‘irrespective of the social and economic context, the health of the biosphere is the limiting...

‘irrespective of the social and economic context, the health of the biosphere is the limiting factor for

sustainability’

Raymond J. ColeUniversity of British Columbia

CP551 Sustainable Development

01 Feb 2008 R. Shanthini

Module 5:

Science, Technology, Innovations and Sustainable Development.


You are given a grant opportunity to invent something.

It could be anything; big or small,

useful or useless, beneficial or destructive.

What would you invent?

(Write down on a paper in one sentence.)01 Feb 2008 R. Shanthini


http://www.lemelson.org/pdf/technologydisseminationstrategy.pdf

Technology Dissemination Portfolio StrategyThe Lemelson Foundation (improving lives through invention)

For as little as two dollars, a familycan obtain a drip irrigation kit andimprove family nutrition by cultivatinga 200 square-foot kitchen garden.

Photo: IDE-India.




A Kenyan makes a living delivering cleanwater to restaurants, schools and homes. He can carry twice as much water with theXAccess Longtail bicycle. Photo by Rick Randall.




Children in Mozambique pump water for their village while at play on oneof Roundabout’s innovative carousel pumps.

Photo: Roundabout.




A SEWA Bank employee (right) and a vegetable vendor discuss the benefits of using SELCO’s safe and affordable solar-poweredlanterns for his night-market business inAhmedabad, India.

Photo by Erin Conlon.

Engineers must design more efficient internal combustion engines capable of running on alternative fuels such as alcohol, and new research into battery power should be undertaken… Wind motors and solar engines hold great promise and would reduce the level of CO2 emissions. Forests must be planted…

- Prof. Svante August Arrhenius, 1925

Talking of innovation….


Some inventions:Indeterminate time: Music and Language

(65,000,000 years ago: Dinosaur was abundant)

1,000,000 years ago: Controlled fire and sterilization of food in East Africa

400, 000 years ago: Pigments in Zambia

60,000 years ago: Ships probably used by settlers of New Guinea

50,000 years ago: Flute in Slovenia

43,000 years ago: Mining in Swaziland and Hungary

26,000 years ago: Ceramics in Moravia (Czech and Slovak)


Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_invention#Paleolithic_Era

Some inventions (continued):7,000 BC: Dental surgery in Mehrgarh (Pakistan)

5,000 to 6,000 BC: City in Mesopotamia (Iraq)

4,000 – 5,000 BC: Beer and bread in Egypt

5,000 – 5,000 BC: Wheel & axle combination in Mesopotamia (Iraq)

3100 BC: Drainage in the Indus Valley Civilization (India/Pakistan)

3,000 BC: Silk in China

3,000 BC: Cement in Egypt

2500 BC: Flush toilet in the Indus Valley Civilization



Some inventions (continued):500s BC: Sugar in India

500s BC: Plastic/Cosmetic surgery (Sushruta) in India

350 BC: Water wheel / Watermill in India

800-873: Valve, Feedback controller, Automatic flute player, Programmable machine and much more by Banū Mūsā brothers in Iraq

800s: Windmills in Persia

1200s: Closed-loop system, Cam & Crank shafts, Reciprocating piston engine, Programmable robots and much more by Al-Jazari in Iraq,

1551: Steam turbine and much more by Taqi al-Din in Egypt



Some inventions (continued):1593 BC: Thermoscope by Galileo

1633 BC: Manned rocket by Lagari Hasan Celebi in Turkey

1698 BC: Steam engine by Thomas Savery in England

1700: Piano by Bartolomeo Cristofori in Italy

1712: Steam piston engine by Thomas Newcomen in England

1769: Steam car by Nicholas-Joseph Cugnot in France

1776: Steam engine with a condenser by James Watt of Scotland

1884: Steam turbine by Charles Parsons01 Feb 2008 R. Shanthini


Thomas Newcomen’s Steam Piston Engine



Thermal efficiency is about 0.05%

Nicholas-Joseph Cugnot’s Steam Car



Thermal efficiency = ??%



Perhaps the first automobile accident

http://www.ausbcomp.com/~bbott/cars/cugnot.jpg

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Waves of Innovation since 1785

Source: Hargroves, K. and Smith, M. (2005), p 17.

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IronWater power

MechanizationTextiles

Commerce



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Steam powerRailroad

Steelcotton



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ElectricityChemicals

Internal combustion engine



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PetrochemicalsElectronics

AviationSpace



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Digital NetworksBiotechnology

SoftwareInformation technology



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SustainabilityRadical resource productivity

Whole system designBiomimicry

Green chemistryIndustrial ecologyRenewable energy

Green nanotechnology



Sustainability


Sustainability

means surviving to infinity.

Man-made capital(buildings & equipment)


vsEconomic sustainability

Natural capital(natural resources & ecosystem services)

Weaksustainability

Environmental sustainability

Strongsustainability

Natural resources such as - water, minerals, biomass and oil

Ecosystem services such as - Land which provides space to live and work - Water and nutrient cycling - Purification of water and air - Atmospheric and ecological stability - Pollination and biodiversity - Pest and disease control - Topsoil and biological productivity - Waste decomposition and detoxification

Examples of Natural Capital:



Weak (or Economic) Sustainability

Sustainable development is achievable as long as Total (which is natural plus man-made) Capital

remains constant.

It means it is okay to reduce the natural capital stocks as far as they are being substituted by

increase in the man-made stock.

Increasing man-made stocks provide high incomes, which lead to increased levels of

environmental protectionism. (Substitutability Paradigm)


Strong (or Environmental) Sustainability

Sustainable development is achievable only when the natural capital is maintained constant independently from man-made capital.

(Non-substitutability Paradigm)

Substituting man-made capital for natural capital leads to disaster.

Examples?Boats for Fish

Pumps for Aquifers Saw mills for Forests

Radical Resource Productivity (or Eco-efficiency)



Radical Resource Productivity (or Eco-Efficiency)

The Industrial Revolution led to a radical increase in the productivity of labour and capital at the cost of exploitation of natural resources since they are considered abundant.

What we need now is a radical increase in the productivity of resources

since we know that natural resources are indeed limited (examples: trees, oil and fish).



dramatically increases the output

per unit input of resources (such as energy, man-made materials & natural

resources such as air, water, or minerals).



World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) has identified the following seven elements of

eco-efficiency:- reduce the material requirements for goods & services- reduce the energy intensity of goods & services- enhance material recyclability- maximize sustainable use of renewable resources- extend product durability - increase the service intensity of goods & services- reduce toxic dispersion

Whole System Design


Whole System Design

optimizes an entire system to capture synergies.


Source: http://www.frugalmarketing.com/dtb/10xe.shtml

WSD requires creativity,

good communication, and a desire to look at causes of problems

rather than adopting familiar solutions, and

it requires getting to the root of the problem.

Whole System Design

Pumping is the largest use of electric motors, which use more than 50% of world’s electricity use.

One heat-transfer loop was designed to use 14 pumps totaling 95 horsepower by a top Western firm.

Dutch engineer Jan Schilham (using the methods learned from the efficiency expert Eng Lock Lee of Singapore) cut the design’s pumping power use by

92% to just 7 horsepower


Source: http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/PDF_Papers/LovinsLovins1997.pdf

Whole System Design

How was that possible?

The pipes diameter was increased. Since friction falls as nearly the fifth power of pipe diameter, small pumps were enough.

Pipes were laid out first, and then the equipment were installed. The pipes are therefore short and straight,

with far less friction, requiring still smaller and cheaper pumps, motors, inverters, and electricals.

The straighter pipes also allowed to add more insulation, saving 70 kilowatts of heat loss with a two-month payback.



Whole System Design

What about the cost?

When optimizing the lifecycle savings in pumping energy plus capital cost of not just the pipes but of the whole system, the extra cost of the slightly bigger pipes was smaller than the cost reduction for the dramatically smaller pumps and drive systems.

Whole-system life cycle costing is widely used in principle, but in practice, energy-using components are usually optimized (if at all) over the short term,

singly, and in isolation.



Whole System Design

Like the engineering profession itself, engineering education is often compartmentalized, with minimal consideration of systems, design, sustainability, and economics.

The traditional design process focuses on optimizing components for single benefits

rather than whole systems for multiple benefits. This, plus schedule-driven repetitis (i.e., copy

the previous drawings), perpetuates inferior design.



Whole System Design

Rocky Mountain Institute kicked off Factor Ten Engineering (“10XE”), a four-year program to

develop and introduce pedagogic tools on whole-system design for both engineering students and

practicing engineers.

The focus is on case studies where whole-system design boosted resource productivity by at least

tenfold, usually at lower initial cost than traditional engineering approaches.



Whole System Design

WSD prevents weak pieces compromising the entire system.


Biomimicry (or Bionics)



Study nature, observe its ingenious designs and processes, and then imitates these designs

and processes to solve human problems.


Interactions between organisms in an ecosystem (symbiosis):

Commensalism: one population benefits and the other is not affected


Mutualism: both populations benefit and they need each other for survival

Protocooperation: both populations benefit but the relationship is not obligatory

Parasitism – one is inhibited and for the other its obligatory


Amensalism - one is inhibited and the other is not affected

Competition – one’s fitness is lowered by the presence of the other

Interactions between organisms in an ecosystem (symbiosis):

http://www.answers.com/main/Record2?a=NR&url=http%3A%2F%2Fcommons.wikimedia.org%2Fwiki%2FImage%3ABlack%2520Walnut%2520middle.JPG

http://www.answers.com/main/Record2?a=NR&url=http%3A%2F%2Fcommons.wikimedia.org%2Fwiki%2FImage%3ABN-forest.jpg


Nature runs on sunlightNature uses only the energy it needs

Nature fits form to function

Nature recycles everything

Nature rewards cooperation

Nature banks on diversity

Nature demands local expertise

Nature curbs excesses from within

Nature taps the power of limitsJanine Benyus, 1997




Super-grip gecko tapemodelled after gecko’s feet



Eastgate centre(shopping centre and office block) at central Harare, Zimbabwe ismodelled on local termite mounds and is ventilated and cooled entirely by natural means.

Source: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/08/biomimetic_buil_1.php



Termite mounds include flues which vent through the top and sides, and the mound itself is designed to catch the breeze. As the wind blows, hot air from the main chambers below ground is drawn out of the structure, helped by termites opening or blocking tunnels to control air flow.

Source: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/08/biomimetic_buil_1.php



Trapped air in the interstitial spaces of the roughened surface of the lotus leaf results in a reduced liquid-to-solid contact area. This allows water's self-attraction to form a sphere. However, due to natural adhesion between water and solids, dirt particles on a leaf's surface stick to the water.

http://biomimicryinstitute.org/case-studies/

Since a ball rolls easily, the slightest angle in the surface of the leaf (e.g., caused by a passing breeze) causes balls of water to roll off the leaf surface, carrying away the attached dirt particles.

Lotus leaf



GreenShield™ coats textile fibres with liquid repelling nano particles in order to create water and stain repellency on textiles, and results in a 10-fold decrease in the use of environmentally harmful fluorocarbons, the conventional means of achieving repellency.

Other products inspired by the Lotus Effect include Lotusan paint and Signapur glass finish.

http://biomimicryinstitute.org/case-studies/


Polyaramid Kevlar, a tough fiber that can stop bullets, is made by pouring petroleum-derived molecules into a pressurized vat

of concentrated sulfuric acid and boiled at several hundred degrees Fahrenheit in order to force it into a liquid crystal form,

which is then subject to high pressures to force the fibers into alignment as we draw them out. The energy input is extreme

and the toxic byproducts are odious.

The spider manages to make an equally strong and much tougher fiber at body temperature, without high pressures, heat, or corrosive acids. If we could learn to do what the spider does, we could take a soluble raw material that is infinitely renewable and make a super-strong water-insoluble fiber with negligible energy inputs and no toxic outputs.

Janine Benyus, 1997


A multidisciplinary (engineering, science, social science, and governance) process of solution development that takes a holistic view of natural and human system interactions is known as Earth Systems Engineering.

- US National Academy for Engineering

Earth System Engineering emphasizes five main characteristics that apply to all branches of engineering:


Our ability to cause planetary change through technology is growing faster than our ability to understand and manage the technical, social,

economic, environmental, and ethical consequences of such change.

Since modern engineering systems have the power to significantly affect the environment far into the future,

many engineering decisions cannot be made independently of the surrounding natural and human-

made systems.

http://www.naturaledgeproject.net/ESSPCLP-Intro_to_SD-PreliminariesKeynote1.aspx

Characteristic 1


The traditional approach that engineering is only a process to devise and implement a chosen solution

amid several purely technical options must be challenged.

A more holistic approach to engineering requires an understanding of interactions between engineered

and non-engineered systems, inclusion of non-technical issues, and a system approach (rather than a Cartesian approach) to simulate and comprehend

such interactions.

Characteristic 2



The quality of engineering decisions in society directly affects the quality of life of human and natural

systems today and in the future.

Characteristic 3



There is a need for a new educational approach that will give engineering students a broader perspective

beyond technical issues and an exposure to the principles of sustainable development, renewable resources management, and systems thinking.

This does not mean that existing engineering curricula need to be changed in their entirety. Rather, new

holistic components need to be integrated, emphasizing more of a system approach to

engineering education.

Characteristic 4



Multi-disciplinary research is needed to create new quantitative tools and methods to better manage non-natural systems so that such

systems have a longer life cycle and are less disruptive to natural systems in general.

Characteristic 5



Creativity is not so much having a new idea as stopping having an old idea.

- Inventor Edwin Land

Home for an ecologist

Green indoor walls

‘irrespective of the social and economic context, the health of the biosphere is the limiting...

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