Solar set to benefit from 'Grand Challenge'

[bruce]

The world’s leading engineers have proposed 14 “grand challenges” that would do the most to protect and enhance life during the 21st century. They range from engineering better medicines to making solar energy affordable.


The US National Academy of Engineering co-ordinated the international grand challenges project, using a selection panel of scientists and engineers including Craig Venter, the genomics pioneer, Ray Kurzweil, the inventor and futurist, and Larry Page, co-founder of Google. The results were released on Friday at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston.



The first and largest category is environmental sustainability. Two challenges relate to using the power of the sun – indirectly through nuclear fusion, which would recreate on Earth the process that fuels the sun, and directly by trapping solar energy. “We only need to capture one part in 10,000 of the sunlight that falls on Earth to meet 100 per cent of our energy needs,” said Mr Kurzweil. “This will become feasible with nano-engineered solar panels and nano-engineered fuel cells to store the energy in a highly decentralised manner.”


Another environmental challenge is to fight global warming by capturing carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels and storing it underground.


Much less well known than the carbon crisis is the need to avoid dangerous interference with Earth’s natural nitrogen cycle. “In the process of fertilising the planet we are massively increasing the amount of biologically available nitrogen on the planet,” said Robert Socolow of Princeton University, a panel member . “So we are not just warming the planet, we are fertilising the planet.”



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[LMagic007]

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The challenges fall into four general themes: promoting sustainable technologies, advancing human health, reducing vulnerability to threats and increasing the joy of living. The experts decided against focusing on detailed predictions or gadgetry, but instead identified 14 objectives that would benefit humanity and the planet.

The 14 Grand Challenges for Engineering, announced in Boston at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, are:

Making solar energy affordable: How do you convert and store the power of sunshine at a cost competitive with fossil fuels?

Providing energy from fusion: How do you sustain a controlled fusion reaction for commercial power generation?

Developing carbon sequestration methods: How do you capture the carbon dioxide produced from fossil-fuel burning, and confine that excess carbon underground?

Managing the nitrogen cycle: How do you develop countermeasures for fertilizer use, internal combustion and other activities that contribute to pollution?

Providing access to clean water: How do you address the short supply of water for personal use and irrigation in many areas of the world?

Restoring and improving urban infrastructure: How do you renew aging infrastructure while bringing cities into better ecological balance?

Advancing health informatics: How do you identify the specific factors behind wellness and illness, and follow through on the promise of personalized medicine?

Engineering better medicines: How do you find new treatments for age-old scourges as well as newly emerging diseases?

Reverse-engineering the brain: How do you unlock the secrets of brain function, to heal human diseases and advance the field of artificial intelligence?

Preventing nuclear terror: How do you head off threats from agents who are bent upon bringing ruin to industrial society?

Securing cyberspace: How do you protect the global information infrastructure from identity theft, viruses and other threats without bogging down the flow of data?

Enhancing virtual reality: How do you use computer technology to create imaginative environments for education and entertainment?

Advancing personalized learning: How do you move from a "one-size-fits-all" style of education to more engaging, computer-enhanced teaching techniques?

Engineering the tools for scientific discovery: How do you improve our methods for exploring the frontiers of life, the atom and the cosmos?

The committee decided not to rank the challenges. Instead, the academy is asking the public to vote for the most important challenge and provide comments at the project Web site. The site also offers an overview of the project, excerpts from interviews with committee members and other background information.

Engineering?s greatest challenge: Our survival - Innovation - MSNBC.com

[sparky]

Sounds awesome. Here's hoping they make some real progress.

[LMagic007]

Reverse-engineering the brain: How do you unlock the secrets of brain function, to heal human diseases and advance the field of artificial intelligence?

I suspect this may likely be Ray Kurzweil's idea. A scary thought.

[bruce]

Originally Posted by LMagic007

I suspect this may likely be Ray Kurzweil's idea. A scary thought.

Sounds very much like his train of thought. Have a read of The Singularity is Near, where he talks in some depth about the convergence of atomic computing, nanotech and genetics. It's a compelling read and does make a time when we can 'engineer' things within us quite inevitable.

[LMagic007]

Yes I did actually read it a few years ago. I did have an interest in AI, but I decided to come back to earth for a while.

[include]

#15 Dealing with overpopulation when we all live to 319