Energy, a Cross-Matrix Priority

ASME has targeted initiatives that cut across industries and disciplines, particularly those that present global challenges. The most central to these is energy.

Newer and cleaner alternatives have been elusive. Steady funding, training venues, and collaborative interdisciplinary approaches are critical to future development. Our explorations extend to global energy strategies, global climate change, the politics of energy, and developments in energy efficiency, engine technology, and innovative power systems. The potential for advancing technologies, such as fuel cells, coal gasification, and alternative fuel systems, requires advocacy and broader management capabilities that will raise the understanding of engineers, the public, and policymakers alike. We're going to have to work together to succeed.

Terry Shoup

Energy solutions involve professionals in combustion engineering, energy generation and production, manufacturing and processing, transportation and fuels sectors, and waste management and treatment. Did we leave anyone out? Not really. Engineers who work with air, ground, and water pollution technologies are breaking ground in many multidisciplinary areas of the environment, protecting both ecological systems and human health. The number of environmental and sustainability challenges ahead of us has grown more numerous and more complex, but we need adequate support for the research and technology evaluation activities that will allow us to understand and respond to these issues.

Through its technical networks, government relations work, conferences, course offerings, and related publications, ASME has been actively identifying challenges and supporting collaborative opportunities. ASME recently proposed an Energy Grand Challenge that focuses on achieving sustainable and diverse national and global energy systems or environments, through the building of partnerships and identification of resources for defining technology, policy, and market issues. Through ASME's Government Relations Department, a series of U.S. congressional noontime briefings are underway, which provide policymakers with international perspectives and experience on energy technologies, including ocean energy and nuclear power. Also, a special ASME Web site will soon be launched to serve as a clearinghouse for public policy and technical activities related to energy.

In April on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., ASME supported budget increases for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). My testimony requested adequate funding for research because it is essential if our engineering and technology communities are to respond to the myriad of environmental challenges, including water quality, climate change, nanotechnology, and critical infrastructure protection. Inadequate R&D funding undermines programs in environmental technology development and commercialization and impairs progress in carbon sequestration and management, biofuels and oil shale waste issues, and other emerging issues. We need to support long-term reliability and sustainability in the energy chain as well as assess the associated ecosystem impacts of these major initiatives. This is true throughout the world. The energy chain affects socioeconomic, environmental, and security interests.

Worth noting, just within these next two months, you can find ASME conference coverage on hydrogen economy in nuclear energy (in Japan), carbon dioxide sequestration in gas turbines (in Canada), and fuel cells or bio-conversion technologies for energy sustainability (in the United States). ASME also has been running a series of online sustainability seminars since March in collaboration with the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE). These seminars feature practices at leading global firms, life-cycle assessment, and performance tools.

At a March meeting of the International Congress of Mechanical Engineering Societies (ICOMES) in Brussels, sustainable energy headlined the presentations. First we conserve, then we improve efficiencies, and then we create alternatives with the least environmental impact. But much more than technological fixes are needed to work along the whole energy chain. While the field of possibilities seems wide open, with no uncompromised solutions in sight, the urgency is widely felt. From her lecture at the National Science Foundation (NSF) on April 23, Shirley Ann Jackson, president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., shared her belief that global energy security is the space race of this millennium. It impacts innovation and therefore leadership in the global landscape.

Leadership in finding the energy solutions is the engineer's prerogative and gift. For years, ASME has promoted a diverse energy mixture to meet current and future energy challenges. We look forward to continuing the dialogue, contributing to the solutions, and providing leadership. What is at stake is the quality of life for everyone on the planet.

— Terry Shoup
ASME President 2006–2007

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