Engineering Our Future: Global Challenges & Sustainable Solutions

1. 10X EngineeringSan Jose State EngineeringRon SwensonFebruary 19, 2008 www.ecotopia.com/workshops

2. Each Generation’s Challenges • My grandparents and parents faced the Great Depression and World War II. • My generation struggled with Civil Rights, Vietnam, the Cold War and Prosperity at the Third World’s Expense. • What will challenge your generation?

3. Your Generation’s Challenges • Your generation will encounter the 21st century’s twin challenges of: • Global Warming (becoming well-known but perceived to be out in the future sometime) • Peak Oil (still known only by a few but imminent).

4. Global Warming Fires in Congo & Angola

5. Peak Oil Oil price has risen 10X, responses are 1.5X -- or less!

6. Two Ways to Respond… • Germany, Japan [lost WWII] • Solar Energy • Hybrid Vehicles • USA [losing a self-made war against Nature] • Attack Iraq • Alaska National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR oil) • 25 x ‘25 … the rape of Soil and Ancient Water cloaked with environmental rhetoric

7. Which way will prevail? • “The American way of life is not negotiable.” [G H W Bush, 1992] • Check with the people of New Orleans for more more details …. • Can we change course in time to avoid catastrophe?

8. Swenson´s Law To avoid deprivation resulting from the exhaustion of non-renewable resources, humanity must employ conservation and renewable resource substitutes sufficient to match depletion. www.OilCrisis.com/Swenson

9. Bucky Fuller “More with Less” 1966 at SJS www.bfi.org

10. Hermann Scheer “Solar technologies are … potentially the most economic solution.” 2004 www.EnergyCrisis.com/Scheer

11. Richard Smalley “Think TeraWatts” 2004 Smalley.Rice.edu → Our Energy Challenge

12. We’ve gotta lotta work to do… • Are you up for it? • You will learn to observe natural phenomena and model systems’ performance before systems are built. • But will you learn about the global challenges and how to deal with them in class? Your environment is much too comfortable to abandon old habits. So how will you get ready for the coming changes?

13. So you’re gonna be an engineer? • What’s the point? • What to do in school? • What will you have that others won’t? • Can you predict the future?

14. What to do? • Get busy and build yourself a good crap detector. There’s plenty of it out there. You will need to see it for what it is. • Learn to track down the facts, analyze the problem and defend your conclusions. • Team up with others. Venture capital is team sport. So is engineering.

15. Clean Coal? Pathological Disconnect

16. We must stop carbon build-up

17. What do the “experts” say? “Active solar power ... works, though not nearly as well as fossil fuel… “Alternative energy sources ... are … implausible … without the subsidy of oil. The only remaining alternative is nuclear energy.” James Howard Kunstler www.HubbertPeak.com/nuclear

18. Total Area Required for a PV Power Plant to Produce the Total US Electrical Demand www.ecotopia.com/Apollo2

19. Global Solar Energy Balance www.hubbertPeak.com/debate/oilcalcs.htm

20. Getting down to cases • Each of us must find our place in the scheme of things. It’s not what’s important. It’s what’s important to you. • For me, the challenge is kicking the oil habit. • The solution comes up every morning. • So that’s what I’m going to talk about.

21. How to Predict the Future? • The best way to predict the future is to design it. [Alan Kayes] • Point of view is worth 80 IQ points. It’s how you look at the problem. • You got to stick to one thing and then drive it hard. [Carl N. Swenson]

22. Thermodynamics vs. Economics Policy can´t defeat Mother Nature. … in the long run … Thermo-dynamics wins!

23. Public Outreach: Television, Radio, Community Presentations, Reports Presentation to International and National Stakeholders Consumer Audits • Refrigerators • Televisions • Water Pumps • Lighting • Radios • Kitchen Appliances • Hot Water Heaters

24. ElectroRoof

25. Sustainable Transportation • Not cars • Not airplanes • Walking, Horses, Bikes, Sailboats … and Podcars

26. Kiteship • From Guinness: "A 420 sq meter (4,521 sq ft) traction kite manufactured by KiteShip (USA) was used to propel an 8.5 tonne (18,740 lb) yacht near Sydney in 6 December, 2004, the largest kite ever used to pull a vehicle of any kind."

27. Beating oil addiction with fraud • New Generation Vehicle (Clinton) • Hydrogen Highway (Schwarzenegger) • Cellulosic Ethanol (G W Bush)

28. How we use energy white

29. So what about Hydrogen? Am I missing something?! Energy Return on Energy Invested < ½

30. Pathological Disconnect CLEAN COAL?TVA’s Bull Run clean coal-fired power plant in East Tennessee.

31. So what about Corn Cars & Bean Buses?

32. So what are we going to do? Basky

33. The All-New DonCar! www.OilCrisis.com/Transport

34. Compare PV to Biofuels

35. Global Solar Energy Balance Sunlight is sufficient www.hubbertPeak.com/debate/oilcalcs.htm

36. Tonatiuh www.Ecotopia.com/Tonatiuh

37. Freeway at Capacity

38. Vehicles Removed

39. PRT Passengers

40. PRT System

41. SolarEvolution SolarEvolution www.SolarEvolution.com/PRT

42. 10X Engineering

43. Remember: 120,000 TW of solar energy is being received by the Earth right now. www.ecotopia.com/Apollo2

44. Thermodynamics of PV • EROI: 5 years • Life: 50 years

45. Three Kinds of People • Those who make it happen! • Those who watch it happen. • Those who wonder what happened?

46. Are engineers human? … all you need is love!

47. Summary: OBI • Observe (get a clue). • follow your Bliss. • Invent your future.

48. www.Solarevolution.com