Category Archives: Economics

Posts exploring the economic impacts of science and engineering. The value of strong science and engineering practice has many benefits to the economy – directly and indirectly. Many countries are focusing their future economic plans on advancing their scientific, engineering and technology communities and creating environments that support scientists and engineers.

Cheap Drinking Water From Seawater

Image of process to get cheap drinking water from seawater

New membrane technology offers cheap drinking water from seawater

The consumption of drinking water is still increasing, while the availability of drinking water decreases. About 1 billion people in the world have no access to enough clean drinking water, while 70% of the Earth is covered with water.
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Other techniques to convert seawater into drinking water, like RO, MSF, or MED, use a lot of energy to vaporize the water or push the water through a membrane under high pressure. Memstill uses cheap waste-energy, which cuts down the energy consumption and CO2 emissions. The cost of desalination of one cubic meter water with Memstill could be under $0.50, where other distillation techniques cost about 1 dollar for the same amount of water.

State-of-the-art desalination technology – more information on the memstill web site.

Related Posts:

Science Magazine for Young by Japan’s Education Ministry

Science Walker magazine cover
Government hopes free science magazine will add chemistry to young lovers’ dates

Japan’s Education Ministry plans to publish and distribute a free magazine called “Science Walker” packed with scientific topics that young people can chat about with their sweethearts while on dates.

The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology publishes the magazine to promote science knowledge, because a governmental poll has found that only 40 percent of pollees in the 20s or younger take an interest in science and technology.

At a cost of 70 million yen, the ministry plans to print some 1.1 million copies of the magazine. The copies will be inserted into “Tokyo Walker” magazine published by Kadokawa Shoten Publishing Co. and other publications.

Officials said “Science Walker” also contains information on topics such as soccer, music, food, and scenic drives.

Obviously many countries believe there is a benefit in science education and they are willing to try new ways of improving their scientific literacy.

U.S. Slipping on Science

U.S. Slipping on Science by John Aloysius Farrell, Denver Post:

As recently as 1970, Freeman discovered, more than half the world’s science and engineering doctorates were granted by U.S. universities. And China produced almost no scientific Ph.D.s.
But by 2001, the European Union was graduating more scientists and engineers than the U.S. — and Asia about as many.

There has been a Science gap between the United States and the rest of the world. That gap has been between the USA, in the lead, and the rest. That gap has been shrinking for at least 10 years and most likely closer to 20. The rate of the decline in that gap has been increasing and that seems likely to continue.

The question now, is to what extent the US relinquishes that past scientific leadership. The answer will have large economic consequences. And that answer is defined by action not wishes. If the US wants to remain in the mix with others looking to lead scientific advances in the next 50 years then policies will have to change and resources will have to be re-directed (money will have to be spent).

The recent Duke University study, USA Under-counting Engineering Graduates, has important details on the comparison between India, China and the USA on science and engineering education.

We have discussed these ideas many times in previous posts:

And many more – see posts on science and the economy, science and technology higher education and engineering.

What’s Up With the Weather?

image of Time cover

No one can say exactly what it looks like when a planet takes ill, but it probably looks a lot like Earth. Never mind what you’ve heard about global warming as a slow-motion emergency that would take decades to play out. Suddenly and unexpectedly, the crisis is upon us.

Time’s cover story – Be worried, be very worried – starts out with this provocative paragraph. Other recent stories on the effects of climate change, rising ocean levels etc.:

UK Science and Innovation Grants

UK Science and Innovation Grants

The recipients of the second round of Science and Innovation Awards have been announced by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).

Funding has been awarded to build the UK’s research base in the areas of nanometrology, statistics, plasma physics and the Mathematics-Computer Science interface.

Professor John O’Reilly, Chief Executive of EPSRC, said: “A strong research base in engineering and the physical sciences is vital to the UK’s success as a knowledge economy. These latest awards underscore EPSRC’s commitment, working in partnership with the Funding Councils and the Department for Employment and Learning Northern Ireland, to address shortages of academics to lead research teams in some crucially important areas.”
Continue reading →

Science and Engineering Jobs

Alarm as white-collar jobs vanish overseas (link broken so I removed it), Australian Financial Review:

The council’s draft report, a copy of which was obtained by the Australian Financial Review, says Australia needs to respond by investing in education and research and development, and by linking up with developing knowledge sectors in China and India.

There has been a steady progression up the value scale in work sent to low-cost countries – from manufacturing to data processing, call centres and computer software.

Now there is evidence that China and India are competing for high-level jobs in financial services, industrial design, architecture, research and development, engineering, medicine and even management areas such as human resources and business consulting.

Every country realizes the value to their economy of jobs in science, engineering and technology. Countries are taking steps to create a environment that will attract those jobs. Countries that do this less effectively will suffer.

Previous posts on the topic of economics, science and engineering

Fixing Engineering’s Gender Gap

Fixing Engineering’s Gender Gap by Vivek Wadhwa, Business Week

We can debate whether an engineering gap between the U.S. and India and China exists, but among U.S. engineers there is an indisputable gender gap — fewer than 20% of engineering graduates are women, according to the National Science Foundation. Perhaps a simple solution to maintaining American competitiveness is to encourage more women to enter engineering.

I agree. We need to do a better job of taking advantage of what women engineers can bring to our economy. By taking sensible actions (see some of the related posts below) we can create a system that produces more women engineers and we will benefit from that result.

According to the National Science Foundation, women make up only 5.2% of tenured engineering faculty. Students felt that they had no one to turn to for help and guidance. One student said she felt disadvantaged “when it comes to being an engineer without being like a man.”

Related Posts:

Engineer Revolutionizing Icemakers

Dartmouth engineer revolutionizing the icemaker business

Technology developed at Dartmouth’s Thayer School of Engineering is about to revolutionize the $1 billion icemaker business. The invention is called pulse electro-thermal de-icing (PETD).

PETD inventor, Victor Petrenko, professor of engineering at Dartmouth states: “In fact, we can safely say that this technology can increase an icemaker’s production capacity by 70 percent while decreasing its energy consumption by up to 30 percent.”

Petrenko’s invention could ultimately transform the entire $40 billion refrigeration-air conditioning industry which, according to Petrenko, has struggled with the challenge of keeping cold evaporator coils free of frost and ice. Dartmouth’s PETD technology has proven its ability to de-ice these coils in seconds using a fraction of the energy required by conventional coil defrosters.

“In addition to this,” says Petrenko, “there are many other equally exciting applications for PETD in the works, such as for de-icing buildings and bridges, car windshields, airplanes, windmills and ships, and power lines.”

Chinese Engineering Innovation Plan

Building a self-innovation China:

Self-innovation has become a top priority to advance science and technology in China. Chinese President Hu Jintao launched the drive to build China into a self-innovative country by the end of 2020 early this year during the first national science and technology conference in the 21st century.
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Zhang Xiaoqiang, vice minister of Nat’l Development & Reform Comm., said: “In the next five years, the central government will set up 100 state-level engineering laboratories and push for the construction of 50 state engineering project research centers in the fields of the Internet, coal mine gas monitoring and digital equipment. These moves will help build technological centers in several hundred large-scale enterprises in various sectors.”

Math, Science and Engineering Scholarships Proposal

Angelides pledges math, science, engineering scholarships

Democratic gubernatorial primary candidate Phil Angelides told Silicon Valley business executives Thursday he could reduce Silicon Valley’s dependency on skilled foreign workers by offering thousands of college scholarships to California students who study science, math and engineering.

If he were governor, Angelides told business executives, the California Tomorrow Fellowship program would award 10,000 students with up to $10,000 each for college expenses.

The state, he said, would put up $50 million and the remaining $50 million, he hopes, would be matched by businesses, universities and foundations.

“Last year California graduated 6,700 young people with degrees in engineering. South Korea, a country barely a third larger” than California, “graduated 56,000,” Angelides told a gathering of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group.

Previous posts on fellowship and scholarships for science and engineering students