Should all engineers be environmentalists?
It’s an exciting time to be part of engineering and technology, two areas of human endeavour that have become so rooted in our civilisation it is impossible to conceive of a world without them. Engineering has changed the world so much in fact, we are now in the Anthropocene, a geological marker in Earth’s history caused by scientific advancements delivered at scale by engineering. The rate of change we now see in technology is faster than it’s ever been (Butler, 2016).
But what does Earth’s future
look like if engineering continues to fuel unbridled development, and what
responsibilities do we, as engineers, scientists, and technologists, have in
terms of directing future development? Should we just sit back and enjoy the
ride, focusing only on maximising shareholder returns on the project in front
of us?
I think lay people would
expect us to follow a more ethical course, but the evidence is somewhat contrary
to this. Take for example the current long running debate about the ethics of
robotics. While this debate trundles on, with no discernible legislative
outcome, companies like Boston Dynamics are producing amazingly agile, powerful, and increasingly autonomous robots, and you can now buy them online.
When it comes to
socio-environmental considerations, I think engineering has particularly poor
form. The climate emergency is all the evidence you need. Sometimes even our
attempts at fixing our mistakes make matters worse.
Lithium batteries for the
billions of personal devices and the growing millions of e-cars worldwide look
like a perfect engineering solution – high power density, cheap and relatively
safe. Wikipedia says that Lithium is the world’s 25th most abundant
element, so it must be easy to get, right? Lithium extraction can require up to
500,000 gallons of water per ton (Merchant, 2017), and a Tesla has 12kg of
Lithium (Katwala, 2018). The unregulated removal of groundwater in South
America to feed this industry is starving entire regions of water for
irrigation, and the resulting waste water kills fish and livestock. It’s worth
noting that only around 2-5% of Lithium is recycled, with most of it going to
landfill (Jacoby, 2019).
Bolivian Lithium mine: evaporation is used to increase concentration until the material crystallizes.
Five minutes on Google
brings up a multitude of socio-environmental impacts of Lithium production, and
the other constituents of Li batteries such as Cobalt have even greater impact
due to their toxicity and rarity (USEPA, 2013). Is this better than oil and
the internal combustion engine? Whose job is it to compare emerging
technologies and steer markets in a sustainable direction?
There is a small way that we
in Multidisciplinary Engineering Education @ The Diamond can contribute to
reducing the negative environmental impacts of engineering – through our
students and their lifelong careers. In the same way we have incorporated
social and corporate responsibility into our teaching in the form of practical Health and
Safety training, we can introduce our undergraduates to the skills required
for environmental management and specifically life cycle analysis.
Life cycle analysis is
incredibly complex and difficult to conduct for even the simplest of products –
try analysing a bottle of Lucozade! The analysis of something like an
automotive drivetrain is an awesome interdisciplinary task, and it needs to be
carried out by a multidisciplinary team. This is exactly the kind of role we
envisage our graduates will fulfil, through our development of their team
working, critical thinking, and wide ranging practical and scientific skills.
If we can get every graduate
to consider the global impact of their designs, their research or their
entrepreneurship, then we will have contributed to one of the most important
conversations of our time.
References
Butler, D., (2016). Tomorrow’s World. Nature [online]. 530(7591), 398-401. [Viewed 7 July 2020]. Available from: https://www.nature.com/news/polopoly_fs/1.19431!/menu/main/topColumns/topLeftColumn/pdf/530398a.pdf?origin=ppub
Merchant, E. F., (2017). Lithium-Ion Battery Production Is Surging, but at What Cost? Green Tech Forum [online]. 20 September. [Viewed 7 July 2020]. Available from: https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/lithium-ion-battery-production-is-surging-but-at-what-cost
Katwala, A., (2018). The spiralling environmental cost of our lithium battery addiction. WIRED [online]. August. [Viewed 7 July 2020]. Available from: https://www.wired.co.uk/article/lithium-batteries-environment-impact
Jacoby, M., (2019). It’s time to get serious about recycling lithium-ion batteries. Chemical Engineering News, [online]. 97(28), 28. [Viewed 7 July 2020]. Available from: https://cen.acs.org/materials/energy-storage/time-serious-recycling-lithium/97/i28
United States Environmental Protection Agency., (2013). Application of LifeCycle Assessment to Nanoscale Technology: Lithium-ion Batteries for Electric Vehicles [online]. Washington: United States Environmental Protection Agency. [Viewed 7 July 2020]. Available from: https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2014-01/documents/lithium_batteries_lca.pdf
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