• Question: How can the world be affected by engineering

    Asked by manutd to Becky, Carrie, Kelly, Robin, Usaid on 14 Mar 2012.
    • Photo: Becky Selwyn

      Becky Selwyn answered on 14 Mar 2012:

      Engineers have been responsible for so much of how our world is now – all the roads and buildings, all the power stations and cars, telephones and computers – everything really! Scientists make some discoveries and then engineers use those discoveries to solve problems we have. So in the future it will be engineers who find us new energy sources and help us generate enough electricity for all our needs. It will be engineers who work out how to feed an increasing population and how to get healthcare to everyone.

    • Photo: Robin Stafford Allen

      Robin Stafford Allen answered on 14 Mar 2012:

      @manutd – a football fan perhaps?..Everything that moves has been engineered (except the winds and the tides of course) by somebody.
      There is an expression that “necessity is the mother of invention” and this means that all the energy source we know of are finite and will run out, but there are many sources waiting to be discovered and developed. Your grandfathers did not know that nuclear energy could exist, and relied on coal. We are now in the situation that gas and oil that we are able to extract will run short before the middle of the century. Prices are already rising because it is getting more difficult to find oil and gas, which is why we are looking at drilling in deep sea, and in the artic. However there are hundreds of years of coal underground all over the world, but releasing all that carbon into the atmosphere may make the global warming worse. However we may find a way of getting the energy we need without releasing all that carbon from the coal, which is the point of Fusion research. Let’s hope so. Regard Robin.

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