March 2007 - No Pain, No Pain

By Anthony J. Lockwood

I  just got back to the orifice from SolidWorks World 2007, the annual user group meeting, hoe-down, and love-in for power users and wannabe power users mad about all things SolidWorks. I go to a lot of user group meetings, and I love them. I cannot urge you enough to go to the user group meeting that covers your MCAD, CAE, or other engineering hardware/software passion. Nothing will jazz you up more about your job and career than a user group meeting. But user groups are not what this rant is about.

While at SolidWorks World, I attended a discussion on sustainable technologies moderated by DE Contributing Editor Pamela Waterman. This is the kind of discussion that we need to have more of. However, while the discussion was a good time and all that, the general drift of the Q&A session was discouraging: Although the audience generally recognized that sustainable technologies are an engineering problem, the audience and some of the panelists generally did not see that the Three Rs — Reduce, Reuse, Recycle — focus on the mote, not the beam. That’s not to say that the Three Rs lack relevance. Indeed, they are vital, but they are just pieces of the puzzle; not the whole picture.

   

Lockwood, Editorial Director

A fourth R, Rethink, was widely discussed, mostly in the form of a supercompact, electric car. Currently priced at more than $100,000, economies of scale should eventually lower the cost to make it affordable for inner-city courier services, European fat cats, and the like. Good old boys booning in Texas, suburban soccer moms running the kiddie shuttle, commuters who feel safe in their SUVs, and Chinese nouveau riche will find it a curious runabout with all the everyday practicality of a linotype slug. And that, Engineers, illustrates the flaw inherent in the Three Rs and the challenge that undermines most of the Rethinks today. I call it the “No Pain, No Pain” effect. The vast consuming public is ready and willing to adopt environmentally benign and energy efficient products and technologies as long as they do not discomfit our comfort, muss with our expectations of what makes the good life, or upend our cost thresholds.

We can waste time arguing that we duh people must change our lifestyles until we’re out of breath. But all of us know we should floss, exercise, stop gorging on chili cheese dogs, whatever. It ain’t gonna happen until it’s too late. We like our SUVs, we prefer incandescent light over CFLs, central heat and air are musts in our 8 square petafoot house, and so on.

So, first, we need to play with the cards we have, not those we want. Then, as a guy at that discussion said, we need to make green engineering interesting to the greenback: The venture capitalists, stock brokers, your neighborhood industrialist.

How? You add a fifth R to the sustainable engineering list — Re-Invent. The Holy Grail of sustainable engineering is reinventing our energy systems, our transportation, all of our daily interactions with the environment so that everything stays the same to consumers while being green. Otherwise it’s just carob that only looks like Dutch chocolate. You ain’t kidding nobody.

No Pain, No Pain is the green engineering challenge. Reach for the grail. The greenbacks will follow.

Thanks, Pal.—Lockwood

Lockwood is Anthony J. Lockwood, the Editorial Director of DE Magazine. He’s odd but mostly harmless . You can send Lockwood an e-mail by clicking here. Please reference “Diatribes, March 2007” in your message.