Engineering: issues, challenges and opportunities for development ...

ENGINEERING: ISSUES CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR DEVELOPMENTenergy for all and access to reliable and affordable energy services,giving particular attention to the rural and urban poor.Energy is crucial for sustainable development. A sophisticatedenergy mix that employs mature and feasible technologieswill be needed in most countries. Ambitious but acceptablelimits for greenhouse gas emissions must be managed, callingfor ever-greater international cooperation. Priority shouldbe given to exploring carbon sequestration schemes for fossilfuel utilization, ensuring the highest state-of-the-art standardsof safety and non-proliferation for nuclear energy, innovationfor higher efficiencies of renewable energies, designingcompromises for agricultural land usage and population displacementfor hydropower and developing technologies forenergy efficiency and conservation. Decisions on the use of agiven technology that could contribute to sustainable energydevelopment require a thorough analysis of technological andeconomic feasibility; the technology of a proposed solutionshould be available at the time the need for it becomes apparentand the energy it provides should be affordable for themajority of the population.There exists a relationship between quality of life and per capitaconsumption of energy. Indeed, the Human DevelopmentIndex shows a close link between increasing quality of life in agiven country and an increase in energy use per capita. In general,a high quality of life is currently achieved with a per capitaconsumption of 100 billion to 150 billion joules of energy. Ifthe countries currently exceeding this level could decreasetheir energy consumption to within this range, their quality oflife would be maintained and global resources would be betterpreserved and utilized, particularly among countries at differentstages of development.Significant differences exist between developed and developingcountries, and energy policies must be very context-specific;they do not translate from one country to another. Thereis no universal solution for making sustainable energy availableglobally, but developing countries can learn from the lessonsof developed countries. The optimal energy mix for any countrywill depend on, among others, its available natural resourcebase, population distribution, predicted growth of energydemand and its engineering and economic capacity. Energysolutions for developed countries are not always adequate indeveloping countries because, for example, developing countriesoften see much higher annual growth rates in demand.In developed countries, growth in demand is more stable, ataround 1 per cent to 2 per cent per year, than in developingcountries where it can reach about 4 per cent to 5 per cent.Add to this the phenomenon of strong urban migration andhuge energy needs are being further concentrated in emergingmega-cities. Electricity grids in some developed countries haveexperienced major national and international failures due to alack of capacity and investment; even ‘stable’ rates of energydemand can cause instabilities in energy supply.Predictions of energy consumption in developed and developingcountries show that, in a short space of time, demand forprimary energy in developing countries will overtake that ofdeveloped countries. Sooner or later this may cause supplydisturbances to developed countries, since much of the energythey are exploiting in developing countries will be taken out ofthe export market to satisfy local demand.Biofuels (separate from biogas, biomass and so on) havebeen developing in many countries, usually as fuel additives,to increase energy security, reduce greenhouse gas emissionsand stimulate rural development. However, economic, socialand environmental issues limit the extent to which these goalscan be met with current biofuel technologies; there are seriousconcerns about whether they do in fact reduce greenhousegases overall as well as the effect they are having on landuse,biodiversity and food prices. First generation biofuels, such asbioethanol and biodiesel, are only economically competitivewith fossil fuels in the most efficient agricultural productionmarkets and under favourable market conditions of high oilprices and low feedstock prices. One of the potential newrisks for drylands is growing biofuel crops using unsustainablecultivation practices, leading to accelerated soil erosionand desertification. Growing biofuel crops – using sustainablecultivation practices – on semi-arid and sub-humid landsunsuitable for food production would not compete with foodproduction and could help rehabilitate those lands. A shifttowards cellulose-based second generation biofuels, usingwood and grassy crops, would offer greater net reductionsemissions and use less land, but technical breakthroughs arerequired. The potential for second generation biofuels that areeconomically, environmentally and socially sustainable needto be thoroughly researched, involving modern agriculturalengineering tools.ChallengesThe main challenges the world is going to face in the nearfuture are centred on the explosion of energy demand, mainlyin developing countries, and on the constraints imposed byclimate change on greenhouse gases emissions that will needto be drastically abated.Given that fossil fuels will continue to play a dominant role inthe energy mix in the decades to come, the development anduse of advanced and cleaner fossil fuel technologies should beincreased. Hybrid technologies that use both fossil fuels andother energy sources may become more affordable and feasibleon a larger scale.There is also considerable scope for improving energy efficiencyin households, transport and industry. Energy effi-290