Imagine stepping into a city 100% powered by clean energy. The source is solar energy harvested in space, and the city is also designed to be sustainable.
What a brilliant idea, considering that the solar energy the Earth receives in an hour is enough to power it for an entire year.
Science fiction writer Isaac Asimov first suggested powering the planet with solar energy collected from space in 1941. The concept involved giant orbiting solar panels that beamed energy back to Earth via radio waves. However, the idea was deemed impractical due to the cost and technological constraints at that time.
But so much has changed since then. New technologies have emerged. For instance, Energy Monitor reports that in March 2022, the UK’s Science Minister, George Freeman, revealed the government was mulling over a £16bn proposal to build a solar power station in space, with space-based solar power (SBSP, generally shortened to SSP) featuring as one of the technologies in the government’s Net Zero Innovation Portfolio.
In 2021, a report for the UK’s Department of Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) concluded that Space-Based Solar Power is technically feasible and could be developed by 2040.
The Earth is also facing new problems like climate change, and there are demands for sustainable development because its resources are not infinite. Pollution, unrestrained consumption, and exploiting natural resources could destroy and deplete them, leaving nothing for future generations.
The film “Cities of the Future,” from the Association of American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and MacGillivray Freeman Films, was shown in museums and other venues around the United States in February 2024, presents an exciting glimpse of what future cities look like or in 50 years.
The city features space-based solar power, 100% recycling, and individual pods that run on maglev trains using little or no energy. Most of the technology applied to this future city exists today. For instance, maglev trains are available in three countries today – Japan, Korea, and China.
The movie spotlights civil engineers, preparing them to lead the future’s infrastructure ideas based on real engineering data and principles.
Paul Lee, a Los Angeles-based professional engineer featured in the film, was interviewed by ASCE to provide a preview of what this movie could mean for the profession.
He noted that for kids and young people, they can give them something optimistic about designing the future. “Our present-day might seem bleak at times, and people might think things are hopeless, but the film offers an inspirational message, a positive message about innovation, about what we can do, where we can go.” Lee says there is currently a drop in the number of students admissions in civil engineering, and the film shows that taking up civil engineering can be a viable pathway to fight climate change, become sustainable, and “build these wonderful, beautiful future cities.”
For those already in the engineering profession, Lee notes that the film shows the cool engineering projects going on, which can inspire them and make them feel good about the profession.
When asked how engineers could expand their roles in nontraditional ways, Lee says that engineers have “greater roles and responsibilities regarding project management, planning, and policymaking. And there will be greater opportunities for our work to be more intersectional, policy-related, and holistic.”
Growing up in Los Angeles, Lee also highlights the importance of making cities “livable,” which means “not being stuck in traffic all the time and not breathing in the exhaust of all those gas-powered cars! It means cleaner air and the infrastructure to make it easier to walk places instead of driving. It also means having interconnectedness and not displacing large communities to build massive concrete pieces of infrastructure,” opposite to what he experienced growing up in Los Angeles.
Lee takes inspiration from Amsterdam’s urban design that centers around bicycles, which, according to him, is not as supported in LA as a transportation system. He also takes inspiration from Singapore’s integration of nature into its infrastructure. He cites the city’s innovations, such as creating green spaces, the largest indoor waterfall, and a central HVAC system that services multiple buildings.
In closing, he says that there are multiple roles for civil engineers in creating and designing future cities, which does not only involve the “visual wow” but also other mundane stuff like attending meetings, data analytics, and coding, stuff that are not highlighted in the film but a role that engineers can fill.
Read the full interview here.
Watch the film’s trailer.
Source:
Reid, R. (2024, January 8). Civil engineer Paul Lee discusses cities of the future in the new film. ASCE. Retrieved from https://www.asce.org/publications-and-news/civil-engineering-source/civil-engineering-magazine/issues/magazine-issue/article/2024/01/civil-engineer-paul-lee-discusses-cities-of-the-future-in-new-film
Gordon, O. (2022, May 26). Can solar panels in space power the race to net zero? Energy Monitor. Retrieved from https://www.energymonitor.ai/tech/innovation/can-solar-panels-in-space-power-the-race-to-net-zero/?cf-view&cf-closed
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