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Asked by bekki to Jamie, Kristen, Sheun, Simon, Will on 19 Jun 2015.
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William Scott-Jackson answered on 19 Jun 2015:
I think the biggest challenge is going to involve things such as climate change and available resources for a growing population. The Earth isn’t getting any bigger but the population certainly is. The engineers of the future will be faced with the challenge of coming up with new sources of energy. They will also be challenged to make sure that this growing population are fed, have clean water, shelter and are in a hygienic environment.
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Simon Marchant answered on 20 Jun 2015:
Oooh I like questions like this! I agree with what William’s said already, and also perhaps we’ll have go find new materials to make things out of, or get a lot better at recycling properly, because lots of things are made from materials that are actually quite rare (for example, phones use rare metals, if you’re interested then this is interesting reading: http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/12/the-metals-in-your-smartphone-may-be-irreplaceable/).
Also, at some point humans are going to have to move off-planet, and that will be an interesting time to be around!
On a more healthcare theme (we are in the hospitals zone, after all), we can already grow some replacement body parts in the lab, and I think more and more we’ll be able to replace faulty human parts. And that will be an interesting and difficult challenge for everyone, from engineers to philosophers, and biologists to politicians!
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Sheun Oshinbolu answered on 20 Jun 2015:
In addition to what Will and Simon have said we are currently running out of antibiotics as bacteria are becoming resistant to the drugs currently available. Some have even compared this problem to the threat of global warming so its a really big problem (See this website for more information http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-21178718).
Another challenge would be dealing with a population that’s not only growing but living longer too. It is predicted that the elderly population in the UK is going to increase from 10million in 2010 to 19million in 2050. Therefore we need to find ways to cope with the resources that we have such as more care homes/facilities and more medicine for diseases more common for elderly people.
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Jamie Johnston answered on 23 Jun 2015:
Everyone’s said so much already, I think as resources are used up newer materials will be developed and technology will move with them to cope. For example typically aluminium alloys are considered cheaper than titanium alloys, but a recent development in how we extract these raw materials and process them means that the cost balance is likely to tip the other way within the next few years, the challenge for engineers will be how to apply these different materials into their work.
I think another big focus will be on power and efficiency, both for energy providers like wind farms or power plants and also battery manufacturers. Look at mobile phones, we often think that the tiny batteries in our smart phones aren’t very good because they don’t last long, but in fact they are excellent, the problem is that modern smartphones are very power hungry. Batteries will get much lighter and hopefully the machines they power will become more efficient.
I read recently this article on “origami batteries”, the folded paper battery weighs hardly anything yet can light an LED for 65 mintues!
http://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2014/lc/c4lc00091a#!divAbstract
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