Why A Liberal And Multidisciplinary Education Is Needed To Solve The Energy Crisis

One of the grand challenges for the current generation is the need for widespread use of clean and renewable energy sources. Rapid growth in demand for energy is likely to exceed our global ability to supply it moving forward. In addition, our current energy sources often carry heavy environmental tolls. Thus our current energy trajectory is not sustainable. Research and development of alternative energy sources, including renewable sources, has made good progress, but more work needs to be done with more urgency. New technologies and significant improvements in existing technologies are needed to address the looming energy shortage. Many of these non-traditional sources of energy have different social impacts from their more customary counterparts. Engineers working in the area of energy production must understand the technical aspects of these new energy technologies, but that alone is not sufficient. They must have a deep intuition and understanding of how these technologies impact the social-cultural milieu within which they will be embedded. Thus, engineering educators must provide a broad, multidisciplinary education – one that spans not only multiple technical disciplines, but also includes a strong liberal arts component. Such broad social problems require broad solutions. Given the critical and timely nature of this topic, one would assume that it would be receiving significant attention within engineering education scholarship. But it has not. Although increasing recently, the total number of relevant papers on energy education in the literature is quite small, and almost none address the essential need for a broader, contextual education. An examination of available textbooks on energy issues demonstrates a similar gap. We conclude with several recommendations to take initial steps toward rectifying this lack of sufficient scholarship in engineering education and lack of resources for engineering educators. Energy Sustainability is a Grand Challenge Energy sustainability is one of the grand challenges for this generation. It is a global, multifaceted, and extremely difficult problem: (a) energy demand is outstripping supply, (b) primary energy sources are heavy polluters, and (c) there is no clear solution. In this paper, we will refer to this triplet of difficulties as the “energy grand challenge.” Demand outstripping supply Considering the significant problems facing our world today – AIDS, world hunger, war and terrorism, racial injustice, poverty, global warming – one issue, the looming energy crisis, seems particularly apt as a grand challenge for engineers. Consensus is growing to support the contention that our global demand for energy is outstripping our ability to supply it. Economics predicts that price will continue to increase to account for this supply shortfall. Significant economic and therefore social upheavals may likely result as some of our most prevalent sources of energy (oil and natural gas) dwindle to relative scarcity. Debate in the literature has transitioned from the question of whether a global peak (followed by a permanent downward trend) in oil and natural gas production will occur to the question of when the peak will occur. Hirsch, Bezdek, and Wendling summarize a variety of expert predictions regarding the peak and P ge 13399.2 conclude: “Even the most optimistic forecasts suggest that world oil peaking will occur in less than 25 years.” 1 They provide a similarly grim picture for natural gas: “Part of the attractiveness of natural gas was resource estimates for the U.S. and Canada that promised growing supply at reasonable prices for the foreseeable future. That optimism turns out to have been misplaced, and the U.S. is now experiencing supply constraints and high natural gas prices.” 2 Global energy use will continue to grow: “...world marketed energy consumption is projected to grow by 57 percent over the 2004 to 2030 period.” 3 Primary energy sources are heavy polluters Currently, our primary energy sources are fossil fuels that produce significant pollutants. While we continue to depend on these sources, we also are paying the price of environmental damage on a local and global scale. For example, global warming is widely attributed to increased emissions of greenhouse gases associated with burning of fossil fuels. The chart in Figure 1 shows the increase in worldwide carbon dioxide emissions and primary energy consumption (as a percentage of levels in 1980) 4 . 90% 100% 110% 120% 130% 140% 150% 160% 170% 1 9 8 0 1 9 8 1 1 9 8 2 1 9 8 3 1 9 8 4 1 9 8 5 1 9 8 6 1 9 8 7 1 9 8 8 1 9 8 9 1 9 9 0 1 9 9 1 1 9 9 2 1 9 9 3 1 9 9 4 1 9 9 5 1 9 9 6 1 9 9 7 1 9 9 8 1 9 9 9 2 0 0 0 2 0 0 1 2 0 0 2 2 0 0 3 2 0 0 4 Carbon Dioxide Emissions Primary Energy Consumption Figure 1: Worldwide Carbon Emissions and Energy Consumption.