Your task is to invent an energy-saving system that employs alternate technologies like solar, wind, waves, and/or bio-mass. You are not expected to solve the world's energy problems, but keep in mind that any uses, however small, of a renewable, non-polluting resource helps in the overall scheme of aiding our global environment. The technology or system you outline should potentially be marketable, i.e., not rely solely on regulations--ideally, people or corporations should be motivated to buy it both because it makes economic and environmental sense.
Example: A town in North Carolina has decided to create a 'no emissions' zone. This is a regulation, but corporations like DuPont are volunteering to build in that zone because they expect to make a profit. (This example courtesy of William McDonough, Dean of Architecture at UVa, whose Hannover Principles are a good guide for environmentally-friendly design.)
Two possible problems you could focus on:
- Consider how to reduce the pollution produced by power plants in the developed world. What about the possibility of energy-independent homes that use utilities only as a back-up? Could one develop solar power plants, or ones based on wind, or bio-mass?
- Imagine a remote village in the third world, where there is plenty of sun and steady wind but little fuel for cooking or heating, no refrigeration for vaccines or food and water has to be pumped from a deep well. Propane can be trucked into the village over a long distance on roads that are periodically interrupted by guerrillas. The villagers are considering migrating to a forested area they could clear-cut to build a new village; such a move, multiplied by hundreds of such villages, will increase the danger of the greenhouse effect and destroy an important natural habitat -- where villagers have left, there is now a virtual desert. An alternative is to try to develop technologies that will help the village survive and prosper.
- You can create scenarios of your own to illustrate the advantages of your technological innovations.
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This page was last edited: Sunday, July 18, 1999