Study Sees User-Friendly Technology Strides
Gerry Stokes likes to tell the story about the “back bencher” in Britain’s Parliament who rose one day in 1880 to tell of his startling calculations.
The gentleman had determined that by 1950, England was going to be knee-deep in horse manure.
He may have had a slight misunderstanding about how his countrymen would be getting around in the years ahead, but at least he was on the right track, says Stokes, associate director of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Wash.
The issue, according to Stokes, was not horses, “but the impact of personal transportation.”
Emerging technology eliminated the manure problem before it could be “fixed,” Stokes says, but it replaced it with a new set of problems.
So with ample humility about the pitfalls of trying to predict the future, Stokes and a team of researchers at the Richland lab set out to determine which technological areas are likely to have the most impact on consumers and the environment in the decade ahead.
They expect dramatic changes in how we grow food, in water quality and in the cars we will be driving in 2008. Cars should be lighter and capable of going 80 miles on a gallon of gas.
But the team didn’t just concentrate on technology. It attempted to look at human trends as well, bringing in the views of anthropologists, social scientists and environmentalists.
“The tendency is to kind of fix the world as it exists right now and not realize that the demands of the public are changing,” Stokes says.
The world 10 years from now will be quite different from the world of today, and not just because of technological changes. People change, as do their societies, cultures and dreams. Predicting that is the hard part.
“I don’t think we’ve done that very successfully,” Stokes says.
But he and his team tried to avoid earning the ill fame of the British parliamentarian by limiting their study to projections for the next 10 years--and not decades ahead. And they concentrated primarily on technology that could lead to a cleaner environment while providing major benefits to consumers.
In descending order, the researchers see the Top 10 as:
* Agrogenetics--Genetic engineering will lead to crops that require less pesticide and less fertilizer or water while producing higher yields. Some of them, such as soybeans, will even taste better.
* Water Treatment--Smart membranes, or filters, will improve water quality by removing organic compounds that can result in undesired reactions with chlorine. Sponge-like grains of sand will capture heavy metals to yield safer drinking water.
* Energy--Improved electrical storage systems will lead to increased use of solar and wind power by storing energy in such things as spinning flywheels. That will make power available at night, or when the wind isn’t blowing, and it will reduce greenhouse gases from carbon fuels.
* Micro--Smaller is better in that micro-technology will lead to better use and production of everything from chemicals to energy. The team sees micro-heat pumps, for example, as a means of regulating temperatures more efficiently, thus saving energy. And micro-chemical plants will produce chemicals as needed, reducing storage and transportation problems.
* Paperless--Stokes believes the paperless society has already arrived, although it is being eroded somewhat by inexpensive printers. He sees much growth in this area, especially as computer display systems improve and users see less need for hard copy.
* Molecular Design--Higher quality products with fewer environmental impacts will grow out of an increased understanding of materials at the molecular level. Molecular design of catalysts, for example, could make chemical reactions and processing so precise that little or no waste is produced. And tiny sensors will monitor every step in manufacturing, resulting in better and cleaner products.
* Bioprocessing--Microorganisms and plants will grow environmentally friendly chemical and biological products, such as drugs, proteins and enzymes for many uses. Producing chemicals, fuels and pharmaceuticals in this manner is seen as cost-effective and environmentally benign.
* Environmental Sensors--Supermarkets will use sensors to detect dangerous pathogens in food. Other sensors will monitor air quality in the workplace, airplanes and hospitals. They will also be used to detect pathogens in biological terrorism and detect impurities in municipal water supplies.
* Manufacturing and Recycling--Plastics, paper, beverage containers and inks, as well as cars and computers, will be more biodegradable or recyclable. Hazardous chemicals will be phased out of such things as dry-cleaning.
* Lightweight Cars--Better gas mileage and less pollution will result from cars built with less steel and more lightweight aluminum, magnesium, titanium and composites. Car windows will be stronger and more efficient, cutting the weight of air conditioners in half.
Those are the projections for the next 10 years, but Stokes is quick to admit there may be a few surprises along the way.
And sometimes, technology doesn’t change things as much as expected because people just ignore it.
Cars may be lighter in the future, but the most popular vehicles on the road today are mammoth sport-utility vehicles. The human part of the equation remains elusive.
Lee Dye can be reached via e-mail at leedye@compuserve.com.
