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!

[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.

"Prevent nuclear terror"

[Sylos]

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

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"

[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.

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.

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?

[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.

I would add:

[Frank Grimes]

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

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.

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.

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

[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

[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

[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.

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:I'm confused

[Nazlfrag]

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

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 first three...

[evanbd]

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

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:"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!

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.

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.