Sustaining the Good Life

This article focuses on the last century that brought unleaded gasoline, the catalytic converter, and new technologies for cleaning the smokestack emissions and effluents of industrial plants. Engineers designed and refined those technologies, which helped industry adhere to government regulations, and which went a long way toward improving the quality of air and streams. Since 1993, money has been found to equip a few hundreds of the isolated homes with solar power systems or, more recently, with installations of solar panels supplemented by wind turbines or gas generators. Investing in the technology of environmental protection and sustainability has made slow progress in general. Today, most actions to protect and preserve the environment have been forced on industry by government. The question of industry’s compliance, or non-compliance, with regulations is a political and legal issue, not a matter of engineering. Engineers have created solutions. Controls cost money, of course. So far, no one has found a way to make the investment in environmental protection technology profitable for industry.