“The grand challenge [of engineering today] is primarily about human ingenuity and technology,” said Lincoln Pratson, associate professor of sedimentary geology at the Nicholas School for the Earth and the Environment at Duke University and one of the panel members on energy during this week’s National Academy of Engineering’s Grand Challenges Summit in Durham, N.C. “Engineers are well positioned to lead our energy revolution. But we’ll need leaders from all walks of life, business, government, law, and policy,” he said. “In the case of 21st Century energy, special opportunities exist for those who can communicate with those from other fields.”
Pratson’s idea was one of the main challenges leaders discussed throughout the two-day event, the result of a partnership between Duke University, Olin College, and University of Southern California, in which engineering experts, professors, and business professionals from across the country shared their views on how the industry will meet the 14 grand challenges engineers face for the future.
The challenges fall under four main groups—sustainability and the environment, the role of engineering in improving medicine and healthcare delivery, enhancing security by reducing human vulnerability from human-made and natural threats, and enhancing the human capability for joy.
The challenges themselves range from making solar energy economical, providing energy from fusion, developing carbon sequestration methods, and providing clean water across the world to advancing health informatics, better engineering medicines, and preventing chemical and biological warfare and nuclear terror. Other challenges include enhancing virtual reality, advancing personalized learning, and engineering the tools of scientific discovery.
The challenges did not stop at science and technology. Entrepreneurs shared their knowledge about how to sell these grand ideas to businesses and policy makers, reinforcing the notion that engineering is not just for hermetic techno-geeks, but an all-encompassing career choice for innovative, business-minded, creative thinkers who are excited to take on the challenge of changing the world they live in for the better.
“The aspiration of energy independence of any country is very lofty and almost impossible to achieve,” said Emil Jacobs, ExxonMobil’s vice president of research and development and one of the energy panel members. “The target we should have is energy security—the ability to have the energy you need to support economic development. … There’s not a silver bullet here. We’ll need every option available—coal, natural gas, oil, biofuel, nuclear, soil, and wind. Technology will be a key component. If we look at the mix between these, it’s hard to see what that will look like. You need to think about scale, cost, sustainability, and environmental footprint.”
“The term [energy independence] is my least favorite phrase,” said Robert Socolow, professor at the Princeton Environmental Institute at Princeton University. “It implies if we take care of ourselves it doesn’t matter what the rest of the world’s problems are. I can’t figure out why it has political appeal as a concept except there’s a side of us that wants to believe that. If we were import-free from oil, but the rest of the world were full of international relations that could go awry, do you think we’d be insulated from that? It’s too bad, it’s a political trough we all walked into from the 1970s, and we seem to not be able to climb out of it.”
Inciting engineers to be harbingers of technological innovation and scientific philanthropy were the beef stock of the summit, but definite aromas of educational metamorphosis drifted throughout the two days as engineering leaders trumpeted the notion that universities will need to be knowledge brokers as well as local and federal policy makes in industry to solve these vast problems.
“This is a time of great openness of change to our nation and the world,” said Duke University’s Dean of Engineering Tom Katsouleas during the summit’s opening remarks. “But the doorway to change will not remain open long. We need to put in place institutional changes to allow us to sustain efforts when openness to change has abated. University leaders will need to be engaged … committing themselves to research and work that fosters and rewards collaboration and teamwork across disciplines,” he said.
“They’ll need to be active thought leaders to inform the public of challenges and obstacles,” he said, which does not mean being just a researcher for faculty, but inspiring students. “We need to change the way we teach in the classroom, encouraging students to step outside their comfort zones and make them aware of how they impact the human condition.”
—Ellen Fussell Policastro