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Combating Climate Risks With 3D Printing
Lasrick writes: While security risks that emanate from climate change will not always require military responses, the technological innovations that 3D printing makes possible can significantly improve the tools available for both militaries and civilian institutions when responding to, preparing for, and mitigating those risks. These benefits come in five main forms, and this article details what they are and how each may work: Rapid response and prototyping; Democratization of preparedness and response; De-globalizing hazards; Increasing accessibility; Enhancing energy efficiency. The authors clearly believe that 3D printing will be a key tool in mitigating effects from natural disasters: "If the United States, including the Department of Defense, truly believes that climate change presents 'immediate risks to national security,' then developing all the tools necessary to combat those risks should be a high priority. 3D printing, given its potential utility in helping us adapt to and mitigate climate risks, and doing so cost-effectively, is one tool that deserves close attention."
3D printing! It slices, it dices, it cures erectile dysfunction (even yours!), it fucking prints money! It. will. save. the. world.
Whoa Sparky...slow down. Breathe.
3D printing may be useful, great, but kill the hyperbole. It is a technology, and all technologies have a niche. Be a 3D printing fanbois all you want, but you cannot jam 3D printing into places where it is not wanted or is not useful. The users will know the difference and 3D printing will settle into its niche naturally.
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
Vote for Bernie in 2016!
Peak Oil may be a ways off, but we've definitely hit Peak Buzzword.
I'm not sure what they are fishing for. The authors are with the Center for Climate and Security (http://climateandsecurity.org/staff/), but don't have any obvious reasons to be 3D printing shills (which is possibly why the article reads like crap). The Center for Climate and Security has a lot of generals and admirals on its board of trustees. I'm wondering if this isn't some wild backdoor appropriations move. I'm actually interested to see if any of them are holding a lot of stock in 3D printing development firms. There is money at the bottom of this somewhere.
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
Vote for Bernie in 2016!
Clearly somebody owns a 3D printing company and is looking to get grants from the EPA and DARPA, etc.
The article also seems to think 3D printers can make anything out of thin air. You save transportation costs because you don't need to ship anything, and you avoid supply chain disruptions because you don't have to ship anything.
From the article:
The effects of natural disasters extend far beyond individual companies. In 2012, a severe drought temporarily halted the transport of goods down the Mississippi River, affecting the entire region. This is the type of problem likely to become more common in a changing climate. The ability to print goods where they are needed would clearly decrease vulnerability to droughts and other disruptive weather events.
From the linked Bloomberg Article on the drought:
which could be shut to cargo from companies including Archer-Daniels-Midland Co. next month.
-Agricultural. We can print food now?
“If you’re shipping raw materials to a steel mill in Chicago, you’re trying to figure out if you can go to Cincinnati or Louisville, Kentucky, unload it out of the barge and rail it up to the steel mill.”
-Thank god 3D printers can print steel out of nothing
Barges on the Mississippi handle about 60 percent of the nation’s grain exports entering the Gulf of Mexico through New Orleans, as well as 22 percent of its petroleum and 20 percent of its coal.
Good thing we can print fossil fuels now too.