3/22/06
Discussion 3-06
The Energy Ethic


In most nations of the world, engineers are required by law to demonstrate their proficiency in their specialty field of engineering through a proof of education and experience and passing a test. When this has been done in an acceptable manner then they become licensed to practice engineering. In the United States, a person licensed to practice engineering is called a Professional Engineer or P.E. The enabling legislation for this registration justifies this legal requirement with phrases such as " for the protection of the safety, health and welfare of the public."

If one takes the definition of the word "Professional" from an American/English dictionary and simply paraphrases it for a "Professional Engineer" the definition would be:

"Engineering Professionalism is characterized by conformance to the technical and ethnical standards related to the practice of engineering."


What is meant by the "technical standards" is evident to most engineers. But let's dwell for a moment on what is meant by the "ethical standards". Again, turning to the dictionary we find that ethics is:

"A set of moral principles or values".


"Moral", on the other hand is rather illusive in its definition mostly relating to "right vs. wrong" and "right behavior". For the purpose of this paper, I would like to propose a concept of both moral and ethics.

Moral principles are those guiding principles that are necessary for mankind to exist in a harmonious society.


So we can conclude from this that it is the ethical responsibility of engineering professionals to practice their profession in a manner so as to protect the safety, health and welfare of the public.

Now let's hold that thought (to re-visit later) and change the subject.

Let's now take two snapshots from relatively recent history. The first, two hundred years ago, in March of 1801 - when Thomas Jefferson was sworn in as the third president of the United States. Historian Stephen Ambrose, in writing of that event stated the following:

"A critical fact in the world of 1801 was that nothing moved faster than the speed of a horse. No human being, no manufactured item, no bushel of wheat, no side of beef, no letter, no information, no idea, order or instruction of any kind moved faster. Nothing ever had moved any faster, and, as far as Jefferson's contemporaries were able to tell nothing ever would."


Then the engineers and scientists got busy in the nineteenth century unlocking the secrets of matter, heat and work. And in the relatively short time span of that century - through scientific observation and engineering curiosity facilitated by a political climate of relative freedom, they developed the laws of forces, motion, thermodynamics, electricity and magnetism and gave birth to the industrial revolution.

The second snapshot is taken about a hundred years later near the end of the nineteenth century in the year 1894. In that year, an author and playwright in London named Oscar Wilde, writing on an entirely different subject made the statement:

"The fact is that civilization requires slaves. The Greeks were quite right there. Unless there are slaves to do the ugly horrible uninteresting work, culture and contemplation become almost impossible. Human slavery is wrong, insecure and demoralizing. On mechanical slavery, on the slavery of the machine, the future of the world depends."


And about that time the engineers were shifting into high gear. During the twentieth century the engineering community created the mechanical slave indeed. The mechanical slave or robot has served up our quality of life. The robot washes our clothes; cooks our food; cleans our dishes; moves us about over short distances or long at varying speeds, exceeding the speed of sound; provides us with untold entertainment and pleasure; stokes our fire; provides us a healthy and comfortable environment; operates our factories; preserves our food; performs our calculations; re-enforces our knowledge; keeps our records; delivers our messages anywhere in the universe at the speed of light; and provides our recreation.

That's the time we lived in as we finished the twentieth century - all made possible by the engineering community.

But wait - the robot must be fed, and its food is the nonreplenishable energy resources of planet earth which are rapidly depleting; and its effluents are contaminating the fragile environment on which our very lives depend. And therein lies the challenge.

Now, consider the situation of mankind as we stand on the launching pad of the 21st century. The engineers, urged on by a societal desire for a better life, have moved mankind from the cave to a world in which "culture and contemplation" abound. But they have done so at a very high cost. They have put mankind on a course of depleting the resources that feed our slave and of simultaneously destroying the fragile environment in which we exist.

Make no mistake about it. It is the engineers who have achieved this! And, as professionals, they have a moral obligation to address this problem. There is no one else who has the skills or the ability. And, if the problem goes unaddressed or unsolved, it will mean the end of civilization as we know it or as we would like to envision it.

Energy and the environment, however, have not heretofore been considered any more than a design parameter. The thesis of this talk is that these two issues must be elevated from "design parameters" to "moral standards." (As a matter of fact, in most cases energy has not even been considered a design parameter - only the cost of the energy has been considered a design parameter.)

Very little consideration was given to energy in the United States in the 1950s and 1960s. Then, as our oil production peaked in the early 1970s there was an enormous amount of attention given to the energy consumption of engineered systems in ASHRAE and in the engineering community as a whole for a few years. Then, as prices stabilized again, and the energy producers miraculously found reserves and told the world there was no problem, "energy" was returned to the back burner.

Many knowledgeable people have expressed the position that energy conservation is simply an economic issue, by which they mean one to be considered as any and all other economic commodity issues. When considering the alternatives on a given building project, they would say, the value of energy should be considered in terms of the present cost, and energy-saving concepts should be considered in terms of the economic return on investment (ROI) as they relate to the energy costs. The basic thesis of this presentation is that that concept is invalid. It is that energy conservation is an ethic. What could be more important to the "welfare of the public" than the very preservation of our way of life?
THE ENERGY SITUATION
Most people have heard the arguments ad infinitum about the energy situation, but a brief summary of the situation is as follows:

The fifth and sixth demonstrate the total control that engineers have in the matter, and these are issues that are not well understood and accepted. Perhaps the best way to demonstrate the issues stated in those two points is a case history example.

At a Midwest university in the mid-1990's a new research building was planned. The building was to contain some laboratory facilities, and much of it was to house research animals. The requirements for the environment for research animal housing are controlled rigorously by federal guidelines and regulations - not the least significant of which is that large quantities of ventilation air are required and the temperature/humidity control range is quite stringent.

There was a central steam plant on the campus, and early in the design process, the administration of the university asked the design engineers what the requirements for steam demand (power) for this building would be - to which the designers responded "110,000 pounds per hour." The owner countered that that quantity of steam power would not be available and challenged the designers to figure out how to accomplish the same end result with only 40,000 pounds per hour. (The administration people themselves were engineers who understood the energy ethic.) Following some effort, they did it - from 110,000 pounds per hour to 40,000 pounds per hour by simply thinking it was important. In addition to that, the overall investment cost following the exercise was significantly reduced. These startling results were achieved, not by the application of new high-technology breakthroughs, but by simple well-placed logic in design decisions, including:
The end result was that the steam load was reduced from 110,000 pounds per hour to 38,340 pounds per hour, and the chilled-water load was reduced from 3,600 tons to 2,975 tons. Other benefits for the owner, of course, were that the construction cost was reduced, and the operating/owning cost was reduced! (It might be added that the same design approach was taken for all of the other building energy systems with similar success.)

In summarizing the energy situation, engineers spent the 19th century exploring and developing technological concepts and principles and the 20th century changing the course of the human race through the development of a world society and economy that is totally dependent upon that technology and is becoming more so every day. The problem is that technology, in turn, is dependent upon a continued source of energy and a delicate environmental sink, both of which are depleting rapidly.
THE ALTERNATIVES
Looking at the alternatives, if the engineering community does not take the lead in the conservation of energy resources and the protection of the environment, who will? All of the economic forces of our society are directed at using energy, not conserving it. Thus business and government leaders will always encourage the continuing consumption of energy (although this encouragement is usually well concealed) because they see it as good for business. But remember, the continuance of our quality of life and a healthy economy is the primary long-range objective, and an economy only grows on productivity. There are a lot of people getting rich practicing business techniques that are detrimental to the economy. Remember this - what is good for business is not necessarily good for the economy, but what is good for the economy is always good for business.

If mankind is to head off an economic and societal collapse of unbelievable proportions, we must move into the 21st century committed to the ethic of maintaining our socio-economic systems while reducing the rate of depletion of the world's energy reserves and preserving the environment so necessary for survival.

With this background, then, it is proposed that there is a new standard of professionalism in engineering, and that is to practice our profession with an emphasis upon our responsibility to protect the long-range interests of the society we serve and, specifically, to incorporate the ethics of energy conservation and environmental preservation in everything we do. There is no infinite source or infinite sink.

Albert Einstein said it beautifully when addressing an assembly of engineers and scientists some 75 years ago (in 1931):

Concern for man himself and his fate must always form the chief interest of all technical endeavors, in order that the creations of our mind shall be a blessing and not a curse to mankind. Never forget this in the midst of your diagrams and equations."


The naysayers in the profession may counter that the engineers are to serve the dictates of those by whom they are "employed," the business managers, the politicians, the administrators, the developers, or, ultimately, the consumers. But the engineers cannot use this haven of comfort or justification any more justifiably than the defendants at Nuremberg in 1945, whose defense was simply that they were just following orders.

Ralph Waldo Emerson entered into his journal in 1850, "Blessed are those who have no talent." The engineers are not so blessed. The engineers, and only the engineers, are skilled in the art of applied physics necessary to truly understand how to design the machinery and systems that can preserve the way of life and make it available to all of mankind, while making the most judicious use of the world's energy resources and creating no adverse impact upon the environment. It can be done, but only the engineers understand that it can and how to do it.

Another key issue regarding new energy source and conversion technologies is that before these technologies can replace the current ones, the systems which consume the energy must do so much more effectively!
PUTTING THE ETHIC INTO PRACTICE


Because the engineers were self-directed for the past century and a half in furthering the ability of mankind to enjoy "culture and contemplation," and because the energy ethic has not heretofore been embraced, with few exceptions engineers and scientists have not been historically considered the societal leaders who shaped the direction of mankind. The dichotomy of this statement is that the engineers did more to shape the course of history in a positive vein than any other group, sometimes in spite of the so-called "leaders" - they just didn't have good press.



There are any number of ways in which this proposed ethic can be put into practice (some are more aggressive than others; some, unfortunately, will be too little too late. One set of guidelines for engineers as they assume this new role follows.

1. Engineers must make every reasonable effort to self-educate, to revisit earlier habits and experiences, to develop a true and thorough appreciation for and understanding of the energy/environmental ethic.
2. Following self-education is the education of others. The educators of engineers must teach the newcomers to the profession in such a way as to instill the ethic as a fundamental part of the science. As stated earlier, the concepts of infinite source and infinite sink must be used with great reservation. Such terms as thermal efficiency, Carnot efficiency, Carnot coefficient of performance, and the like should be framed in terms of their relevance to the energy/environmental ethic rather than simply as esoteric terms in thermodynamics. The students of tomorrow must enter the business or scientific world with the full understanding that as engineers they have a responsibility to society. Practicing engineers must, themselves, assume the role of educators. First, those with the knowledge and skills must educate their peers. Then, as an ongoing obligation, engineers must assume the role of educating their clients, employers, employees, legislators, and the public at large (this is a role unfamiliar to most engineering practitioners).
3. Engineers must assume the leadership role in business and interprofessional relations to ensure that the energy ethic is inherent in all aspects of the business community.
4. Engineers must become involved in governmental activities such as legislation, rulemaking, etc., to ensure that federal, state and local laws adhere to the energy/environmental ethic.
5. ASHRAE and other engineering and related societies must become activists in the dissemination of the energy/environmental ethic. The ethic should permeate all publications, papers, seminars, research projects and guidelines.
6. Commercial interests must be restrained in their efforts to abort strict adherence to the ethic to gain competitive advantage. At the same time, care must be taken to bring about any change in such a way as to not create undue burden or hardship on any cooperative sector of business, society, or agency.
7. Probably more than anyone else, the economists must be educated in the unique value of energy. Energy cannot continue to be treated as any other commodity that follows the short-sighted laws of supply and demand (this matter in and of itself is the most dangerous misunderstanding the modern world has experienced).


Furthermore, the strength of the economy (national or global) is based upon human productivity and human productivity, in turn, is based upon technology supported by energy!

Above all, the members of the engineering community must stand vigilant to ensure that they are not misled, duped, or misused by other groups or interests as pawns to support proprietary interests under the guise of misdirected or unsupported claims of energy conservation or environmental improvement. The engineering profession must hold such interests to acceptable standards of scientific integrity and must assist in influencing legislators to do likewise.
THE GAME PLAN
An "energy policy" , corporate, national, or global will, of course, be based upon the particulars of the institution drafting the policy. However, any policy, to be effective and meet the long term needs of mankind must be based upon the following three steps:

1. All energy conversion machinery and systems must be designed to require the minimum amount of power and consume the least amount of energy possible while maintaining the same or improved performance at no increase in investment cost.
2. As the first step above is implemented, conversion from non-renewable to renewable energy sources shall be implemented. The objective of this step is to achieve a sustainable energy society.
3. Waste in any form of materials or energy should be minimized or eliminated.