... this is really a list of things that can be completed in the next 25 years. These are not "100 year" goals. They are simply to generalized, for the most part. A real engineer knows that goals should be Specific, Measurable, and ARTistic. These goals don't qualify.

Re:The List (with annotations)

[BarlowBrad]

Lately I've been thinking that our satellites are similar to the Triremes of Greece times (which are bound to stay close to our shores), the Apollo/Space Shuttle is like Viking ships (which couldn't (or weren't) be used to setup a new settlement), and then this would be the equivalent of the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria (except they will be called Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, and Lincoln). Play much Civilization? ;)

Re:The List (with annotations)

[roman_mir]

Provide energy from fusion - This is something I don't know anything about. - the Sun is powered by fusion, so providing energy from fusion is trivial - it's the Sun light/heat.

Of-course they meant provide a method for sustaining a fusion reaction that makes energy on this planet. This is less trivial, since a fusion reaction that we know works (the Sun) requires atoms to be heated to at least 10*10^6K before they fuse into other atoms. We have fusion, we just can't make more energy out of it then we put into it.

Re:The List (with annotations)

[RobBebop]

Not in a long time, but Civ II used to be an EXCELLENT way to kill a weekend a decade ago. I wish I could get a copy of exactly the same game that will run on my Ubuntu laptop, and play again. I know there FreeCiv, but it isn't the same. And Duke Nukem 3D, I wish they would publish that again.

(note: I don't pay for software, I don't pirate software, and I recall buying copies and then losing the discs for Windows versions of those games 10 years ago).

Space elevator?

[mlts]

If we could get a space elevator working and in production for commercial use, this would be a BIG accomplishment for everyone. This would lower the barrier of access to space to commercial ventures, rather than just only accessible to only the richest of countries.

Re:Space elevator?

[MrKaos]

Absolutely, why the hell isn't it Number 1 on the list. Mod parent up!!!

Re:Space elevator?

[tom17]

This should definately have been on the list. The opportunities for improvement that this would open up (once matured, obviously) are countless. Off-world mining for rare/helpful materials, amongst many things.

Re:Space elevator?

[anastasd]

Exactly! And why not factories or solar plants orbiting around Earth and even artificial ring(s)? This would solve most of the problems with pollution and energy demands. Securing cyberspace is not a real challenge, it could be so if we had to secure 20th century computers from 21st c. hackers. :) Self-sustain colonies outside Earth are one-time investment with endless return. Most of the asteroids and little moons have no atmosphere and very low gravity and transporting resources from them to Earth will be very cheap.

Re:Space elevator?

[analogkid76]

My thoughts exactly. Of course if there were a space elevator, securing it might be a big challenge.

Re:Number 15: Exterminate All Muslims

[Anonymous Coward]

genetically target muslims We can genetically detect beliefs now? Science is amazing.

"Secure cyberspace"

[nexuspal]

At that point the entire article lost me due to the ineptness of the author...

The first three...

[evanbd]

Aren't they just wordier versions of "make clean, cheap energy"?

NSF and my list

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember this list appears to come from the NSF. I'm sure this list includes the footnote of challenges they should focus on. Remember that energy (doe), health (hhs), military (dod) and space (nasa) are funded elsewhere. Here is my list from the top of my head, for no other better reason. Engineering challenges:

1) Human space travel to planetary bodies outside of earth
2) Widespread therapeutic use of engineered tissue, gene therapy and RNAi (gene knockdown)
3) Therapeutic approaches to overcome antibiotic resistance
4) Complete reduction of dependence on fossil fuels
5) Artificial intelligence
6) Reduction of the human costs of war through military technologies (as much as I hate to say it, world leaders seem to be too arrogant or too shortsighted to eliminate it)
7) Pervasive cyberinfrastructure
8) Elimination of obesity and related diseases
9) Engineering of useful artificial biotics (and control of the dangerous ones)
10) Health informatics and truely personalized medicine in the age of postgenomics

I'm sure there are others maybe some environmental issues (global warming, overpopulation, etc)...

Provide energy from fusion is a challenge?

[chongo]

Regarding the engineering challenge: "Provide energy from fusion"

The Sun and other stars have been doing this for billion of years. On earth, H-Bombs did this decades ago. Heck, I've accelerated Deuterium ions into a target containing Tritium in a lab and calculated the energy that was released in the resulting fusion reaction.

I think they way to say something along the lines of: Produce power from commercially viable fusion reactors.

Re:Provide energy from fusion is a challenge?

[stranger_to_himself]

We can't do fusion in a reliable, safe, controllable, or useful manner. That's why it's an engineering challenge not a scientific one. The commercial challenge will come after the engineering challenge is solved.

I think the biggest missing option from the list is accessibility: making all benefits from these whizzy scientific and technical ideas available and accessible to everybody around the world.

Need to invest in math

[tjstork]

Every single one of these engineering challenges would benefit by any significant gains made towards the efficient calculation of "intractible problems". So really, while one could argue that yes, we should spend billions of dollars on brute force research on all of these, one could also argue that we should also be trying to cultivate that one Newton of our day that can solve TSP in polynomial time. Then you could just have a computer crunch out solutions to all of the problems on the list, even by using the same core open source library.

Securing Cyberspace

[ShogunTux]

I don't know why you think this is so laughable. Every year someone else gets closer to turning everyone into a bot in a global botnet. If that's not securing cyberspace, then I don't know what is.

False problems

[Ralph Spoilsport]

Many of those issues are not really problems, in that they can be cured by other issues that make them redundant/meaningless.

* Make solar energy affordable

As noted elsewhere: affordable is relative. Let oil hit some arbitrarily high price, and solar power suddenly looks cheap.

* Provide energy from fusion

Also, as noted elsewhere, the sun is a stable fusion reactor, and it is safely located millions of miles away.

* Develop carbon sequestration methods

Only if we intend to continue gulping oil. Assuming it goes off the charts in expense, carbon sources (oil or coal) will cease to be economically viable and will cease being used except for Important things like medicine and materials, both of which are small carbon burners compared to the local SUV.

* Manage the nitrogen cycle

Corn, Beans, Squash.

* Provide access to clean water

Nice idea, but first you have to have enough to go around. This problem (as would many others) be solved with FEWER people shitting the place up.

* Restore and improve urban infrastructure

Mostly, TRAINS. Lots of electric TRAINS. Remember: Peak OIl == Peak Asphalt.

* Advance health informatics

Nice idea - how you will do it with out petroleum is another issue.

* Engineer better medicines

See above.

* Reverse-engineer the brain

Why? I would think reverse engineering the liver might be more useful.

* Prevent nuclear terror

Sure: Ban nuclear weapons or drive civilisation back to the 18th century. We can do the first, and the oil crash will do the second, over time.

* Secure cyberspace

Against WHAT? Phishing?

* Enhance virtual reality

Eeew- that is like SO five minutes ago.

* Advance personalized learning

Sure, so I can leverage my human resources, right? fuck off.

* Engineer the tools for scientific discovery

Like WHAT - INSIGHT? Good luck with that Butch, lemme know how it works out for ya. Moron.

RS

Re:False problems

[DougWebb]

* Provide access to clean water

Nice idea, but first you have to have enough to go around. This problem (as would many others) be solved with FEWER people shitting the place up.

That's real nice. "Hmm, this village lacks clean water; they're drinking out of the river and getting sick." "Oh, no problem, just shoot them all. They'll stop getting sick."

Re:False problems

[stiller]

Like WHAT - INSIGHT? Good luck with that Butch, lemme know how it works out for ya. Moron. You're actually onto something here. More often than not, after studying some field or specific subject for days, digging through piles of documentation and reading between lines, I am able to explain the same matter to somebody completely new to the subject within minutes. For some reason, the effectiveness of conveying knowledge from person to person, and thereby providing a common starting point for further research, varies greatly.

From time to time, you encounter a /. comment which clearly and concisely explains very hard subject matter. The same goes for certain Wikipedia articles. Maybe we should focus on a common form factor (not unlike usability standards) to make subject more easily understandable.

I see two immediate problems with this: 1) Not everybody is able or willing to explain something they have discovered with much effort in layman's terms. 2) Some matter is simply to complex or nuanced to be explained effectively in natural language. I've seen people try and fail to explain quantum mechanics to the general public many times.

In the end, insight is the result of studying a field. But these days, we can't expect everyone to be an expert in every possible field.

Re:False problems

[pseudorand]

> * Provide access to clean water
> Nice idea, but first you have to have enough to go around. This problem (as would many others) be solved with FEWER people shitting the place up.

So, are you saying that "Provide access to clean water" and "Prevent nuclear terror" are mutually exclusive?

Re:False problems

[Shadowlore]

* Make solar energy affordable

As noted elsewhere: affordable is relative. Let oil hit some arbitrarily high price, and solar power suddenly looks cheap.

Nuclear is cheaper than oil, and has a higher land density. According to the 2007 survey of prices (EIA), the typical cost in cents/kW-hour for solar is 50. Oil is 6. To make oil and solar competitive on price would require oil at roughly $1,000/bbl. Sure you said "arbitrarily high", but one would hope for a reasonable expectation. Solar won't "suddenly look cheap" without an fundamental breakthrough or change in the laws of physics as we know them.

However, nuclear (fission) comes in at 5 cents. Yes, nuclear (fission) is cheaper than oil as of 2007. All of the other current sources, such as biomass, are single-digits. ONLY solar has double digits, and is more than an order of magnitude more expensive than the cheapest (2 cents for hydroelectric) and an order of magnitude above the average (excluding coal).

No, it isn't solved by economies of scale. The delta is far too great. You might make the case that solar still has much research ahead of it. So, too, does fission. Indeed much of the energy generated by fission is left on the table as heat. Research is being done to increase "yield" by coupling thermal conversion systems such as Sterling engines with the steam generation.

Historically, oil prices and fusion research go in similar directions. That means that high oil prices has been followed historically by increased funding of fusion research. Maybe we'll see that happen again.

The most immediate result of higher oil prices may be increased funding (not necessarily by government) for clean coal conversion. Take coal, covert it to syngas (and alcohols) and burn it. It's actually very clean, and most of the CO2 (for those that care) is easily captured. Furthermore the US alone has enough coal to do this for well over a thousand years. Long enough to finally achieve (controlled) fusion ignition.

Re:False problems

[caramuru]

Ralph,

If I remember correctly, I need to deliver money to you in a plain brown bag in the dead of night. I am sure that there are not many of us on this site old enough to remember Fire Sign Theatre.

Regards,

Porgy, Mudhead, & the gang at Shadow Valley Condoms

If you lived here, you'd be home by now!

Re:False problems

[Ralph Spoilsport]

Yep. Quid Malborg in Plano, consternation has turned to elucidation!

Just say the word "Power" and it responds - JUST LIKE WE DO!

RS

Never fear

[MacDork]

There's no thought to implementation here, just feel good "hey we oughta" crap.

Don't worry, those non-engineers will be sure to patent these "inventions" and sue you for your 1% inspiration after you've completed your 99% perspiration.

For slashdot

[Tablizer]

15. Automate dupe detection ;-)

What We're All Thinking

[DarthMAD]

Sure, nuclear terror is plenty frightening and cheap solar power would be great.

But what about the zombies?

Developing an effective plan to stave off a massive zombie invasion is the transcendent challenge of our time. We need to do this sooner rather than later, and we need to be prepared when it happens. Cyberspace, virtual reality, fusion power, even clean water - all of this will be for naught if we're all undead.

You're probably thinking by now (if you're still reading, that is), "Simple. Shoot them in the head." Well, if zombie movies and books are at all accurate - and I've seen nothing to lead me to believe otherwise - things will quickly spiral out of control and there will be more of them than we can handle before we know it.

Maybe if we could domesticate them... (this always works well in the movies)

flying car

[mehtars]

Where is my mass produced cheap efficient flying car!?!

Secure scientific knowledge

[Anonymous Coward]

While we're drawing up a sociopolitical wishlist (because that's all I see here), how about ensuring that future generations have free access to knowledge for scientific advancement. That means restructuring a broken patent and intellectual property system that denies access to the seeds of future progress, past progress.

So long as we continue the drive towards private science, paranoia about industrial espionage and fear of terrorism we are doomed. Locking up research papers that belong to the people of the world behind corporate and government walls will not help. It will not protect us from knowledge falling in to the "wrong hands" - that is cutting of our nose to spite our face. Making science a privelege of a wealthy elite for profit won't help us, there will not be an environment conducive to solving these problems. We are all in this together, like it or not. None of these problems are insurmountable, but the greatest threat to scientific and engineering progress is the gentrification of scientific knowledge.

We must

1) Completely reform the patent and intellectual property system (including sacking every corrupt bastard in WIPO or abolishing it)
2) Mandate universal, free, open access to all research funded in whole or part by public money
3) Set up new international scientific forums to freely exchange knowledge and research results (no more of this "China vs America" nonsense)
4) Realise the Cold War is over, get over it America and drop the arrogant xenophobia, cooperation will solve our problems.
5) Fight religious fundamentalism and anti-science _everywhere_ it exists, including at home.
6) Stop celebrating ignorance and celebrity, raise an educated generation who aspire to being engineers not rich businessmen or pop stars.

The human race is holding itself back, by short term greed and arrogance.

15. Engineer smarter politicians

[ruinevil]

In the end, politicians write the checks for most large-scale engineering research and development. The current crop is too shortsighted and rational, and isn't investing in crazy stuff that is useless now, but lays the groundwork for useful things in the future; like the space program.
Anyways, I'd rather have them create self-repairing transportation infrastructure than almost everything else on that list. Something that insures that bridges won't collapse when you are on it.

Re:"Prevent nuclear terror" - also

[amirulbahr]

I take "nuclear terror" to include anyone exploding a nuclear device anywhere with the aim of killing.

Democracy

[secondhand_Buddah]

I noticed that they left off the most important thing that needs to be re-engineered at this juncture in time: Democracy.

Democracy just does not work in its present form any more. Legislated corruption has become a scourge worldwide. We have been brainwashed to believe that governments are our rulers instead of civil servants. We have forgotten that as citizens we own the common infrastructures of the world. They do not belong to the politicians to do with whatever they see fit. Really folks, its time for a change...

should be number 1

[Anonymous Coward]

Eliminate lawyers and put engineers in their place == things actually get done right

Only three of the tasks fall under engineering.

[Spazmania]

* Develop carbon sequestration methods

We already have high-quality carbon sequestration methods. They're called "trees." All we have to do is plant more than we cut down.

* Manage the nitrogen cycle
* Enhance virtual reality
* Engineer the tools for scientific discovery

Weak. Weak!

* Make solar energy affordable
* Provide energy from fusion
* Engineer better medicines
* Reverse-engineer the brain

These are not engineering tasks; they're basic science tasks. Engineers will get nowhere with these; it'd be a waste of money.

* Prevent nuclear terror
* Restore and improve urban infrastructure
* Provide access to clean water

These are not engineering tasks; they are political tasks. Solve the political factors and the engineering tasks are long solved and well-understood.

* Advance health informatics
* Secure cyberspace
* Advance personalized learning

These at least fall within the domain of solvable engineering problems.

Re:Only three of the tasks fall under engineering.

[Phat_Tony]

I agree with your breakdown of tasks, particularly their mixing up political, science, engineering, and just plain wishy-washy stuff. The line between science and engineering is vague, but they definitely tromp right over it and keep on going. When you achieve your scientific breakthrough and really understand the mechanisms, then you say "and the rest is just engineering." Engineering is stuff you can do with a bunch of bright, trained people following the established methods of the fields of engineering. It's the sort of stuff where you could solicit bids on a defined project and engineering companies would submit to meet your clearly defined criteria on a certain budget. GE's not about to bid on a job to "Reverse-engineer the brain." Building giant bridges, robotic manufacturing arms, and iPod Touches are engineering tasks. The Darpa Grand Challenge sort of straddles the line between engineering and science. Making nuclear fusion practical will undoubtedly require a lot of engineering, but only to build amazing apparatus- it's the science we need to do to figure out what those apparatus are that's the challenge. Only those three things you picked out could be done by engineers without requiring scientific breakthroughs, or politics, etc.

But wait a minute, the reason I'm commenting instead of just moding you up is that I disagree about the whole tree thing. Mature forests don't continue to sequester much carbon. The trees die, fall down, and rot, and the rotting releases most of the carbon back to the atmosphere. When the biomass of the forest reaches its peak, that's pretty much it for carbon sequestration. Yes, sometimes forests get buried and stuff, but you can't generally plan on that.

So the only way to really keep carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere using trees is to plant more and more acres of trees every year. I know the US was actually doing that for about a hundred years until corn ethanol subsidies reversed the trend and got farmers clear-cutting woods to grow more corn. But all that extra forest the US was growing every year for the past 100 years doesn't come close to sucking up the carbon we've been pumping out. And the future forecast, with a growing population, of continuing to radically increase the net forestation of the earth for many years to come is basically nil. And even if we did, there isn't enough surface area of the earth capable of supporting forest to offset our carbon emissions from coal and oil. We need something else to halt the growth of atmospheric carbon dioxide; sequestration, curbed emissions, or some combination.

Re:Only three of the tasks fall under engineering.

[Thelasko]

mod parent up!

We already have high-quality carbon sequestration methods. They're called "trees." All we have to do is plant more than we cut down.

duh!

Solve the political factors and the engineering tasks are long solved and well-understood.

That's the whole list. Just that one point. There needs to be US election reform.

They picked only the easy things.

[wilx]

They picked only the easy problems. What I miss on the list is things like "Cure famine in Africa and elsewhere", "Abolish religions" and "Find cures to incurable diseases."

Space travel

[Dersaidin]

Wheres space travel on that list?

Surely it is more important than most of the things on that list.
We need to get off this planet eventually...

Re:"Prevent nuclear terror" - also

[Anonymous Coward]

actually yes...

Known nuclear states are not much of a threat as they leave a trail back to them that ensures their own destruction.

It is the fringe groups that only need a single weapon that you have to worry about... because they WILL use them!

Build a molecular nanoassembler

[bradbury]

They missed the single critical factor -- "Design and construct a molecular nanoassembler." If one has one, then shortly thereafter one can have many. Then one can have nanorobots, then one can have indefinite longevity (limited by ones selected hazard function) and nanofactories (aka Star Trek type 'replicators'). The problem is that people don't recognize the design and assembly of something with 4 to 8 million atoms is a problem that can be solved (each /. reader could be responsible for a couple of dozen atoms). Given nanorobots and nanofactories most of the other "challenges" become fairly trivial.

If you want a nearly impossible problem, one might pick redesigning humans to withstand the radiation hazards of months to years of living or traveling in interplanetary space.

And before the trolls respond to this comment calling me crazy I would request that you answer the question, "Have you read the relevant literature?" I have.

Re:Build a molecular nanoassembler

[Big_Breaker]

We already have a nanoassembler. It is called a ribosome and works with a subset of molecules called amino acids. These amino acids are quite simple individually and quite useful when combined. We have already experimented with non-biological amino acid molecules and alternative coding (codon) systems.

Synthetic biology is actually progressing quite quickly. The first "killer application", potentially a biologically derived fuel, will provide the capital needed to accelerate the pace of development.

Re:Build a molecular nanoassembler

[bradbury]

Yes, I'm aware of that. I even wrote a paper discussing possible biological to non-biological paths for producing an assembler 6+ years ago. The pace of development is extremely slow given the fact that there are only a few labs working in these areas (e.g. alternative coding systems).

Most of the fuels in use today are ultimately biologically derived. They are not however derived in a sustainable fashion. The sustainable part is only achieved when we either switch to hydrogen which has significant transport problems or an approach which takes out of the atmosphere the carbon we put into the atmosphere. For that to work one needs cheap efficient solar energy which is something nanoassemblers could provide. Please don't throw photosynthesis back at me because the conversion efficiency of crops is below even really poor solar cells.

Far more important than pirates....

[Anonymous Coward]

The most important thing to do, to maximize everyone's standard of living, is to make sure there aren't so many people that no amount of engineering can support them. So, what we REALLY need, is affordable android children, so that most people would rather have them than real children. Remember, babies keep parents awake most of the night, need to have diapers changed, and so on. Older kids break almost anything susceptible, including themselves, scrawl on the walls, stick keys in electric outlets, throw temper tantrums, and so on. And many do even worse things when they get older still.

If android children were available, they'd always be well-behaved. Only those adults who desperately want to pass their genes on would want ordinary children.

Re:Far more important than pirates....

[jank1887]

AI?

A better list

[unchiujar]

What. A. Crappy. List. I usually just lurk around here but I thought I might provide my input for once. This is off the top of my head and in not particular order. Please feel free to add to this list. 1. Nanoassembler 2. Renewable, plentiful, and cheap energy 3. Space elevator and/or permanent off-planet colony (the all eggs in one basket thing) 4. Personalized medicine 5. Hard AI 6. Invisible man-machine interfaces

Re:A better list

[MrKaos]

What. A. Crappy. List.

Totally agree, I'd pretty much make the whole list say two things...

2. Space Elevator

1. CNT ribbon technology

I put them that way because I think our need for energy will drive a need for a S.E (in parallel with in other energy technology developments) to establish space based power, the need for a S.E will drive CNT. I think this because energy is the only real global economy, the capability to do work in this economy is dictated by our ability to use energy to maintain our lifestyle. No computers without energy, No washing machines, No transport, everything in our 1st world society is dictated by the use of energy.

Now, everyone everywhere wants the benefits of a 1st world lifestyle, but that lifestyle was created from consuming lots of energy AND we are arriving at a point in time where we realise the energetic costs of this lifestyle won't scale to allow countries like India and China to mimic this lifestyle. Mounting evidence is showing that the continuous consumption of this amount of energy, even for the first world, is unsustainable without ever growing, and more serious climatic consequences.

It's those consequences, which I strongly believe are going to be worse than our pessimistic forecasts, will govern our capability to continue to produce energy in our traditional means. It's not that I think that alternatives that produce a net energy benefit won't exist or be drawn on, or even that we may be able to replicate a first world lifestyle in a sustainable manner, I just think that it won't be enough to drive our civilisation without major changes to our existing infrastructure (in particular - cars and transport).

It may turn out to be easier to build a space elevator and create a hydrogen economy than changing the core infrastructure of our cities, suburbs, roads, railways that rely on cars, trucks, trains, aircraft and ships. Consequently I think the need for a S.E will exceed all other challenges and become an imperative simply because our civilisation will be facing the choice to advance or regress, and I just can't see people wanting to go back to living the way were were 10, 50 or hundred years ago, even if we could.

Becoming a space based human race to solve some of our terrestrial issues will become THE challenge for the 21st Century (as a result of our need for energy) and all other challenges will come after that.

Re:I AM A FUCKING TROLL

[Hyperspite]

I wish I had mod points. Mod parent funny!

more generally...

[tinkerton]

There is a very strong conviction with some, especially in America, that things are much safer with one big boss, however evil(Hobbes). And it's not wrong.

Proliferation of any means of provoking large scale mayhem is an increasing problem because of the number of players alone. If every country(or any organisation that's big enough) had an array of such weapons, chances of things going very wrong increase, in part because of things getting out of control in tit-for-tat reactions. Imagine 1962 with 10 players instead of 2.

There's also a point in distinguishing "terrorists" from "sane people", but here I would agree that the point is overestimated and it places an insane trust in the power of sanity. Uh. Also, terrorists blowing up a big city isn't the end of the world. It's only one city. Humanity will survive :)

Re:more generally...

[Teancum]

Also, terrorists blowing up a big city isn't the end of the world. It's only one city. Humanity will survive :)

The problem of this line of thinking is that the world isn't always so forgiving when you kill off a million citizens through nuclear warfare. Depending on who you are talking about, there have been a few U.S. presidents who have been willing to bet the whole farm on a full-scale total nuclear war. Kennedy was one of them (the Cuban Missile Crisis) and Nixon was another during the 1973 Arab-Israeli War. Check out what really ended that war and try to and figure out what stopped the Israeli Army from conquering Cairo and the whole of Egypt in 1973, and you get a better grasp of global politics and real concerns about nuclear proliferation. Hint, Israeli engineers were building military bridges to cross the Suez Canal, and there was nothing between the Suez Canal and Cairo in terms of military personnel worth consideration.

Remember, World War I was started because some relatively insignificant nobleman of a 3rd rate country was assassinated at the wrong place and the wrong time. This was a terrorist's dream, so far as being able to make a small action and have it cascade into something huge. A well-placed nuclear bomb at the right moment in time can also have the same effect today.

Re:more generally...

[tinkerton]

"this line of thinking" is a straw man. The nuclear terrorism challenge is important. I'm merely nudging the priorities towards nuclear proliferation.

One can draw an (artificial) boundary between the immediate effect of a terrorist strike and the aftereffects, being trigger,escalation,pretext. The example of WW1 is appropriate: since such an insignificant incident could be used to build up to a large scale war, don't put your hopes on avoiding these incidents. It's worthwile to work on it, but far from sufficient. We should assume these things will happen and make sure the chances of escalation are limited.

Challenge #15: birth control

[migloo]

Or should it be #1 ?
An effective birth control system
(would be a social engineering feat)

Re:Challenge #15: birth control

[SlowGenius]

Implementation of effective birth control is by far the #1 priority we need to implement to improve global societal well-being. Face it, people: The only obstacles that fundamentally prevent us all from living like Bill Gates in the long-term are social economic ones.

When it comes down to it, if we collectively wanted to prioritize clean water, clean transportation, adequate and healthy food, elimination of communicable diseases, cheap communication tech, adequate housing, renewable energy, yadda-yadda-yadda, we already have the engineering know-how to do so perfectly well for decades to come for some 'reasonable' number of people. Whether 'reasonable' is a number as small as 2 billion or as large as 20 billion is somewhat open to debate, but it's not relevant to the larger point. That point is that no matter what the carrying capacity of our planet (or solar system) ultimately is, there still will be only finite resources collectively available to us, even while many of our sub-populations have religious and/or cultural incentives to continue to multiply exponentially.

No matter how we may strive to fix any specific technological problem, all such a solution can gain us is to stave off the inevitable by (at best) increasing the planet's carrying capacity. The underlying economic problem (exponential population growth) will remain the same, and it will still have only two possible solutions: (1) decreased human birth rate, or (2) increased human death rate.

Where solution (1) is inadequately implemented, solution (2) MUST prevail, and it will often do so in a cataclysmic fashion.

Re:Challenge #15: birth control

[khallow]

I'm puzzled that you aren't aware of global population growth trends. Most of the developed world is either barely positive or negative population growth and that includes substantial immigration from higher fertility populations. As I understand it, the population is on track to peak in 2050 at somewhere under 10 billion people. That's a lot of people, but it's not exponential growth at that point.

Re:Challenge #15: birth control

[SlowGenius]

The key to your statement is the word 'developed'. Take a good hard look at a map and realize just how insignificant the 'developed' world is in the grand scheme of things. True, as women become more educated, they have substantially fewer children. And yes, China did implement a very drastic birth control policy some years back that's kept the situation from being far, far, worse than it already is.

And when we talk about the population being on track to peak at somewhere under 10 billion people, where do you think that upper bound comes from? The people in the high-fertility cultures will have caught up to the developed world and just won't want to have so many kids? Um, by and large, no. That 'peak' of 10 billion is actually a carrying capacity. It reflects horrible economic conditions and high death rates from things like AIDS, starvation, genocide, and lack of access to potable water in underdeveloped countries. Yes, at some point in some cultures there will probably be noticeable declines in birth rates, where women choose to use birth control and abortion to avoid even more severe economic hardships for their families.

But in general, when we provide technological solutions to population problems without addressing high birth rates, we succeed only in increasing the carrying capacity sufficiently to allow more impoverished people to exist before a different aspect of Malthusian economics takes its toll.

Re:Challenge #15: birth control

[khallow]

The key to your statement is the word 'developed'. Take a good hard look at a map and realize just how insignificant the 'developed' world is in the grand scheme of things. True, as women become more educated, they have substantially fewer children. And yes, China did implement a very drastic birth control policy some years back that's kept the situation from being far, far, worse than it already is.

As I see it, around a sixth of the world is considered "developed", that's not a trivial amount of people. Second, the entire world is becoming more educated and wealthier. We already know that leads to reduced female fertility and eventually even negative population growth. Keep in mind that the US population used to be just as fertile as the current highest fertility in Africa.

And when we talk about the population being on track to peak at somewhere under 10 billion people, where do you think that upper bound comes from? The people in the high-fertility cultures will have caught up to the developed world and just won't want to have so many kids?

It comes from the UN. And is based on the reasonable assumption that fertility will decline as the population gets wealthier and more educated. They ignore carrying capacity issues.

Um, by and large, no. That 'peak' of 10 billion is actually a carrying capacity. It reflects horrible economic conditions and high death rates from things like AIDS, starvation, genocide, and lack of access to potable water in underdeveloped countries. Yes, at some point in some cultures there will probably be noticeable declines in birth rates, where women choose to use birth control and abortion to avoid even more severe economic hardships for their families.

As I pointed out before, European and US culture had just as high fertility rates as the current highest in Africa. You have yet to indicate why these other cultures won't go along with the same economic incentives that reduced fertility and reproduction rates in the developed world. As I see it, the worst of the countries out there are equivalent in technology and fertility to the US in 1900. I see no reason that they will stay there a century from now.

I thought this was covered earlier

[twomi]

The only challenge is making smart enough artificial intelligence to reach singularity, like discussed a while back in ./ ... After that we can simplify the engineering challenge list to single item: control the AI.

FLYINGSQUID FOR PRESIDENT!

[fyoder]

Now, THAT's a platform I could support 100%. The dog/cat hybrid is especially brilliant. The platforms of obama and hillary and the republican guy are just grey and lame by comparison. Flyingsquid in 2008! Huzzah!

Diamond-cutting guilds

[Dr. Cody]

(At this point, I should mention that De Beers also tightly controls the diamond cutter workforce -- any diamond cutter who cuts for a company other than De Beers is immediately cut off from doing any De Beers work)

The diamond cutter workforce is also dominated by Hasidic Jews. When I first saw a documentary on the industry, I thought it was an odd combination, but then, it came to me. Hundreds of years ago, there's this guy, and he's thinking:

"Hmmmm... I've got all these diamonds; now who can I hire that has experience in precision cutting work where any mistake has grave consequences...

"I've got it!"

Re:Diamond-cutting guilds

[trytoguess]

...I don't get the punchline. How is making a mistake uber bad when your a Hasidic Jew?

Re:"Prevent nuclear terror" - also

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you'll find Israel has more undeclared undeclared undeclared nuclrst weapons than undeclared undeclared ones.

Book of the Future has the answers

[Phurge]

Its all in the Book of the Future http://www.pointlessmuseum.com/museum/usbornebookofthefutureindex.php eg The first commercial fusion power station will come online before 2050

the actual article

[SethJohnson]

Coondoggie's link is unnecessarily pointing at a newtworkworld copy-and-paste of the NSF's original article which is here.

WHere's My "Jetson's Robot?"

[myspace-cn]

Where did the "Jetson's Robot" go?
You know the one that washes the dishes, cleans the floor, picks up after food dishes and other nasty stuff (like chicken bones and glassware) falls on the ground and breaks and makes a gloppy mess. Where's that hair washing, dog walking, car driving, security guarding robot? The lawn mowing, house painting, fire fighting, phone answering robot, meal cooking, child babysitting robot!?

Even one that could roll a smoke, and get a beer from the fridge would be something.
Na instead, we got retard bots.
$20 for a frisbee to vacuume the floor like a retard. (how long does this shit take?)
$20 for a answer machine (you still have to program and add your voice.)
$200 for a rechargable retard robot to cut the grass. (you still have to move the electronic fence)
$6000 for voting machine that is r00t0rd (retarded)

nothing for cooking food, painting houses, walking dogs.
Still no hydrogen replacement for gas

We're living in a dream world.

Have Delegates picked candidates
What happened to the people?
Pass a smoke to the robot.
The robot says, "got a light man?"

Tell it. "not for the PNAC clowns and fuck the AIPAC too"
The robot says, "not even the CFR?"

Melt them all down! Melt the data books melt the schematics.

No. No what you really mean is melt the solder and pass the flux.

engineering goals?

[Lazy Jones]

Is "enhancing virtual reality" really an important engineering goal? Did Larry Page actually vote for stuff like this?

Here are some suggestions:

• reverse-engineer the human body and develop robotic surgery at the required level of precision to replace arbitrary defective parts (so basically we will only die from virus infections, complete annihilation of the body e.g. in a car crash, and bluescreens)
• alternative, clean power sources are already available and being worked on, this isn't a huge engineering challence, just a political/social one. If we could use solar energy exclusively at +50% the cost and actually had to, then we would. Why does it have to be cheaper to replace e.g. nuclear energy? Is the price really the only thing that matters? In that case we'd better develop muscle-powered devices instead ...
• teleportation, replication, complete disassembling and recycling at molecular level - if we're talking about the whole century, I'd expect some progress here.
• space travel, moon colonization.
• self-steering vehicles - still not solved
• nutrition: robotic kitchen orders food, cooks etc. based on someone's specific nutritional needs. We all know that we eat the wrong stuff, why not optimize it? (we can still refuse)
• minor issue: get rid of the damn keyboard/mouse/monitor/headphones as UI and replace with something more practical (small, always available - implant?)

I don't see political goals like "preventing nuclear terrorism" as engineering goals. They would only become engineering goals if instead of taking care to have sane and educated political leaders, we choose to go down the path of totalitarianism and expect the government to protect us from everything using continuous surveillance and perhaps bio-engineering (further developed "electronic monitoring / tagging").

Re:"Prevent nuclear terror" - also

[tsotha]

Declared nuclear states (and states like Israel that are unofficially declared) are just fine. If the Israelis lob a nuke at the Russians, they know they have only twenty minutes or so to make peace with whomever they worship. India and Pakistan, both nuclear armed countries that have, what, seven wars under their collective belt haven't nuked each other. Fear is a wonderful demotivator.

But terrorism is different. Let's say Al Queda gets ahold of a nuclear bomb. What, exactly, is their downside to actually using it? Who would we retaliate against if they used it to blow up New York? Hell, they might not care if we went on a big bombing spree, since all the dead Muslims are gonna get their virgins.

And why are you so sanguine about their chances of actually acquiring one? The technology is over sixty years old - you can get plans off the internet. People have been caught selling stolen Russian fissionables now on more than one occasion. And terrorist groups don't seem to have a big problem attracting engineers. Sure, they probably couldn't build a fusion bomb, and a crude fission bomb might be large and have a yield of "only" 50kt or so. That would be enough to kill millions.

Personally, I don't think nuclear terrorism is an "if" question. It's a "when" question. But short of a verifyable, complete international ban on all nuclear devices, including power stations, I don't see how it can be prevented.

After reading your link

[Shivetya]

I don't see the problem. They are simply selling to a company which orders in large enough quantities to sustain a particular investment in people and plant space.

IOW - your really reaching.

What you have seen oil companies doing is snapping up new technologies because its the right thing to do to be in business down the road. Oil companies are big into battery technology because its an open avenue for future profit, provided they can deliver the technology before someone else.

The real market for them if not in liquid fuels is to create quick charge technologies that can be incorporated into their vast investment of stations and such. Think about, get a power system which can take 1 to 2 minutes to provide 20 to 30 miles of driving convienence and you open the door to lots of possibilities.

disclaimer: I do not work for an oil company or battery company, I do invest in them and follow acquisitions. Frankly if they just sat on their ass and let this new power delivery/storage technology pass them by I would be more pissed.

They forgot to add the most important one.

[master_p]

The most important engineering challenge is to make software correct by writing it. Software is the biggest thing in human history, because it enables God-like powers in us. Our civilization is as good as its software is. The future is dependent on software...

How come no...

[Anonymous Coward]

...space elevator?

The Century???

[Anonymous Coward]

The year is Two Thousand and EIGHT. Shut the fuck up about anything "of the Century"! Or have you already seen the next 92 years?

Global Rail Circuit

[Doc Ruby]

If I had the world's engineering budget, I'd make one of those top engineering challenges the building of a global rail circuit interconnecting each of the 6 inhabited continents (really 4, because Eurasia and the Americas are already done).

Rail tubes across all the seas, maybe 4 tracks wide (2 in each direction) in at least 2 or 3 separate bundles for capacity and redundancy. Running from Newfoundland to Iceland/Ireland/Scotland/Netherlands, across the Bering strait, Malaysia to Australia and New Zealand, and across the Mediterranean (the Mideast is too volatile to depend on its land linkage among Europe/Asia/Africa). Maybe even China/Korea to Japan and the Philippines

That's real engineering. It wouldn't require lots of new science, just engineering, and lots of it - truly grand. And the benefits would improve energy consumption, trade, tourism, and break down some boundaries among rival peoples that create lots more conflict than necessary, which we should leave behind now that we're more interdependent than independent.

If the trains average 50 miles per hour, and the path winds up 4x longer than the equator as it curves around continents to get around terrain to leaving/landing points, Johannesburg to Tasmania could be a 96,000 mile total circuit. That's around the world in 80 days, 21st Century style.

Re:#1 on everyone's list!

[borgboy]

Which brings us to challenge #0: A time machine, enabling some benevolent organization to go back in time and supply your unfortunate parents with the birth control that they so richly deserve.

My quick takes on it:

[Pig Hogger]

Hmmm. Lessee.

* Make solar energy affordable

Why bother, with cheap fusion available (see below)?

* Provide energy from fusion

Best thing that could happen so far, if only for cheap access to orbit.

* Develop carbon sequestration methods

Replant the trees that have been uprooted by suburban development.

* Manage the nitrogen cycle

Yup...

* Provide access to clean water

Yup...

* Restore and improve urban infrastructure

Get rid of the cars and trucks that demolish roads.

* Advance health informatics

Get rid of leechy private insurance companies.

* Engineer better medicines

Prohibit drug marketing

* Reverse-engineer the brain

Scary!

* Prevent nuclear terror

Just don't invade other countries for their oil (should be easy to do with fusion)

* Secure cyberspace

Mandate firewalls.

* Enhance virtual reality

Why bother?

* Advance personalized learning

Get rid of marketers. If there is a force working hard to dumb-down society, it's marketers.

* Engineer the tools for scientific discovery

Goes hand in hand with advancing personalized learning.

This list fails.

[JWW]

Wheres a mission to Mars?? At some point mankind will need to leave this rock. Sure Earth will more than likely support life for a long time to come. But the mission to spread the human race throughout the galaxy starts with one small step... to the next planet over. Now is the time to do that, waiting until later is just procrastination.

The Fermi paradox proposes that advanced enough races would eventually colonize the galaxy, but maybe thats not the whole crux of it. Maybe there are advanced races out there that could have colonized the galaxy, but they just never got off their ass and got around to it.

It seems to me that our adventurers spirit has come close to dying out in recent decades. Everyone is all caught up in solving problems here on Earth and only that. But the societal pluses of broad visionary exploration like going to the moon pay dividends for everyone in the long run and going to Mars would be no different. Efforts to terraform Mars would definitely teach us more about maintaining Earths environment.

I think the exclusion of a mission to Mars from this list is inexcusable.

Ultra-PeePee!

[PurplePhase]

Grr: Where's Ultra-PeePee?
Zim: He's at work.

Where is SENS?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not make the list a nice TOP 15 and include SENS?

Teleport is Fine, but

[Phoenix666]

Teleporn would be better. Having sex from a distance--think of the marriages that could be saved, the diseases that wouldn't be spread!

Re:"Prevent nuclear terror" - also

[khallow]

But short of a verifyable, complete international ban on all nuclear devices, including power stations, I don't see how it can be prevented. You'd also have to ban uranium mines, the possession of uranium, and maybe even related knowledge.

Limestone

[mdsolar]

To get limestone you need calcium. When both calcium and magnesium are used you get dolomite. With magnesium alone you get magnesite. It should be remembered that the remaining elements of the silicate rock will be mixed with the product and if heavy metals are present they may be released to the environment. Serpentine soils are not very fertile, in part, because of this effect.

The Voting Website

[BroadbandBradley]

Add this to your list of challenges:

Get the voting page http://www.engineeringchallenges.org/ to render properly in Firefox!
 

Mod parent up

[Anonymous Coward]

The information on the wikipedia article shows that the nuclear waste problem with fusion reactors is dramatically less than that of fission reactors.

zeroth challenge

[PMuse]

Build a voting system for the 14 greatest engineering challenges that fully captures all voter preferences and a web site to host it that works seamlessly under all major browsers.

How about a dream machine?

[cayenne8]

If they could somehow figure how to 'plug-in' to your brain...and let you basically relive old memories, or hang out in a 'dream state' where you could be in a lucid dream state, and do basically anything you wanted to. The ultimate virtual reality.

Trouble is...if they DID come up with something like that....much of the world would be hooked on it permanently....and nothing much in the real world would get done.

Re:How about a dream machine?

[Larry_The_Canary]

much of the world would be hooked on it permanently

I think the novelty would wear off pretty quickly. Part of the joy of living involves growing as a person which is in large part done by facing and possibly overcoming obstacles and challenges. If you lived in a world where you could always do whatever you wanted there would be no obstacles and challenges. I for one would be very bored and depressed living in such a world.

The dream machine you describe though is a great idea and could become an invaluable tool for personal reflection and insight.

Re:"Prevent nuclear terror" - also

[Anonymous Coward]

Europe will most likely be the first target and we will see how they react to it.

New York is a very big target but it has got to be much easier to take nuclear material from an old Soviet state and move it throughout eastern Europe.

World peace is not on the list?

[nbritton]

"What? World peace is not on the list?"

World peace was already solved. The solution is more Prozac and less religion.

Population control

[XB-70]

The planet's population is out of control. All the world's ills flow from that.

Here's a simple solution (in 10 parts):

create two vaccines. One for women that

a) causes instant, permanent, reversible contraception

b) makes women crave gratuitous sex

c) removes cattiness

d) ends obesity

e) makes women lose interest in shopping

One for men that

a) causes instant, permanent, reversible contraception

b) makes men actually listen

c) gives men a nice sized dick

d) ends obesity

e) makes men lose interest in competing

Now, get to it, Einstein!

Who cares about nuclear terrorism?

[Elrac]

Call me a cynic if you want, or an asshole if you prefer. But I consider nuclear terrorism a non-issue.

Preconditions:

• The Soviet Union has become a supermarket for fissionable material;
• All Western countries have borders that are leaky as a sieve with respect to objects the size of A-bombs or components (or how do billions of Dollars' worth of drugs enter the US annually?);
• Information on how to build A-bombs is public knowledge;
• Intelligence agencies worldwide uncover a few bomb-assembling operations but can't possibly be 100% effective;
• There are millions of people who hate America with a deep passion and would gladly die to harm America, Israel or any other part of the "Western world". They've hated us for decades; and
• The War on Terror is a joke. It's mostly show and bravado and bombing the shit out of civilians. It's armed-to-the teeth armored guards in front of a triple-bolted steel door, with an open screen dor in back.

We have, above, a set of opportunities plus a motive and a large group of crazies to act on it. As for the time frame, Soviet Uranium has been available for 16 years. The Arab world has been witness to the unwarranted and brutal "liberation" of Iraq for 5 years. Why the fuck hasn't New York been nuked yet? To be honest, I don't know.

My conclusion is that the foaming-mouth ragheads are too stupid, too disorganized and/or too unlucky to pull this off effectively and quickly. I'm sure that, somewhere, they're working like mad on it but not getting much of anywhere. Also, if they do succeed sometime in the next few years, they'll damage part of one major city, kill maybe a million people or so, and then fail to do it again for another few years. So what?

I live in a major Western city. My life is in mortal danger every time I cross a street on foot here, or venture into traffic in my non-SUV car. My Slashdotter lifestyle is associated with a number of serious health risks. In terms of pure statistics, I'm 1000 times more likely to be killed in an auto accident or by a cardiac arrest than by a terrorist's nuke. And I'll be equally dead in either case. So tell me again why I should worry about a terrorist nuclear attack?

It would suck to be a victim of such an attack, but I don't consider it an immediate danger. Governments and media are whipping the ignorant sheeple into a teeth-gnashing panic about it. I'll abstain, thank you. I'm much more worried about the upcoming wars over energy, drinking water and dry land. And in the short term, that the Chinese government and the RIAA manage to shut down the Internet so the world is plunged back into biblical ignorance.

Even if you don't subscribe to my cynical world view, consider what it would take to make the whole world nuke-safe. Ask yourself if you'd be willing to pay the price. Learn risk assessment and THEN decide what to worry about.

Engineering does not apply

[Masters Champion]

I think a reasonable "real" list comes from real problems.

As Kennedy said, we are called to fight "a struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself". This is a good starting list of real problems for mankind.

Let's simplify the list by throwing out tyranny, since it may be a cause or result of the others, complicating things. And let's throw out disease since the path to reducing that is more straightforward (more R&D). What's left? War and poverty. Let's take a stab at listing the top causes of poverty:

- corruption in government
- human laziness
- lack of natural resources
- lack of educational opportunities
- racism

And causes of wars:

- lack of natural resources
- racism (ethnic/religious hatred)
- governmental ambition

How to overcome these? I have no idea except maybe to educate everyone on the planet to a greater degree. I don't see any engineering solutions as applicable, though.

Sock woes

[chihowa]

Get different socks for different occasions and color code them. Keep the colors as different as possible and phase the summer/winter socks into storage as the seasons change. I'm down to four sock types (different colors, different shapes, one set always in storage). Pairing is a breeze.

social engineering?

[hackingbear]

The proper name for "social engineering" is "politics". The proper name for "social engineer" is "politician. "Social engineering" is just a marketing name.

I think you mean

[geekoid]

Fair point, duly noted. All these geeks don't come from nowhere!

I mean, you have a reputation to maintain~

I read your site

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually it was the lack of guns.
There are no 'Anti-gun laws' only 'anti good guy' gun laws.

Of course, like most anti-gun people you fail to look at it compared to:
a) Lives saved because of guns
Homicides per-capita in similar countries with no guns.

This confirms what I suspected from your security posts: You rely on specious reasoning, and logical fallacies.

Your post on guns has at least two logical fallacies behind it. If you can't name them, your right there with 80% of most security 'experts'. Bunch of no nothing whiners who base there 'facts' of what 'everybody knows' instead of using a scientific approach to security.

For the record, my job for a while was to break into bank security systems. The hardest bank took 20 minutes to gain access.

The worst took 15 seconds. The look on the presidents face was priceless.

Why is "make solar affordable" on the list?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's already affordable. I know - I have solar cells on the roof of my house that provide for all of my power needs *right now* (and yes, that includes nights / cloudy days - batteries and charging aren't exactly new tech). The initial cost wasn't excessive (trivial compared with the cost of the house itself in fact), and if you feed the excess back into the grid you'll save more on bills than you spent on hardware by about the 10 year mark. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that if you can afford to buy even a small house in a developed nation then you can afford solar cells *right* *now*.

Re:"Prevent nuclear terror" - also

[Anonymous Coward]

Family guy - terrorist gets 70 virgins... 70 slashdotters sitting at terminals. Greatest Scene Ever!