OQAPA - Technology in Sustainable Development

When making decisions about what technologies humanity uses to enrich and improve our lives, and how we design our built environments, we must first consider many aspects that are outside of the narrow scope of the design itself.

In making new technologies work for human development we need to address a key question for the 21st century: Will technology entrench millions in even greater poverty?
Or, can it be used to eradicate poverty and suffering?

The key issue is not "making new technologies work for human development" but enabling people to make technologies work for them.

In considering how we design and use technology, we might wish to consider the Hannover Principles.

There is a great reliance on technology to solve environmental problems around the world today, because of an almost universal reluctance by governments and those who advise them to make the social and political changes that would be necessary to reduce growth in production and consumption.
The sorts of technological changes that would be necessary to keep up with and counteract the growing environmental damage caused by increases in production and consumption would have to be fairly dramatic. The technological fixes of the past will not do.

The question now remains, can such a dramatic and radical redesign of our technological systems occur without causing major social changes and will it occur without a rethinking of political priorities? Technology is not independent of society either in its shaping or its effects.

At the heart of the debate over the potential effectiveness of sustainable development is the question of whether technological change, even if it can be achieved, can reduce the impact of economic development sufficiently to ensure other types of change will not be necessary.
Mankind has been using resources at an unprecedented rate for the last few centuries, but never more so than these past few years.
Much of the energy that mankind has used in the past and continues to use today is the energy trapped in Fossil Hydrocarbons.

But now, mankind has transformed almost half of the most convenient and usable form of hydrocarbins -- Oil -- into unusable thermal energy in a process of rapid energy degradation (entropy production) that ultimately reduces the amount of energy available to do work, according to the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
Mankind is now reaching a tipping point at which we will no longer be able to extract more energy from these non-renewable resources to power our machines without also severely fouling the natural systems that sustain us.

In order for mankind to continue living our lives the way we have in the past -- using energy, resources and machines to improve our lives -- technology must use and reuse what we have left in the most efficient manner.
There are many tools for achieving sustainable development including economic instruments, legislative measures and consumer pressures, which aim to achieve a level of change in the way we behave. Such measures include such things as:

encouraging recycling
minimizing waste
substituting materials
changing production processes
adding pollution control mechanisms or devices
using resources more efficiently and conserving resources
enhancing product design
using high efficiency (low-waste) technologies

These should be the major features of a "sustainable development" path of economic progress.

Clean Technology Vs. End-of-Pipe Remedies

In the past, efforts to clean up the environment have tended to concentrate on 'cleaning technologies' rather than 'clean technologies', that is, on technologies that are added to existing machines to control and reduce pollution (end-of-pipe technologies and control devices).

The problem with measures such as "end-of-pipe" technologies is that they are technological fixes that do not address the cause of the problem.
Such fixes can often cause other problems:

Improving the efficiency of the combustion of fossil fuels results in the conversion of all of the available carbon in the fuel into carbon dioxide.
Carbon dioxide is a major greenhouse gas.

A result of increasing temperature is that more oxides of nitrogen [NOx] are formed from the air used in combustion.
Oxides of nitrogen are an important element in the formation of photochemical smog.

The alternative to end-of-pipe technologies is to adopt new 'clean' technologies that alter the production processes, the inputs to the processes and the products themselves so that they are more environmentally benign.

"Clean technologies" are preferable to end-of-pipe technologies because they avoid the need to extract and concentrate toxic material from the waste stream and deal with it.
"Clean technologies" should require that less water, energy, and raw materials be used during the lifetime of the machines.
End products should be designed to reduce environmental damage during both the manufacture and use of the product, as well as its disposal after the useful lifetime of the device has been reached.
Waste flows should also be reused within the production process rather than dumped.

A common reaction to the litany of problems attributed to technologies is to argue that the problem is not so much in the technology but in how it is used or abused.
Technologies themselves only become environmentally harmful if they are not applied with "due sensitivity to the environment".
Technologies often have unexpected side-effects or "second-order consequences" that were not originally designed into the technology.
Pollution is one such "side-effect" that is never intended by the designers of technology.
But, pollution problems arise not out of "minor inadequacies" of new technologies -- but because of their very success in accomplishing their designed aims.

Technologists seldom aim to protect the environment.

This is what makes OQAPA different.

We believe that technology can be successful in the ecosystem if its aims are directed toward the system as a whole rather than at some apparently accessible part.
Engineers need to look at the "natural cycle" and incorporate new technologies into these systems, with the full knowledge of ecology and the desire to fit with natural systems.

Appropriate Technology

Attempts to invent and design different types of technology that fit with natural systems are not new.
Appropriate technology has been defined as "technology tailored to fit the psychosocial and biophysical context prevailing in a particular location and period".
It is designed not to dominate nature but to be in harmony with it.

Appropriate technology involves attempting to ensure that technologies are fitted to the context of their use: both the biophysical context which takes account of health, climate, biodiversity and ecology, and the psycho-social context which includes social institutions, politics, culture, economics, ethics and the personal/spiritual needs of individuals.
One of the best-known early proponents and popularisers of appropriate technology was the British economist E. F. Schumacher.
Schumacher talked about "intermediate technology" in his book "Small is Beautiful: A Study of Economics as if People Mattered".
Schumacher was principally concerned with development in low-income countries, and a recommended technology that was aimed at helping the poor in these countries to do what they were already doing in a better way.

The difference between an "appropriate technology" response and the "technological fix" response to environmental problems could be summed up, for example, by characterizing the "technological fix response" to pollution as "solve pollution with pollution control technology". The "appropriate technology response" would be to invent non-polluting technologies. A "technological fix" response to exploitation of natural resources is to use resources more cleverly -- more efficiently. The "appropriate technology response" would be to design technologies that only use renewable resources.

The beauty of the Quasiturbine is that is can fulfill both roles -- whether as a "technological fix" technology or an "appropriate technology".

Thus, the Quasiturbine could serve the role of "Intermediate technology" in many applications.

Why are Alternative Technologies not frequently adopted?

Often technological options and alternatives are not developed or explored because they are more expensive or less "economical".
Even today many firms are not implementing technologies aimed at waste reduction and minimisation, despite their availability and probable cost savings.
The reluctance of many engineers to take up alternative technologies can be explained partly in terms of technological paradigms.

Science progresses through periods of "normal science" which operates within a scientific paradigm, interspersed with periods of 'scientific revolutions'.
The routine work of engineers and technologists, which he called "normal technology", involves the 'extension, articulation or incremental development' of existing technologies.
A technological paradigm or 'tradition' is subscribed to by engineers and technicians who share common educational and work experience backgrounds.
A technological paradigm as an 'outlook', a set of procedures, a definition of the 'relevant problems and of the specific knowledge related to their solution.'
Such a paradigm embodies strong prescriptions on which technological directions to follow and ensures that engineers and the organisations for which they work are blind to other technological possibilities.
A technological paradigm or regime will often define for the engineer what is feasible or at least worth attempting.

As a result, technological development tends to follow certain directions, or trajectories, that are determined by the engineering profession.
Ideas are developed if they fit the paradigm; otherwise, they tend to be ignored by the mainstream engineers which form the bulk of the profession.
Any new technology will only be thought of or developed if it can fit within the existing system.

Generally, technological change is gradual and occurs within technological paradigms.
Radical technological innovation is often opposed by firms because of the social changes that may need to accompany it including:

Changes to the work and skills of employees
Changes to the way production is organised or
Changes to the relationships between a firm and its clients and suppliers
Firms may have vested interests in particular technological systems.

The reason that North Americans are the most polluting people in the world has little to do with a lack of energy efficient technologies or renewable methods of producing and using energy.
  It has a lot to do with the size of the country's oil, coal and automobile industries and the influence they have on the political establishment.
  The public transport system is expensive, unreliable and infrequent, not because the government cannot afford to improve it or does not know how, but because the vested interests behind public transport have negligible power compared to the influential road and car lobbies.
  Because of the reluctance of governments to act against business interests, legislation and economic instruments are seldom tough enough to foster technological change of the type required for ecological sustainability.
Even though such regulation would probably strengthen business in the long run, business people see strong government intervention as an infringement on their autonomy.

Conclusion

Unless substantial change occurs, the present generation may not be able to pass on an equivalent stock of environmental goods to the next generation.

The rates of loss of animal and plant species, arable land, water quality, tropical forests and cultural heritage are especially serious.
We will not pass on to future generations the ozone layer or global climate system that the current generation inherited.
Population growth and the environmental consequences if rising standards of material income around the world produce the same sorts of consumption patterns that are characteristic of the currently industrialised countries.

Even if people put their faith in the ability of human ingenuity in the form of technology to be able to preserve their lifestyles and ensure an ever increasing level of consumption for everyone, they cannot ignore the necessity to redesign our technological systems rather than continue to apply "technological fixes" that are seldom satisfactory in the long term.

We at OQAPA understand that technological optimism does not escape the need for fundamental social change and a shift in priorities.

The Role of Technology in Sustainable Development