"Less is the new more", the future of engineering - Episode 2

This post is part of a series related to the future of engineering as I see it.
This sequence of daily Swarn’s blog post will last a week, from october 12th to october 16th.
Enjoy!

Make sure you read Episode 1 of our blog post series before starting the second one below!

Episode 2: A supply / demand equilibrium

“In order to find the solution, frame the problem well beforehand.”

As an engineer and with my experience in the aerospace industry, I’m used to solving complex technical challenges. How can I put that precious expertise at the service of our planet and thus be part of the solution to global warming, biodiversity loss and social inequalities issues?

I first had to understand the origins of those problems.
Their root cause lies in our consumption model, driver of the economic and social development of our societies in the last decades. Our civilization was fueled by an ever increasing energy consumption and land exploitation scheme. It relies and results in an uneven distribution of the generated benefits among the population.

The key element in fixing and then perpetuating such a model lies in the energy availability.
In our modern technological societies, human capabilities are only limited by the energy availability.
Indeed, with energy, humanity can for instance :

• build powerful and automated machines capable of collecting resources ever deeper and more difficult to reach;
• capture greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and store it to counterbalance its nefast emissions;
• build vertical farms to grow food in optimal and controlled environments;
• recycle better;

The list can go on…

With sufficient energy, humans can then achieve everything.
But the reserves and potential supplies in fossil¹ and nuclear² fuels necessary for energy production are limited, as the ones in rare earths³ needed to produce solar panels, batteries and wind turbines. Such limits will distort at some point in the future the sensitive equilibrium between energy supply end the ever increasing energy demand our consumption model requires, inducing dangerous societal tensions.
Thankfully, we have several decades of supplies at projected consumption rates. But can technology push the energy supply limits?

At that point in my journey, I believed I would support the green-tech transition thanks to my technical background, hence maximizing my impact on climate change.
I then realized it was unfortunately not as simple and straightforward.

Check now the Episode 3 of our series on the future of engineering.