INTRODUCTION
Global warming has become one of the most important focuses in modern life. With the development of industry and the activities of human beings, lots of “greenhouse” gases have been emitted into the atmosphere. The “greenhouse” gases include carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrogen oxide (NO2), etc, which make our earth and its atmosphere a “huge greenhouse” (Rosenthal and Golden, 1991). The greenhouse effect makes our earth getting warmer. It is said that “the global average air temperature near the Earth's surface rose 0.74
± 0.18 °
C (1.33 ± 0.32 °
F) during the last 100 years.” (Wikipedia a) The
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concludes, "most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely
due to the observed increase in
anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations" via the
greenhouse effect (
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ,
2007).
The International Energy Agency states that “three fourths of the CO2 volumes formed as a result of human activity are emitted when producing and using fossil fuels”( IEEE power engineering society energy development and power generation committee, 2003). As the results of this, great demands in technology have been needed in order to reduce global warming. This paper is going to talk about the development of technologies and the demands of technology changes by the results of global warming.
SECONDARY RESEARCH
With the results of global warming, the changes in technology and engineering are obvious. Scientists consider that, in technical ways, it is more efficient to control the emission of greenhouse gases than reduce the mass of such gases which already exist in the atmosphere. They focus their researches on many technologies, such as Thermal Energy and Power Engineering, Green Energy (especially the substitutes of fossil fuel), Vehicle Engineering, Transport Control and Management Systems and Forest Technology. The developments of these technologies are considered to be of great demanded and of widely used. Some of them have already proved to benefit reducing global worming.
I Thermal Energy and Power Engineering
1 District Heating (DH) & Combined Heat and Power
“A District Heating & Combine Heat and Power” system is a way that provides heat and power to one part of residents, institutions and commercial establishments with one source of energy. (Ouje-Bougoumou, 1996) “One source of producing energy replaces having each building individually heated by conventional means such as oil furnaces or baseboard electric heaters.” (Ouje-Bougoumou, 1996) District Heating (DH) and Combined Heat and Power (CHP) are now mature, which are well-established technology and implemented at a wide range of scales from city-wide to individual buildings.(IEA, 2002-2005) “They are technologies that can deliver lower energy costs, improvements in local air quality and a reduction in CO2 emissions, which will help limit global warming.” (IEA, 2002-2005)
2 Air Pollution Control Technology
Reducing the emission of air pollutants into the atmosphere depends on air pollution control technology. “Many technologies are applied toward this purpose and the technology for the collection and treatment of pollutants such as dust collector and exhaust gas desulfurization and denitrification equipment is spreading widely” (Overseas Environmental Cooperation Center, 1998). In order to limit the emissions of industrial exhaust and greenhouse gas, air pollution control technology has been introduced into factories. Some technical principles and basic process have been proved with the purpose of reducing emissions and some apparatus have been invented to limit and eliminate pollutants. These technologies can “bring about a considerable decrease in atmospheric pollutants.” (B. Bretschneider J. Kurfürst, 1987)
II Green Energy
Green energy is a kind of energy that causes little exhaust pollution or even no pollution at all. (Wikipedia, b) Wind power, Hydropower and Solar energy are considered the ideal green energy in the future. They are expected to replace the conventional energy (fossil-fuel energy) for the purpose of decreasing greenhouse gas emission.
“Wind power is the conversion of wind energy into useful forms, such as electricity, using
wind turbines.” (Wikipedia, c) It is said that “there is an estimated 50 to 100 times more wind energy than plant biomass energy available on Earth” (Wikipedia, c) and hundreds of wind power generators have been built since in Cumbria, Wales, Yorkshire, Northern Ireland and Scotland.(BBC, a)
Hydropower is produced by water driving turbines which in turn produce electricity. Campaigners said that hydro electricity is greener because water can be stored behind dams and used to create electricity when needed most. It generates 20% of the world’s power. (BBC, b)
Nowadays, the electricity form nuclear power is becoming popular. With the controlled nuclear chain reaction, the heat from this reaction is used for boiling water. And the steam drives a steam turbine, which can be used to generate electricity. (Wikipedia, d) Nuclear power is cleaner because this process doesn’t produce greenhouse gases.
Solar energy is energy from the
sun. “Earth receives 174
petawatts of incoming solar radiation (
insolation) at the upper
atmosphere at any given time.” (Wikipedia, e). It’s clean, renewable, widely distributed and endless. Solar energy has been used in both heating hot water and generated electricity. But solar energy is of little energy density. So how to use it in more effective ways is the direction of future research.
III Vehicle Engineering
A shift of technology and design can contribute to the improvements in the energy efficiency of motor vehicles. In addition, it can decrease the emission of greenhouse gases. (Ainsley Jolley, 2004)
Hybrid Vehicle Hybrid electric vehicles combine two kinds of power sources that make both of them work in its ideal condition. “The internal combustion engine in this case could be small, efficient and clean because it runs at one design speed.” (Katharina Kroger, Malcolm Fergusson and Ian Skinner, 2003) So it is more efficient of fuel consumption and less exhaust than conventional engine.
Fuel Cell Fuel cell is such a kind of power “battery” that takes hydrogen and oxygen to produce electricity and water by putting them through a chemical reaction. (Ainsley Jolley, 2004) With persistent air quality problems forcing ever tighter emission standards, the fuel cell appears to be offering the sort of ‘emissions free’ performance which battery-powered electric cars have so long failed to deliver. (Katharina Kroger, Malcolm Fergusson and Ian Skinner, 2003)
Biochemical “Biofuels are one of the few options for producing liquid (or indeed gaseous) fuel for conventional motor vehicles from non-fossil sources.” (Katharina Kroger, Malcolm Fergusson and Ian Skinner, 2003) They can offer a substantial reduction in CO2 emissions and be used in conventional engines.
IV Transport Control and Management Systems
Transport control and management systems are one part of transport technologies which can significantly improve the efficiency of traffic. For example, Urban Freight Systems and Intelligent Transportation Systems. “They are largely based on the use of advanced information technologies to provide information which greatly increases the scope for efficient traffic management (not only through advanced signaling systems but also through the use of traffic simulation systems), makes road pricing more feasible and provides advanced traveler information and driver assistance.” (Ainsley Jolley, 2004) With this system, drivers won’t be stranded in traffic jams and waste fuel. It reduces the global warming indirectly.
V Forest Technology
Forestry technology is a way to reduce the mass of such greenhouse gases which has already existed in the atmosphere. It is said that planting trees in the tropics is better than in other places because of albedo. (Physics Forums, 2007) With bioengineering, people can change the genes of trees and plant tees in appropriate areas, which could benefit to deduce the mass of greenhouse gases.
According to the survey of Madsen, Gorke and Sargent (2005, P5), it is said that energy efficiency must play a prominent role in Northeast America’s overall global warming strategy for achieving the greatest reduction in pollution at the least cost. The government forecast showed that “demand for electricity in Northeast America will increase 23 percent by 2020, making cuts in global warming pollution more difficult and more expensive than they need to be.” (Madsen, Gorke and Sargent, 2005)
Many automakers are already beginning to use some new technologies in their new vehicles. The need of reducing greenhouse gases is “encouraging research and development on fuel economy, the use of alternative fuels, and the development of fuel cell-powered engines.” (Ainsley Jolley, 2004)
“The transport sector remains the principal area of concern with respect to global warming.” said Ainsley Jolley. (2004, P2) He believed transport control and management systems should play a prominent role in mitigating the effect of global warming.
RESEARCH AIM
The research focuses on what engineers think are the most important technologies to reduce global warming and what kind of effects global warming affects their life. Because the engineers are those who are going to reduce global warming by their own hands, their attitudes about the demand of technology should be the trend of this area.
RESEARCH METHODS
The engineers’ attitudes about recent technology development were gathered from questionnaires. (Appendix) The subjects in the study are 34 engineers from China, Mexico, USA, Saudi Arabia and Iran. 19 of them were asked by e-mail and another 11 answered the questionnaire on line. The rest 4 were asked face-to-face. Their jobs are all related to global warming, such as the environment, thermal energy and power engineering, vehicle engineering, chemistry, fuel technology, transport engineering, fuel technology and forest technology. 26 of them are working in a factory (Donfeng Motor Cororation, China and Dongfeng Peugeot, China) and 8 of them are studying or doing researches in the university (5 in Brunel University, UK; 2 in Hunan University, China and 1 in Chicago University, USA). The questions include “What kinds of effect do you think it affect your life?”; “Who do you think should do more to solve the problem of global warming?” and which technologies do they think is greatly demand, demand or no demand and the reason.
RESULTS
88% of the people thought that global warming would affect their daily life. The rest of them said they had no idea about the effects.
When asked what kind of effect the global warming affected their lives. 23% of them said the temperature rose and they would feel uncomfortable. In addition, nearly half (46%) of them believed that the climate changes in recent years were by the results of global warming. And 31% of them seemed to be care more about the rising price of products (such as cars, the electricity) in recent years. (See Figure 1)
43% of the engineers said that the government should take the main responsibility to solve the problem of global warming. 29% of them thought the public should do more to solve this problem. But only 19% of the engineers considered that they should act the most important part for solving global warming, just more than organizations (9%). (See Figure 2)
In the questionnaire, there are some technologies in our daily life today. Each of them could reduce the emission of green house gas directly or indirectly. All of them could lower the global warming problem. The engineers were asked to choose which one was of great demand, demand and even not demand and gave the reasons why they thought so. (See Figure 3)
In the thermal energy and power engineering area, over 70% of the engineers said that Air Pollution Control Technology is most greatly needed of reducing global warming. The rest of them thought it is important to develop this technology to solve this problem. None of them said it was not demand in recent years. On the other hand, nearly 30% of them considered District Heating (DH) & Combined Heat and Power as greatly demand. But almost 20% of the people thought it was useless to develop it.
When mentioned green energy, most of them (59%) chose solar energy as the most demand one. The following one is Electricity from hydropower and Electricity from Wind Power. Although 4 people thought wind power was not demanded, more than 90% of the engineers said that these two kinds of energies were demanded or even greatly demanded. However, they seemed to pay less attention to nuclear power. Over 70% of them said it was just demanded and even 5 of them considered it useless.
Because most of the informers were vehicle engineers, they held so many different views. It is obvious that Exhaust control of vehicles is the most important. Over half of them considered it as the most demanded technologies to solve global warming right now. What’s more, the advanced design of vehicle is important, which could make it uses fuel in the more efficient way. The Hybrid Vehicle technology was also stressed. Nearly 90% of the engineers said it is over “demanded” level. It was not surprising that 5 of them held the opposite view. However, the demands of new fuel technologies were more controversial. Few of engineers said biochemical oil and fuel cell were of great demanded. But 61% of them said that fuel cell was not of demand, while 29% of them believed biochemical oil was not important. They prefer hydrogen as a new fuel of vehicle. 29% of them thought it was great needed and 51% of them said it is important.
Transport Control and Management Systems are a great demanded (44%) technology to decrease greenhouse gas emission. And the same percents of people held the view that it was important.
1/3 of the questioned engineers said that planting trees are of greatly demanded technology. Despite 12% of them thought that the technology changes in planting trees were useless, nearly half of them said it is demanded to be developed to solve global warming.
DISCUSSION
From the data, it can be seen that global warming is considered as a problem which is affecting people’s daily lives. Global warming is not only a theory or an assumption in the future but a situation which we need to face right now. As they said, people have already suffered the uncomfortable effects in their lives. They noticed the rising temperature and climate changes. What’s more, the price of products is rising by the results of global warming because more technologies should be introduced in order to handle this problem.
However, it is surprising that most of the engineers thought they don’t take the main responsibility to solve global warming. The government and the public should do more. Solving this problem can’t only rely on the technical betterments. It is the same as fire-fighting. No matter how efficient the fire extinguishers are and what sensitive a fire sensor has been used, the most important thing is how to avoid fire. It is said that avoiding the problem before it comes is more important than solving the problem after it has happened.
Although a lot of technologies could contribute to decrease global warming, only a few of them are the most demanded in recent development.
Firstly, in the thermal energy and power engineering area, Air Pollution Control Technology is the most greatly demanded. Most greenhouse gas is from the emission of industry so the worldwide air pollution is responsible for the climate changes and rising temperature. Air Pollution Control is not a new technology and engineers and scientists have done a lot of research on it. The system needs to improve and more suitable catalysis needs to be found. It is said that this technology needs less investment but it is a more efficient solution to reduce global warming.
Secondly, among these same ways to product electricity, the engineers strongly recommend solar energy as the most important energy in the future. It is free, endless, easy to get and it can be widely used. What’s more, it is zero-pollution. But there are also some disadvantages of solar energy, such as its higher cost, little density. But these problems can’t restrict the development. Most developed countries invest lots of money to accelerate the development of solar energy technology. If fossil energy can be totally replaced by solar energy, the global warming problem could be completely solved. Although it has a long way to go, the engineers believe that it will come to be .
It is not surprising that electricity from hydropower and wind power is thought to be demanded in these areas. They have already been used for a long time. And it is clean. But it is expensive to built hydropower stations, and the effects of the environment for hydropower projects are still being discussed. However, there are much more opposite voices for the use of nuclear power. The safety of nuclear power is also a big problem. The harm of nuclear pollution is more serious than global warming. So with the engineers’ view, it needs carefulness to development nuclear power.
Thirdly, in vehicle engineering, most of the engineers agree to improve the design of vehicles for using fuel in the more efficient way. They have many suggestions. For example:
1/ Using new materials in body and other components production (carbon-fibre or other composite materials, and also lighter metal alloys) which reduce mass can improve the efficiency of using fuel;
2/ Using streamline shape, using sophisticated body design and reduced frontal areas, aimed at reducing the friction with the air in order to decrease vehicle’s drag coefficient;
3/ Using high-pressure, low-rolling resistance tires;
4/ Redesigning the engine, bumpers and other components to reduce weight and the friction loss;
5/ Using electric control systems to make every part work together.
However, there are more controversies in using new fuel. In this survey, it is surprising that engineers didn’t have much passion on biochemical oil and fuel cell which are thought to be strongly demanded in other surveys. One engineer presented the reason was that biochemical oil and fuel cell are just transitions. They also produce greenhouse gases and the use of them is just to reduce global warming, not solve the problem completely. Hydrogen is considered as the ideal fuel in the future though there are some technical bottlenecks to be solved. And the combining of fuel cell and hydrogen could be perfect for vehicles in the future. Therefore, scientists and engineers should find appropriate ways to get lots of hydrogen in economical ways.
Fourthly, Transport control and Management Systems can contribute a lot for the reducing of global warming. It could advise the drivers to choose a driving route and guide them the driving without stopping. With this system, tons of fuel could be saved because the driver would not wait in traffic jams and waste their fuel. Especially in large cities, the efficient traffic systems are greatly demanded.
Finally, forest technology is demanded to decrease the mass of such gas which already existed in the atmosphere. With bioengineering, we can change the genes of trees, which could grow more easily in heavy polluted districts and absorb greenhouse gases. One engineer said that although planting tree is not the most efficient way, it can benefit a lot besides reducing global warming.
CONCLUSION
The findings of this study suggest that, global warming is a problem that affects people’s daily lives and great changes and demands in technologies need to be taken place. The government should take the most responsibility to solve global warming and set up laws or rules to restrict the emission of greenhouse gases.
It is said that, in technical ways, it is more efficient to control the emission of greenhouse gases than reduce the mass of such gas which already existed in the atmosphere. So the technologies which can reduce the emission of greenhouse gases should be greatly demanded to reduce global warming.
In details, Air Pollution Control (Eliminate Contamination) is considered the most efficient way to reduce global warming. It should be taken much more attentions in this research. Solar energy is the most focused energy now. The government should attach importance to its development. In vehicle engineering, exhaust control is the same important as advancing the design of vehicles by the results of global warming. Hydrogen will be the perfect fuel for vehicles in the future. Great strength should be taken in this field. Transport control and management systems and forest technology are also important. It is said that avoiding the problem before it comes is more important than solving the problem after it has happened. So the development of technologies should focus on how to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases in its “headstream”.
There are some limitations of this research:
1 The subjects can’t represent the majority the engineers’ attitudes. The sample is limited;
2 The questions are too general to get specific ideas;
3 The research is about technology development all over the world. However, because different countries have different situations, the results may be useless to some parts of the world.
The following are some recommended research studies which might shed more light on the development of technologies to reduce global warming:
1 The subject can be more wide. It needs more engineers or even scientists to answer the questionnaire. It is better that the engineers come from all over the world of vast occupations.
2 The questions can be more specific, and get the reasons to their answers.
3 The survey can be taken in a single country. Results from the specific survey could be more useful.
Word count: 3529
REFERRENCES
Ainsley Jolley, 2004, ‘New Technologies, Industry Developments and Emission Trends in Key Sectors: The Land Transportation Sector’, viewed November 22, 2007
http://www.cfses.com/documents/climate/01_Jolley_Land_Transportation_Sector.PDF.
BBC, a, Global Warming, ‘Wind power’, viewed November 22, 2007
http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/find_out/guides/world/global_warming/newsid_2794000/2794663.stm.
BBC, b, Global Warming, ‘Water power (hydro electricity)’, viewed November 22,2007
http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/find_out/guides/world/global_warming/newsid_2794000/2794961.stm.
B. Bretschneider J. Kurfürst, 1987, ‘Air Pollution Control Technology’, ISBN:0-444-98985-4.
IEA, 2002-2005, District Heating and Cooling, ‘A Comparison of distributed CHP/DH with large-scale CHP/DH’, viewed November 22, 2007
http://www.iea-dhc.org/010601.html.
IEEE power engineering society energy development and power generation committee, IEEE 2003 General Meeting, Toronto, Canada, ‘Developments in technology to limit greenhouse gas emission in Europe# extended full length papers’, 13-17 July 2003.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 05-02-
2007, ‘Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.’
Katharina Kroger, Malcolm Fergusson and Ian Skinner, 2003, ‘Critical Issues in Decarbonising Transport: The Role of Technologies’, viewed November 22, 2007,
http://www.tyndall.ac.uk/publications/working_papers/wp36.pdf.
Madsen T, Gorke T and Sargent T, August 2005, ‘Energy Efficiency: The Smart Way to Reduce Global Warming Pollution in the Northeast’, P5-P7, viewed November 27, 2007,
http://www.massclimateaction.org/RGGI/PIRGEnergyEfficiency0805.pdf.
Ouje-Bougoumou, 1996, ‘District Heating System’, viewed November 22, 2007
http://www.ouje.ca/content/our-story/energy.php.
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http://www.env.go.jp/earth/coop/coop/materials/01-apctme/contents.html.
Physics Forums, 2007, viewed November 22, 2007, ‘Wouldn't growing trees solve Global Warming?’
http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=173209&page=2.
Wikipedia, a, ‘Global warming’, viewed November 22, 2007
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming.
Wikipedia, b, ‘Green energy’, viewed November 27, 2007,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_energy.
Wikipedia, c, ‘Wind power’, viewed November 22, 2007
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power.
Wikipedia, d, ‘Nuclear power’, viewed November 22, 2007,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power.
Wikipedia, e, ‘Solar energy’, viewed November 22, 2007,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_energy.
APPENDIX
Questionnaire
The demand of technology to reduce global warming
For our course at Brunel international, we are conducting a survey on that “How is the demand to reduce global warming influencing current developments in technology or engineering?” The questionnaire should take less than 5 min to complete. Your answer is important for the survey. Thank you for your help!
1/ What’s your occupation?
2/ Do you think global warming will affect your daily life?
A Yes, I think it will. □
B No, it won’t. □
C I don’t know □
3/ If you say yes, what kind of effect do you think it affects your life? (If you say no, go to QUESTION 4)
A The temperature rises and I will feel uncomfortable; □
B The climate changes □
C The price of products (such as vehicles) will increase because there are more technologies in them by the results of global warming. □
D Others
4/ Who do you think should do more to solve the problem of global warming?
A Engineers and scientists □
B The public □
C Governments □
D Organizations □
E Others
5/ In the following statement, there are some technologies in our daily lives today. Each of them could reduce the emission of greenhouse gases directly or indirectly and lower the global warming problem. Please tick which one do you think is of “great demand”, “demand” or “not of demand” to reduce global warming in current development of technology and engineering. (If you tick “Great Demand” or “Not Demand”, please give the reason:)
Technologies Great demand Demand Not demand
A District Heating & Combine Heat and power □ □ □
B Electricity from wind power □ □ □
C Electricity from hydropower (water power) □ □ □
D Nuclear power □ □ □
E Solar energy □ □ □
F Eliminate contamination □ □ □
G Advance the design of vehicles to use fuel in □ □ □
more efficient ways
H Hybrid vehicle □ □ □
I Exhaust control of vehicle □ □ □
J Hydrogen as a new fuel of vehicle □ □ □
K Fuel cell as a new fuel of vehicle □ □ □
L Biochemical oil as a new fuel of vehicle □ □ □
M Transport control and management systems □ □ □
N Plant trees with bioengineering, □ □ □
which absorb greenhouse gas and easy grow easily
Thank you very much!
