Sustainable Energy Challenges for Civil Engineering Management

The history of civil engineering is marked by significant changes in focus and work arrangements. Organized after military engineering, civil engineering initially encompassed all nonmilitary infrastructure work. That neat division would soon become more complicated. As new technologies developed, new infrastructure applications were incorporated into civil engineering, such as railroads, airports, water supply, and wastewater treatment engineering. New social concerns also sparked changes in civil engineering work, such as new regulations for air and water pollution abatement. Engineering itself evolved into numerous distinct disciplines, including engineering specializations in biomedical, chemical, electrical, mechanical, metallurgical, and mining engineering. Civil engineers tended to work on larger spatial and temporal scales than other engineering disciplines. Civil engineers have been increasingly working in teams with multiple professions represented, such as architects, constructors, and other engineers. Computer-aided communications and engineering aids have revolutionized the framework for working in such teams. Civil engineering is also distinguished from other engineering disciplines by the importance of private–public interactions for regulation and ownership. The emerging shift to sustainable, clean, and renewable energy sources represents a major new challenge for our global society generally and for civil engineering in particular. In the past, civil engineering encompassed dams, hydraulic turbines, and transmission systems for energy provision. But this role is now expanding. New technologies will contribute to this shift, particularly for power generation, but there are important needs to make new infrastructure investments and better management decision making. Several factors are motivating a switch to sustainable energy sources (NRC 2009; America’s Energy Future Panel 2009). Many nations, including the United States, are importing a greater fraction of their energy sources, particularly petroleum for liquid fuels, and so energy security is a concern. Overall energy demand is increasing and so new sources of energy are being sought. The longterm availability of sufficient fossil-fuel energy supply is a major concern; for example, petroleum production in the United States already peaked around 1970, and a world peak is expected this century (Wood et al. 2004). Concern for the global climate change and the public health effects of fossil-fuel power generation place a premium on clean energy sources and energy efficiency. Numerous states have enacted requirements for renewable or alternative energy production (Pew Center on Global Climate Change 2010). Even though the switch will undoubtedly be relatively slow and fitful, significant changes are already under way in areas such as wind-power investments, where the worldwide growth rate in installed capacity has been as high as 30% per year (EIA 2010a). The growth of civil engineering coincided with a rapid increase in fossil-fuel extraction and use. Fossil fuels such as coal, natural gas, and petroleum have high energy density and are relatively inexpensive to extract. Ships switched from clean and renewable wind power to coal, oil and to a limited extent, nuclear power. Railway switched from the renewable wood fuel to coal and diesel. Electricity grids became widely available and facilitated a widespread development of water supply and distribution systems. Energy costs declined in real dollar amounts over the past few centuries. Indeed, inexpensive energy has been a major factor in overall economic development in the past two centuries (Ayres and Ayres 2009). However, the previously noted factors are working to decrease the role of fossil fuels and to increase the real cost of energy in the future. Moreover, the infrastructure that has evolved for this era of inexpensive, primarily fossil fuel energy sources must be altered for a new regime of sustainable energy sources. Sustainable energy is only one aspect of sustainable engineering (Graedel and Allenby 2010). Many other application areas are also important. For example, reducing the spread of toxic materials (including nanoparticles with health impacts) is a continuing concern. Better management of renewable resources such as fisheries, forests, and water is also important. Nevertheless, the pervasive use of energy in modern societies makes sustainable energy a priority. In the next sections, the characteristics of infrastructure for a sustainable energy future are discussed; the importance of a lifecycle perspective for planning, implementing, and managing this new infrastructure is emphasized; and in the concluding section, engineering management priorities for sustainable energy are summarized.