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technology and EnvironmenC 1989.
Pp. 1-20. Washington, DC:
National Academy Press.
Technology and Environment:
An Overview
JESSE H. AUSUBEL, ROBERT ~ FROSCH, AND
ROBERT HERMAN
1
Be content at least with the verdict of time, which reveals the hidden
defects of all things, and, being the father of truth and a judge without
passion, is wont to pronounce always, a just sentence of life or death.
Baldesar Casaglione, The Book of the Courtier, 1528
What will be the verdict of time on the man-made world? Uneasiness
prevails in our newspapers, political forums, and cities; in the forests; and
beside the lakes and oceans. Many feel that economic, technological, and
scientific developments are accompanied by ever-larger risks for environ-
ment, society, and health With each year, unanticipated and unintended
consequences of mature technologies reveal themselves more clearly and
long after a commitment to the technologies has suffused the economy: the
greenhouse effect from fuels that warm and transport us; the hole in the
ozone layer from chemicals that cool our refrigerators and make worries
about safe and convenient home food supply a dim memory of grandpar-
ents; lung cancer associated with asbestos fibers Hat were a breakthrough
a few decades ago for fireproofing ships, schools, and office buildings. It
is equally feared that emerging technologies, such as the genetic engineer-
ing of new organisms, will release more problems than they solve. Yet,
traditional optimism remains widespread that innovations will be found to
finesse or counteract harmful environmental consequences of the ways we
transform the planet. W~11 the verdict on our realization of technology in
the environment be life, "sustainable development of the biosphere," or
1
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l
2
JESSE H. AUSUBE~ ROBERT A. FROSCH, ID ROBERT HEM
the decay and self-destruction that is one of the futures always envisioned
for humankind?
This book seeks to contribute toward answering this question. It artic-
ulates what Paul Gray calls the paradox of technology, that environmental
disruption is brought about by the industrial economy, but that advance-
ment of the industrial economy has also been and will be a main route
to environmental quality. The book examines several analytic frameworks
for exploring interactions of technology and environment. It includes re-
view of the history of environment as affected by technology. It offers
several technological opportunities to reduce or bypass both current and
forecast environmental problems. It provides discussion of social and in-
stitutional aspects of the question, for example, how education and the
professions must change to play more positive roles in environmental mat-
ters. This opening chapter synthesizes the contributions that follow and
seeks to place in perspective the relationship between technology and the
environment that is the subject of the volume.
Perhaps it Is best at this early stage to remind ourselves of some of
our technological successes with respect to environment in the broadest
sense. It is technology, above all, that has denied or forestalled the
original Malthusian vision of population outrunning subsistence. Mankind
has been able to modify and increase the size of its niche and sustain
increasing population at higher levels of economic well-being. That niches
keep changing, through the introduction of new technologies, and that we
can change them are too commonly overlooked. For example, systems
of transportation and energy have arisen over the past two centuries that
would have been unimaginable, given a static definition of resources and
unchanging policy with regard to disposal of wastes. The problem of
typhoid was largely solved by chlorination of municipal water supplies,
although private well owners waited a long time to adopt this solution. In
the industrialized world, air and especially water in numerous urban areas
are cleaner and safer than a century, or even a couple of decades, ago.
The contemporary question is whether humans may now be so threat-
ening the boundary conditions of the earth system that our technological
tool kit will not suffice. Are we infinite or are we reaching closure? We
pushed back the North Sea and built more than half the land that is today
the Netherlands. Now we wonder whether we dare push nature any further.
We drained the malarial marshes of the Maremma on the Italian coast to
make them humanly habitable. Now we define global habitability to include
many species besides our own.
We must also recognize that many environmental problems have not
proven to be as serious as originally forecast. Public alarms about mercury
in swordfish, pesticides in cranberry bogs, and radiation from Three Mile
Island are among numerous examples. The lesson from these episodes is
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TECHNOLOGY AND ENVIRONMENT: AN OVERVIEW
3
not that we should distrust all news of environmental dangers, but rather
that the public wants a sense of security.
Then what do we learn when we search the history of environment
and technology for guidelines? Generally in the industrialized countries,
ways have been devised to accommodate and prepare the way for economic
growth and increases in population density without decline of key measures
of environmental quality and health. Will our ingenuity, technical and
social, match current and future needs?
In fact, as Thomas Lee and other authors point out in this volume,
both resources and environment are functions of technology. Concerns
about scarce resources have repeatedly subsided as technology expanded
the available reserve or provided alternatives. According to Lee, the
pressure for closure of the system stems more properly from concerns
about the capacity of the environment as a receptacle for wastes than from
its bounty of resources. It is rarely true that depletion of resources is
the driving force for resource substitution. From a historical perspective,
energy substitution, for example, has been driven by the availability of a
set of new technologies that enabled an alternative energy source to satisfy
better and at an acceptable cost the end-use demand of society.
It is useful at this point to distinguish several sources of environmental
problems. Some problems come about largely because of irresponsible or
unintelligent behavior. Careless ship operations appear to be the immediate
cause of the Valdez oil spill in Alaska; oil leaks from drilling in the
Santa Barbara Channel off California in 1970 could very likely have been
prevented by more thorough geological studies and better engineering
practice. Some problems arise because of collective effects of individual
behavior that is not particularly serious on a small scale or in a forgiving
geographical context. The smog of Los Angeles is caused by the sum of a
multitude of actions that might be permissible elsewhere, but not in the Los
Angeles basin with its enclosing mountain ranges, prevailing westerly winds,
and large concentration of people and vehicles. Other problems arise simply
out of ignorance. No environmental impact statement at the time of the
innovation is likely to have identified the problems that arose decades later
with DDT or chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). Electric refrigeration looked like
a marvelous advance over the icebox when it was introduced into the mass
market in the late 1920s, and the CECs looked attractive compared with
the problems of leaks and explosions associated with ammonia and other
first-generation coolants. Certainly no chemist could have been expected in
the 1930s to link CECs to destruction of stratospheric ozone, which could
not be measured accurately at that time, or to the greenhouse effect, then
a theory discussed only in the most hypothetical terms by basic scientists
interested in the earth's geological history.
In the United States, as Victoria Chinked describes, there has been a
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4
JESSE H. AUSUBE~ ROBERT ~ FROSCH, ID ROBERT HEM
tendency to treat all kinds of problems the same way, litigiously, and to use
a great deal of social effort in attributing effects to causes and assigning
blame. It is necessary to recognize better in the U.S. administrative and
legal systems that one is not necessarily a horrible individual if one truly did
not understand certain things. This volume makes the point strongly that
the essence of the environmental crisis is not nearly so much bad actors
as the whole, often contradictory, structure of incentives of the economy.
Given how complete definition of environmental problems has become (see
liable 1), perhaps in the United States for many environmental matters it
is time to think more broadly and pragmatically in terms of a "no-fault"
societr. There is a need to shift from negative to positive reinforcement and
to reduce the expense and time involved in resolving disputes. Products and
incentives should be designed in such a way that a minimum of hazardous
waste is created, but also, it should be easy to dispose of those wastes that
are created; society might better use its resources to buy and recycle these
materials than to prosecute those who dump them.
A no-fault orientation does not deny the existence of criminality or
conflict. On the contrary, we must accept that there are often genuine
conflicts of interest on environmental issues, conflicts between industrial and
neighborhood objectives or between local and global interests. However, it is
becoming rarer for a purely local solution to endure. Globally approaching
environmental closure means that, increasingly, we must seek policies that
are consistent at all levels of the system and internationally, for example
with regard to waste disposal or greenhouse gas emissions.
A no-fault orientation also does not diminish attention to the roles
and responsibilities of industry. However, as this volume makes clear,
environmental analysis and regulation have sometimes tended to focus on
industry as the major force shaping the evolution of the environment to
the exclusion of other important forces. And, we have tended to view
industry as a collection of pollution sources. As pointed out by Robert
Ayres, Sheldon Friedlander, and Robert Herman and coauthors, this view
is inadequate. We must be at least as concerned with the environmental
consequences of consumption First we looked at factories, then at some
of their products. Now we must encompass the entire system of production
and consumption, the metabolism of our society, in our analyses and
policies.
FRAMEWORKS FOR ANALYSIS
In Part 1 of this book, the authors advance Free ways of approaching
the definition and assessment of environmental problems. We concept
of industrial metabolism leads to more unified, continuous, and compre-
hensive consideration of production and consumption processes from an
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TECHNOLOGY AND ENKIRONMENT: AN OVERVIEW
TABLE 1 Selected Environmental Problems
1 Urban air pollution
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
Regional air pollution, including acid rain
Hazardous or toxic air pollutants
Indoor radon
Indoor air pollutants other than radon
Radiation other than radon
Depletion of stratospheric ozone associated with CFCs and other
substances
Global climate change associated with carbon dioxide and other
greenhouse gases
Water pollution associated with direct and indirect point source
discharges from industrial and other facilities to surface waters
Water pollution associated with nonpoint source discharges to surface
waters
11. Contaminated sludge
12. Pollution of estuaries, coastal waters, and oceans from all sources
13. Deterioration of wetlands from all sources
14. Pollution of drinking water as it arrives at the tap from chemicals,
lead in pipes, biological contaminants, and radiation
15. Pollution of groundwater and soil at hazardous waste sites, both sites
with continuing disposal and those no longer in use
16. Pollution of groundwater and other media at nonhazardous waste sites,
including municipal landfills and industrial sites
17. Exhaustion of landfills
18. Groundwater contamination from septic systems, road salts, injection
wells, leaking storage tanks, and other sources
19. Wastes and tailings from mining and other extractive activities
20. Accidental releases of toxic substances
21. Oil spills and other accidental releases of environmentally damaging
materials or substances
22. Pesticide residues on foods eaten by humans and wildlife, and risks to
applicators of pesticides
23. Risks to air and water from pesticides and other agricultural
chemicals as a result of leaching and runoff, aerial spraying, and
other sources
24. New toxic chemicals
25. Undesirable environmental release of genetically altered materials
26. Exposure to consumer products
27. Worker exposure to chemicals
28. Reductions in biodiversity
29. Deforestation and desertification
NOTE: These environmental problems can be grouped or ranked according
to a variety of criteria, for example, scale (local to global);
whether the problems relate primarily to human health or to
ecosystems; carcinogenicity; extent to which technical solutions are
currently available; and economic costs.
SOURCE: After U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (1988~.
s
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6
JESSE H. AUSUBE~ ROBERT ~ FROSCH, ID ROBERT ~
environmental point of view. The question of dematerialzzation forces recon-
sideration of the origins and solutions of environmental issues and places
proposals for waste reduction and recycling in context. The examination
of long-te~rn regularities in technological development provides quantitative
evidence of the role of technology in the evolution of environmental prob-
lems and offers some optimism about prediction of future problems and
their solutions. All of these frameworks might be regarded as elements
of a more complete industrial ecology, examining the totality or pattern
of relations between economic activity and the environment (Frosch and
Gallopoulos, 1989~.
As described by Ayres, industrial metabolism encompasses both pro-
duction and consumption, the entire system for the transformation of
materials, the energy and value-yielding process essential to economic de-
velopment. Application of the industrial metabolism viewpoint involves
detailed accounting of the flows of materials and energy through human
activities. It has yielded a number of important insights.
One insight is that in many places the major human sources of envi-
ronmental pollutants have been shifting from production to consumption
processes. Several industries have increasingly been able to control the
materials flows in their production processes quite comprehensively. The
history of the chemical industry, for example, is in considerable part one
of finding new uses for former waste products. It is probably safe to say,
according to Ayres, that industry in the next century will recycle or use a
number of today's major tonnage waste products, notably sulfur, fly ash,
and lignin waste from paper manufacture.
A second insight Is that a large number of materials uses are inherently
dissipative. Many materials are degraded, dispersed, and lost (to the econ-
omy) in the course of a single normal use. In addition to fuels and food,
this applies to many packaging materials, lubricants, solvents, flocculants,
antifreezes, detergents, soaps, bleaches and cleaning agents, dyes, paints
and pigments, most paper, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, fertilizers, pesti-
cides, and herbicides. Most of the current consumptive uses of toxic heavy
metals, such as arsenic, cadmium, chromium, and mercury, are dissipative
in this sense. Other uses are dissipative in practice because of the diffi-
culty of recycling such items as batteries and electronic devices. Increasing
product and materials complexity may also contribute to a tendency toward
dissipative use, because recycling may become inherently more difficult with
complexity.
Thus, although it is important to ask whether in some ways the en-
vironmental system is reaching closure, it is also important to recognize
that often what must be traced are pathways that are not cycles in a mean-
ingful sense. Although materials do not leave system boundaries, many
follow a unique, nonrepetitive evolution on human time scales, combining,
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TECHNOLOGY AND ENVIRONMENT: AN OYERYIEW
7
recombining, and moving. According to Ayres, more than 90 percent of
the total mass of environmentally "active" materials processed annually
are converted into waste almost as fast as extracted. It would be useful
to develop measures of dissipation and sort out more clearly what can be
described accurately as cyclical and what cannot Finally, it is clear that
a significant fraction of materials streams arising from consumptive, dissi-
pative uses is not regularly monitored or perhaps amenable to monitoring.
A new vocabulary is needed, emphasizing transformation, transport, and
redeposition, and perhaps new indices of dilution and concentration.
From a polic y point of view, there are several important consequences
of the metabolism perspective. Already noted is the need to attend more to
consumption and to develop new concepts for monitoring. Another point is
that an effect of dispersion and dissipation of materials is to make problems
global Although problems of production may tend to be industrial and
local, problems of consumption will tend to be problems for everyone and
global Ayres also points out that, whereas residuals tend to disappear from
the market domain, where everything has a price, they do not disappear
from the natural world in which the economic system Is embedded. Thus,
many signals given by prices are wrong from an environmental viewpoint.
For example, differences in prices of coal, oil, and gas scarcely reflect the
different environmental consequences of these energy sources.
Industrial metabolism is not a complete model, but it is clearly a useful
heuristic device. It makes us more sensitive to comprehensive examina-
tion of sources, transport, and fate of pollutants and can lead to earlier
identification of problems and a broader range of monitoring, including
technological and socioeconomic trends, as well as traditional environmen-
tal indicators. It would be desirable to extend the detailed case studies of
industrial metabolism beyond those already performed on cadmium and
chromium to several other Metabolically active" elements. A need and
potential exist for a more systematic look at the material and energy flows
of alternative industrial metabolisms, for example, one centered more on
use of hydrogen as an energy carrier. The metabolic metaphor is also useful
in that it spurs us to think jointly of the health of the ecological and human
systems and to look for diseases and treatments. Modifications are clearly
needed to increase reliance on regenerative and sustainable processes and
to increase efficiency with regard to production and use of by-products.
The term dematenaluaiion, explored by Robert Herman, Siamak
Ardekani, and Jesse Ausubel, is employed to characterize the decline over
time in weight of materials used in industrial end products, or in the "em-
bedded energy" of the products. Dematerialization would be tremendously
important for the environment, because less material could translate into
smaller quantities of waste generated in both production and consumption.
Statements about trends toward dematerialization have been made casually,
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8
JESSE H. AUSUBE~ ROBERT ~ FROSCH, ID ROBERT HEM
and these authors seek to provide a systematic basis on which to identify
the forces and measures that would allow a credible statement to be made
about dematerializatiom
There are widely held perceptions of a long-term trend of decline
in weight (intensity) of materials and energy embodied ~ a range of
end-use senaces. Among the evidence pointed to are the decline in per
capita consumption of such basic materials as steel in some advanced
industrialized countries and the increasing efficiency of energy use. The
significant decline in use of steel in the automotive industry does provide
strong evidence in support of dematerialization in production. Further
evidence of dematerialization in production is provided by data on overall
industrial solid waste generation, which showed a significant decline for
several years beginning in 1979.
However, the overall picture about dematerialization is not so san-
guine. Generation of municipal solid waste has been on the increase, and
there appears to have been overall a linear increase in discards with time
measured by weight. The potential factors that are offsetting the efficiency
gains are numerous. If smaller, lighter products are also inferior in quality,
then more units would be produced and the net result could be a greater
amount of waste generated. Spatial dispersion of the population is a poten-
tial materializer. Migration from urban to suburban areas, often driven by
affluence, requires more roads, more single unit dwellings, and more auto-
mobiles. The shift from larger families to smaller nuclear families may be
a materializer. So may be such activities as photocopying and advertising;
the high cost of repair; styles, fashions, and fads; and product innovation.
Of course, economic and population growth are major underlying forces.
Herman and coauthors review a number of examples, including the
effect of the information revolution on materials demand and waste. Con-
tra~y to expectation, the information revolution has led to a significant
matenalization, especially with respect to paper. In 1959 it was believed
that 5,000 Xerox machines would saturate the U.S. market. Instead, in the
information era, trees are at risk
Considerably smaller amounts of waste are generated by most coun-
tries with incomes comparable to the United States. The difference is
often attnbuted to more serious effort to recover and reuse wastes, but
in fact the differences are not well sorted out Moreover, the question
of dematerialization interacts in complex ways with objectives for system
closure or recycling. For example, substituting plastics for steel ~ a car may
reduce weight and increase fuel efficient but also decrease possibilities for
recycling of materials. A question of utmost importance remaining to be
addressed is that of rates and styles of materialization of the three-quarters
of the world's population in developing countries.
The concept of dematerialization forces evaluation of economic growth
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TECHNOLOGY AND ENYIRONMENI: AN OVERVIEW
9
in terms that are significant for numerous environmental problems, espe-
cially those associated with solid wastes. Like industrial metabolism, de-
materialization shows the relative unimportance of production processes
per se. The traditional view has been that what leaves the factory gate
is good. Dematerialization directs industry and all of society to be more
concerned about the eventual fates of its manufactures. It confronts us
with the question of whether society can truly afford to continue function-
ing in its present "throwaway" mode of products such as diapers, batteries,
paper, and beverage containers. It suggests that perhaps minimum vol-
ume over a product life cycle should be an environmental design criterion,
along with factors such as toxicity, and that incentives must be found for
cradle-to-grave materials monitoring and responsibility.
Ausubel shows intriguing, though still tenuous, evidence of long-term
regularities in the evolution, diffusion, and replacement of several families
of technologies that are critical to the environment, including energy,
transportation, and materials. Many diffusion processes appear to occur
according to a rather strictly set clock Regular behavior is exhibited over a
range of time scales, but what is most impressive is the steady evolution of
large systems over periods of many decades. Ausubel does not comment on
causes of the behavior but simply points out that the evidence of significant
regularities in technological change is increasingly well established.
An example is in pulses of growth in use of energy lasting 40 years
or more. There have been at least two of these: one evidently stretching
coal to its limits as a fuel and a subsequent pulse in which oil exhausted
many of its opportunities in the market. It may be speculated that during
each pulse the leading source of energy supply reaches environmental and
other constraints that limit the overall growth of the energy system. In
other words, a characteristic density of use may be all that is achievable
or socially tolerable for each source of energy within the context of the
larger industrial paradigm in which that source of energy dominates. 1b
accommodate further increases in per capita energy consumption, each
time it is necessary for a society to shift to a source of primary energy that
Is not only economically sound but also more environmentally compatible
and in some ways more efficient, especially in transport and storage.
More generally, the focus on long-term evolution of technology high-
lights many remarkably positive aspects of the performance of engineering
with respect to resources and environment over Me past century. Series
of innovations have been brought forth to escape what appeared to be
insoluble problems of shortages of resources (such as wood for railroad
ties) or overburdening of the assimilative capacity of the environment (for
example, waste from the growth of the population of horses in cities around
the turn of the century).
The existence of long-term regularizes may have predictive value if we
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10
JESSE H. AUSUBE~ ROBERT A. FROSCH, ID ROBERT ~
observe them early enough and can estimate their characteristics. Ausubel's
chapter suggests that an era may be under way in which it is possible to
predict with greater accuracy and reliability the emergence of environmental
problems. It might provide new perspectives for setting priorities among
environmental problems. The questions would be, What technologies are
most promising in light of what is understood about overall trajectories of
technological development? Can policies be implemented that will enhance
the diffusion of selected technologies? How quickly and to what extent can
technologies be deflected from well-established trajectories?
Together, the three related frameworks for analysis described above
promise to provide a much stronger foundation for our understanding of
the technological sources of environmental change. Such a foundation is
essential for development of projections of future loading of the environ-
ment in which we have more confidence. These projections increasingly
form the basis of both social regulation and environmental research.
SOME SOLUTIONS
In Part 2, Richard Balzhiser and Thomas Lee propose some tech-
nological contributions to solutions of environmental problems associated
with energy production and consumption. There is general agreement that
reduction in emissions from the supply side and improvement in efficiency
on the demand side are the right things to do. For the supply side, the
technological tool kit appears to be well stocked, for example, to burn
coal much more cleanly to alleviate problems of acid rain. Indeed, the
record of engineering achievement shows sustained improvement in ther-
mal efficiency accompanied by a continuing decline in the cost of electricity
over most of the century. In the past few years, energy requirements and
losses associated with stringent emission controls have offset continued
engineering improvements aimed at efficiency.
An immediate task is to find the next generation of technology that
exploits a basically different systems approach to clean coal combustion.
However, this may be only a local or short-run solution, because it may
increase the carbon dioxide emissions associated with global climate warm-
ing. From this point of view, natural gas is the most convenient fuel of
choice for addition and replacement of electricity-generating capacity for
the next decade.
Gas is clean and available, and it minimizes exposure to financial risk
in investment It is convenient and also quick to install in relatively small
increments for either utility or nonutility generation and for cogeneration.
At current prices and with available technology gas is the option of economic
choice in the United States not only for peaking but also for middle-range
and some base-load applications. It offers the prospect of continuing
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TECHNOLOGY AND ENV7RONMENT: AN OVERV7EW
11
technical advances in the lifetime and efficiency of gas turbines and in
combined gas-steam cycle systems.
From the perspective of long-term regularities in the energy system,
gas also appears to be the fuel of choice. It is on a vigorous trajectory
toward increased market share. Moreover, gas technology is still young.
For years, natural gas was a by-product of oil exploration. Only recently
have many wells been drilled intentionally for gas exploration. Effectiveness
in gas exploration is growing by use of satellite remote sensing and ground
truth measurements, and drilling technologies are advancing underground
to greater depth with increased speed and accuracy.
~ optimize further use of coal as well as gas resources, the inte-
grated gasified with combined cycle (IGCC) can be considered a major
step forward. If carbon dioxide must eventually be removed from power
plant effluents, IGCC can probably best accommodate this requirement,
not without cost, but at costs below other coal-based alternatives. Mean-
while, gas produces less carbon dioxide per kilowatt-hour than any other
fossil fuel option and permits us some time to understand better the issue
of climate change without imposing costly but ineffectual carbon dioxide
removal requirements.
At present, the United States seems to be adding boundary condi-
tions to the energy industry in such a way that Balzhiser predicts market
shares of primary energy sources for generating electricity will remain al-
most perfectly static as far as the year 2020. This seems a most unlikely
development, given the patterns of change over the past 100 years. More-
over, no one believes that the United States is now at an economic or
environmental optimum in the energy sector. However, Balzhiser points
out that most energy decisions in the United States are being postponed,
only small incremental changes are being made, and thus the key choices
are arising by default. As with the rest of the aging national infrastruc-
ture, the United States is taking the energy infrastructure for granted and
living off investments of the past. In this circumstance, extension of plant
lifetimes has become one of the most important engineering challenges.
This involves both sensor technologies and computer aids that give much
broader coverage of equipment with on-line diagnostics.
Lee and Balzhiser envision an evolution of the energy system to one
that integrates energy into a system of materials processing, a realization
of the "metabolic" view proposed by Ayres. It might begin as a marriage
of coal and gas technologies and evolve ultimately into fully "integrated
energy systems" (IES). The IES concept is one in which product streams
and energy streams merge. The increasing orientation of power plants
toward chemical process is taken seriously in all dimensions. Coal, crude
oil, liquefied petroleum gases, and natural gas could all be primary materials
used by the system. For example, natural gas would be used as a fuel in
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12
JESSE H. AUSUBE~ ROBERT A. FROSCH, ID ROBERT HEM
heaters, as a feedstock, or as a fuel for making hydrogen. Intermediate
industrial gases are exploited to their maximum benefit. The entire steam
system of the facility is integrated and, in turn, integrated with the electric
system. Waste of heat or components is minimized, thereby enhancing
economic efficiency. Zero emission, the ultimate dream for energy systems,
as Lee points out, can be accomplished only with a hydrogen economy, and
IES offers a technological road toward that goat
Depletion of the ozone layer is another illustrative tale of technology
and environment, as described from the perspective of U.S. industry by
Joseph Glas. Chlorofluorocarbons were invented around 1930 as a safe al-
ternative to ammonia and sulfur dioxide for use in home refrigerators. The
intent was to eliminate the toxicity, flammability, and corrosion concerns of
the other chemicals by developing a stable chemical with the right thermo-
dynamic properties. That effort was so successful that the new compounds
were also quite easy to make and rather inexpensive. New applications for
a safe class of chemicals with the properties of CFCs were plentiful, and
the market blossomed. Currently, virtually all refrigeration, commercial
air-conditioning, defense and communications electronics, many medical
devices, and high-efficiency insulation use CFCs in some way. But today,
more than 50 years after the development of CECs, we have modified and
extended our definition of "safe."
It now seems likely that CFCs will be largely phased out over the
next 1~20 years, and it is the development of new technologies that has
provided what appear to be viable options for meeting society's demands
simultaneously for caution on environmental modification and for the ser-
vices prodded by CFCs. In the extreme, a ban on CFCs before alternative
chemicals or technologies can be put into place would be damaging both
to safety and to economics. Moreover, it would almost certainly be inef-
fective. Unified action and implementation on a global scale are needed,
and bans in the absence of alternatives would likely lead to uncontrollable,
uncooperative behavior both by producers still seeing a market opportunity
and by consumers wanting a service.
In the ozone story, the rate of technological progress and the degree of
risk are inextricably related. It is a story that promises a gratifying outcome,
with science, governments, and industry acting forcefully by building on
common goals of protecting the environment and agreeing on technical
analyses.
SOCLAL AND INSTITUTIONAL ASPECIS
Why is the promising story of stratospheric ozone protection not
repeated more often? A key reason, articulated by Tschinkel in Part 3,
has been the inadequacy of individual professions in the face of complex
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TECHNOLOGY AND ENVIRONMENT: AN OVERVIEW
13
problems and an equal difficulty among key groups in making common
cause. As lLchinkel describes, a succession of professions in the United
States has discovered environmental problems over the past 100 years: first
physicians and experts in public health, then engineers, later biologists and
toxicologists, and most recently lawyers. Each discovered problems and
offered solutions. All of the solutions have had unforeseen consequences,
whether natural, social, or economic, and most have been so narrowly
focused that opportunities to achieve larger public goals have been missed
or obscured.
Given the elusiveness of assigning causes, predicting effects, and find-
ing cures for many environmental problems, it is not surprising, as Tschinkel
points out, that the United States has developed a condition ripe for the
legal profession to flourish in. In the past 20 years the legal system has
generated some of the key decisions supporting environmental protection.
As lLchinkel contends, it has also produced an adversarial, combative cli-
mate in which it is virtually impossible for people from industry to discuss
facts with their colleagues in government or the public. We "are constantly
in litigation and constrained from solving problems by using each other's
talents cooperatively." Moreover, the litigation is often not fruitful. For
those environmental cases that went to trial in federal civil courts, 10 per-
cent took longer than 67 months to resolve. Most serious, according to
Tschinkel, the legalistic approach has produced a staggering load of regula-
tions that leaves little time or incentive for creativity and human judgment
in developing solutions and no time for concentrating on environmental
results. It has created a process~riented, rather than a results-oriented,
approach in a sector where the result, namely, environmental quality, is
what we seek and need.
In fact, the succession of legislative activities has resulted in an enor-
mous, sometimes contradictory, uncoordinated patchwork of control re-
quirements for smoke, air and water pollution, solid wastes, and noise, as
well as aesthetics. An example is Mat U.S. regulations require advanced
waste treatment of domestic waste at about 50 percent higher cost than the
usual secondary treatment when discharged into a eutrophic water body.
Next to this "gold-plated pipe" is often found a storm water ditch carrying
the equivalent of raw sewage: the water that flows through it receives
absolutely no treatment. What strategy makes sense in this situation for
technologists and, indeed, for society as a whole' On the one hand, bet-
ter engineering would create fewer problems for biologists and lawyers to
worry about; on the other hand, imaginative approaches are needed to
foster cooperative activity between technical experts and the policymaking
community.
As Friedlander stresses, the technological community, indeed all of
society, has been largely reactive to environmental issues. In the past
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14
JESSE H. AUSUBE~ ROBERT ~ FROSCH, ID ROBERT =~
we have tended to wait for crises, as Walter Lynn chronicles, and then
responded. Society needs a positive agenda for environment, based on
more comprehensive theories, better data bases, and better analyses. For
engineers, the emphasis should be on design of environmentally compatible
technologies, both for manufacturing and plant operations and for products.
The latter must be accented, while evidence grows that environmental
consequences of consumer products may be more important than the
direct effects of industrial activity, as demonstrated by the perspectives of
industrial metabolism and dematerialization.
Design should not merely meet environmental regulations; environ-
mental elegance should be part of the culture of engineering education and
practice. Selection and design of manufacturing processes and products
should incorporate environmental constraints and objectives at the outset,
along with thermodynamic and economic factors. Ever-increasing goals for
environmental quality present the engineering profession win challenges
in design, basic research, and education.
Environmental engineering must become a more integral part of chem-
ical, manufacturing, materials, and other engineering fields, not only civil
engineering, to which it is traditionally closest. Environmental quality must
become a pervasive ethic in all engineering design. In turn, values must
be transformed into engineering requirements values about preservation
of ecosystems and biota, protection of public health, and intergenerational
responsibility. In Gray's words, "the great hope and the great challenge
before us are to bring engineering education and practice, industrial prior-
ities, and public policy into alignment in ways that eliminate the paradox
of technological development."
Over the past few years, as described by Friedlander, a movement has
grown stressing design and in-plant processes, in contrast to add-on devices
or exterior recycling, to reduce or eliminate waste. This movement has been
called waste reduction or pollution prevention. Current regulatory practices
focus almost exclusively on what comes out of the pipe or smokestack They
ignore broader pystems~riented approaches and the assimilative capacity of
the environment, and impose lockstep application of selected technologies.
End-of-the-pipe approaches will provide few further benefits. We need
first to prevent waste creation. This involves the development of substitute
products and processes emphasized by Ausubel and reengineering much of
what is done in key industries. We should seek general principles to guide
the search for substitutes for certain broad classes of widely used materials
with environmental effects. As mentioned by Fnedlander, in response to
developing regulatory trends and competition from the paper industry, the
chemical industry in the United States and Europe has begun development
of biodegradable plastics, much as was done 25 years ago, when long-lasting
detergents were polluting water bodies.
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TECHNOLOaY AND ENVIRONMENT: AN OVERVIEW
15
It is important to gain acceptance of the primacy of reducing waste and
preventing waste creation. The primacy rests on several factors, identified
by Friedlander. Avoiding the creation of a waste eliminates the need
for its treatment and disposal, both of which carry environmental risk
Control technologies may fail or fluctuate in efficiency. Heated effluent
streams carry nonregulated residual substances that may turn out later to be
harmful Secured disposal sites eventually discharge into the environment.
Methods of waste reduction include in-plant recycling, changes in pro-
cess technology, changes in plant operation, substitution of input materials,
and modification of end products both to permit use of less-polluting up-
stream processes and to prevent the products themselves from becoming
problem wastes. According to Friedlander, the technology of waste re-
duction does not yet have a widely accepted scientific basis. There is a
need to find a class of generic scientific and engineering principles that will
eventually make it possible, in the words of Tschinkel, for the concept of
treatment to become passe.
In the meanwhile, it is desirable to follow a clear hierarchy in waste
management (Science Advisory Board, 1988~. If waste cannot be prevented,
then we should seek to recycle or reuse it. However, recycling may have
acquired a level of visibility as a potential solution that exceeds its promise.
Apart from behavioral and economic hurdles, recycling faces technical lim-
itations. For example, recycling paper shortens paper fibers and lowers
quality. There are precious metals, such as platinum and rhodium used in
catalytic converters, that industry would like to recycle, but an economic
means to collect the converters has not yet been found. It must, more-
over, be recognized that many recycling sites have subsequently become
"Superfund" sites, where cleanup activities are required.
If recycling or reuse is not possible, then it is time for treatment and
destruction, relying on technologies such as bioremediation and incinera-
tion. If those options are insufficient, the next resort is waste isolation,
for example, well-constructed sanitary landfills. The last resort is avoiding
exposure to released residues. It is important to point out that even with
waste reduction, incineration, and recycling, no landfills will remain in a
couple of decades or sooner for many major population concentrations.
Globally, and especially in the industrialized countries, we are faced with
our own materialization, a culture that in the United States produces some
5 to 10 pounds of waste per capita per day, depending on the compre-
hensiveness of definition of the term. Even with remarkable engineering
achievements. many of the problems associated with waste disposal will
~ id, ---I--, ~ r
become worse.
Although it may not be possible to represent fully costs relating to
health and ecosystems in economic terms, a key need is the economic data
base to support decision making about waste reduction and alternatives.
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16
JESSE H. AUSUBE~ ROBERT ~ FROSCH, ID ROBERT =~
Even in a prominent case like automotive tires, there is no strong analytic
base for evaluating the relative merits of gradual decomposition versus
burning or smelting. More effort is required to calculate the true costs of
waste disposal options, including potential liability costs.
TECHNOLOGICAL OPPORTUNITIES
In general there is a need to identify, research, and put into practice
high-leverage areas of innovation for environmental quality. Already men-
tioned is the need for biodegradable plastics; more could be understood
about using ultraviolet radiation or gamma rays to irradiate and harmlessly
decompose plastics. Materials research itself can be a key to dematerial-
ization. More needs to be understood about incineration and combustion;
progress on fundamentals of combustion is already enabling the design
of engines that produce lower NOR emissions. Microbial transformation
of wastes, for example, selective removal of heavy metals, offers promise.
It is time to become serious about technologies for reducing and recy-
cling carbon dioxide emissions. Technologies for cost-effective separation
of hydrogen remain areas of potentially high environmental payoff. There
are also pervasive needs for improvement and deployment of monitor-
ing technologies. Environmental monitoring remains labor intensive and
based on technologies that should soon be superseded by new sensors and
measurement methods.
As Gray argues, the growing concentrations of greenhouse gases in
the atmosphere logically lead to a reconsideration of me possibility of in-
creasing the use of nuclear energy. Gray proposes that we develop, build,
and test radically different reactor designs that pose negligible risks of the
accidental release of radioactive materials as a result of overheating. Sev-
eral possibilities exist, including new water-cooled and liquid-metal-cooled
designs, as well as gas-cooled designs. These hold the promise of passively
safe operation The nuclear question is a reminder that many engineering
systems have been poorly designed from the point of view of operators and
that this human aspect of design must be taken more seriously, whether in
electrical or chemical plants, supertankers, or consumer products.
One of the most interesting questions is that of research and market
opportunities with regard to efficiency, especially energy efficiency. In the
past few years there has been a shift among many environmentalists to a
revised view of the "soft path" option that emphasizes managing demand
downward rather than supply upward to meet societal needs and problems.
The revised view emphasizes efficiency but omits life-style changes that
were part of the soft path program in the 1970s.
Still, why is efficiency gaining much less than predicted and espoused?
There may be several answers. One is almost certainly the answer usually
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TECHNOLOGY AND ENVIRONMENT: A1V OI''ER~EW
17
proposed by soft path advocates, namely, that the playing field is not
level for the competition between conservation technologies and supply-
expanding technologies because of tax and other subsidies available to such
industries as oil exploration. Another may be that energy, and economic
growth as traditionally defined, remain a solution to many problems. As
an example, Ausubel points out that catalytic converters reduce the energy
efficiency of cars, although they serve other highly desirable environmental
objectives.
At a deeper level the problem may be that end-use efficiency is almost
always the result of a process involving several links in a chain. Ayres
points out that a new process that saves one link in the chain between raw
materials and final goods or services can usually be justified in terms of
savings in raw materials, energy, or capital requirements. Final products
are made by sequences of processes with an overall conversion efficiency
that is the product of the efficiency at each stage. If a typical chain
has four steps, each with a very favorable conversion efficiency of 0.7,
the overall conversion ratio of the chain (i.e., 0.74) is about 0.24. The
world energy system appears now to have an overall efficiency of only
about 0.15. We have been climbing the overall efficiency curve steadily but
slowly, on average about 2 percent per year over the past 100 years, a rate
requiring 35 years for a doubling of performance (Grubler and Nakicenovic,
1989~. The promise of energy efficiency is there, but the basic structural
problem may yield only gradually. Meanwhile, it makes sense to seek
gains at each link in the chain and to pursue efficiency technologies that
would both moderate demand and deliver supply more cost-effectively. The
latter would include research into such areas as superconducting cables for
electricity transmission, magnetic induction for motors and transportation,
and microwave heating.
As Priedlander points out, there should be a large, profitable market for
technologies that are both environmentally and economically competitive.
Inherently safer and less-polluting plants should cost less for several reasons.
Presumably, prevention of pollution should pay for itself through reduced
demand for inputs and reduction in waste disposal and liability costs.
Moreover, if products can be made smaller and lighter without loss clef
quality, there may be an economically attractive reduction in space required
for manufacturing and storage and in transportation costs.
A critical question is on what terms wealthier countries will transfer
low-pollution technologies to developing countries. Friedlander points out
several consequences of worldwide increases in pollutant emissions that will
occur as more nations industrialize:
pressure for further regulation at the international level,
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18
JESSE H. AUSUBE~ ROBERT ~ PROSCH, ID ROBERT
difficult international negotiations aimed at setting national emis-
sion allocations, and
competitive advantage to nations whose engineers are able to
design clean, economic technologies.
We may be entering a new era of complex global bargaining, where
environmental quality is a major objective and where environmentally at-
tractive technologies and resources are major bargaining chips. What terms
will be required to prevent the cutting down of tropical forests or the build-
ing of new coal-burning power plants? Environmental protection on a
global scale will require the nations with low-pollution technologies to
transfer these in a timely fashion in both subsidized and unsubsidized ways.
The research agenda must recognize that we face complex, interdisci-
plinary problems, that systems research is required, that we should acquire
as much information as possible at a minimum within reasonable cost
boundaries, that we should address these with operational and social sci-
ence as well as engineering and natural sciences, and that many points of
view should be folded in. We should strive to go from particular problems
toward general analytic understanding and global methods. The lack of
training in methods for solving complex problems Is evident in the history
of environmental policy, as Tschinkel illustrates.
Yet, the partial nature of solutions must be accepted. On most en-
vironmental issues, the luxury of time to search for optimality does not
exist, as Glas's account of the ozone controversy demonstrates. In many
areas, decisions are being made in real time or on the basis of anticipated
consequences. However, a sequence of partial solutions may form a good
path if the forces driving the system are reasonably well understood. The
key is to work on narrow or specific problems with an understanding of the
interface with the overall problem; this is well illustrated by questions sur-
rounding clean coal technologies (which could alleviate acid rain) and CFC
substitutes (which might not destroy ozone) but could intensify concerns
about greenhouse warming. Isolating meaningful subsystems is not always
easy, especially in turbulent, dynamic systems such as those in which most
environmental issues exist Still, it is necessary to take the long and dynamic
view and to build the research capital and data base. Moreover, as Ausubel
points out, there may occasionally be simple and important relations to
be found in complex systems. The challenge is to couple technological,
economic, and environmental considerations without unrealistic data needs
and analytic paralysis that can come Path overly ambitious modeling efforts.
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
Some of the toughest issues facing us-urban air pollution, climatic
change, destruction of rain forests, and loss of habitat, for example are
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TECHNOLOGY AND ENI/IRONMENT: AN OVERVIEW
19
the consequences of large-scale cultural patterns, the summed effects of
millions of people making individual decisions. Engineering communities
have become painfully aware that such phrases as the "tragedy of the
commons" and the "tyranny of small decisions," described by Lynn, are
accurate descriptions of reality, a reality that is most difficult to alter. What
will be needed to make more people work together and act for the common
good? Gray suggests that we are caught in a gridlock of adversarial relations
on environmental matters, but only when virtually everyone wants to escape
can such social traps be broken.
Certainly there is a need to educate individuals about how behavior
in exercising consumer preferences affects local and global environments.
In the environmental problem in the large, we confront the desire for a
generalized freedom; as individuals, we do not want constraints imposed
that affect mobility, life-style, convenience, or purchasing decisions. ~
quote Lynn, "It is true that regulations reduce our freedom of choice, but
so does a deteriorating environment." ~chinkel's formula for progress is
to have a sound scientific base and incentives for doing the right thing and
to engage people for cooperation early in the process, to recognize that
human beings are mere mortals, to be relatively site specific and results
oriented, and to seek agreements that are negotiated and approved by all
parties.
As Ayres points out, contrary to popular belief, long-term goal ori-
entation in economic life is not particularly rare. But there is a need
to increase shared recognition of a long-run evolutionary imperative that
favors an industrial metabolism that results in reduced extraction of virgin
materials, reduced loss of waste materials, and increased recycling of useful
materials. Although the overall trend may not yet exist, the imperative is
to seek reduced materials intensiveness or dematerialization.
Technology should become a ground on which takes place the problem-
oriented reintegration of the domains of human knowledge and social
development. As Tschinkel reminds us, customary scientific analysis does
not show what is detrimental for the environment and what is not; it
states what consequences logically follow from what activities. Accelerated
by new research programs, natural science will very likely reveal more
in the l990s about nature than mankind has ever known, but scientific
analysis as traditionally practiced will remain unseeing with respect to
human needs. Meanwhile, the social sciences, especially economics, which
in theory address human needs, have proved almost blind with regard to
nature. The intersection of technology and environment in a sense has
been the blind spot in our system of knowledge, and this gap is at the root
of today's environmental crisis (Meyer-Abich, 1979~.
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20
JESSE H. AUSUBE~ ROBERT A. FROSCH, ID ROBERT HEM
Environmental engineering, recognizing our own nature as part of na-
ture and our technology as in nature, can help bridge the dangerous com-
partmentalization of knowledge and professions that appears to be placing
modern life in jeopardy. The technological potential is there for both
economic growth and improvement in environmental quality. However,
technological and scientific development is embedded from the beginning
in social developments, and there we must harmonize incentives to foster
a world of environmental and economic quality rather than desolation and
self-burial
We must also accept that in responding to many environmental ques-
tions, we may never know whether we are right or wrong even in the case
of more narrowly defined scientific aspects of a given issue. Much of the
environmental investment that must be made In coming decades will be
like the building of the great Gothic cathedrals, performed out of respect
for large and durable forces and to address noneconomic concerns. We
cannot be certain what would occur if we fail to take precautions. Many
of the challenges to be faced, like global warming, exist to a considerable
extent in the domain of "hypotheticalibr" (Hafele, 1975~.
So then what will be the verdict on the earth transformed by human
activity? We should not simply stand by to find out, but try always to create
the technological conditions in which it will be meaningful and satisfying to
ask many other questions about human existence.
REFERENCES
Frosch, R. and N. Gallopoulos. 1989. Strategies for Manufacturing. Scientific American
261(3):144 153
Grubler, A., and N. Nakicenovic. 1989. Technological Progress, Structural Change,
and Efficient Energy Use: [lends Worldwide and in Austria. I~xenburg, Austria:
International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis.
Hafele, W. 1975. Hypotheticality and the new challenges: The pathfinder role of nuclear
energy. Anticipation 20:15-23.
Meyer-Abich, K M. 1979. Toward a practical philosophy of nature. Environmental Ethics
1~4~:29~308.
Science Advisory Board, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 1988. Future Rise
Research Strategies for the 199(~. SAB-EC 88-040. Washington, D.C.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 1988. Unfinished Business A Comparative Assess-
ment of Environmental Problems. Springfield, Va.: National Technical Information
Service.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
industrial metabolism
