By John G. Voeller, PE
 
The recent downturn in the fortunes of the U.S. in terms of economic and political strength and prestige has had major consequences on not only the material and financial aspects of Americans, but also their psychological fortitude. In a nation driven by competition and used to success, failure has more consequences than simple loss or temporary setback when it is as pervasive and broad as the past five years has provided.

For many in leadership positions, there is a desire to make all these limits and losses whole again and return the nation and its psyche to what it was and what they feel it should be. Foremost in many minds is the idea that innovation, the "next big thing", the next big company success or start-up, the next breakthrough will fuel these recoveries and it is possible that this could be one avenue.

However, it is only one avenue and it is fraught with the possibility that in our haste to recapture what we believe is best, we will overlook many other things that could bring substantial strength and success to our nation. Worse, too great a focus on the breakthrough via the next big thing we've never seen could cause us to overlook massive needs we have that are inescapable in timescales too short for our normal attention span to capture and address.

As the talk of nanotech, genomics, proteomics (all of which are too new to be recognized by the latest spell checker in this word processor) whirls around, we have issues and needs so much larger and more significant than success in these areas that they could lead to long term penalties of immense proportion and certainly greater impact than falling behind China in our nano-patent tally. The following are examples of places where we need massive innovation and new thinking, but where the domain might be considered too mundane or too far off to be worthy of our "innovation attention".

The effects of globalization on the world wide consumption of natural resources were fully predictable. In 1998, this author discussed this in several articles and confirmed what the CIA and others presented in 2001. i.e. the world cannot countenance two consumers of the size and voraciousness of a U.S. with current habits. Whatever efficiencies we now have in every use of resources, we must improve these by 25-40% within the decade and help others do the same or we will starve the future of the world. This is not oil or gas, but lumber, ore, specialty metals, mixed gases, raw food and so much more.

The serious effects of water use, pollution, storage, treatment in many levels was equally predictable a decade ago and the impacts are quite visible today. In 1996, we called for massive investment in desalination with use of restored pipelines to move water to areas that are now becoming properly worried about their fate. With the arid Southwest allowing uncontrolled development in the face of known water limits, with Southern California knowing they have a tainted aquifer (Chromium-6) that will be rendered unusable in several decades, with Florida unable to address growth toward calamity, we have major issues and needs for solutions. None of the current approaches will meet these needs or the more serious ones building elsewhere.

We have now created air pollution regulations so demanding that the required readings fall into the error bandwidth of every instrument we have to measure them. It is laudable that the EPA is trying to help in this area, but the asynchronous progress of demand and ability to achieve is typical of a serious disconnect between those making requirements and those who must meet them. This effect, applied in all other domains of planetary custodianship creates massive delays and uncertainties that companies and their stockholders will not address. The effect can be paralytic.

Global warming is not a question, but management from today forward of the consequences will require more skill and innovation than any current front page technology revolution and will require multi-discipline collaboration and intense integration unlike anything we have every done as a civilization. This effort makes meeting the Kyoto Protocol a cakewalk by comparison.

We have the greatest infrastructure in the world with water, electricity, communications and transportation modes which others want to achieve. However, the majority of it is old, much of it is falling apart and none of it will meet our needs within several decades. Worse, pieces of it are managed and owned by those least capable of renewing them. We must not only rebuild them, we must do so using just as much innovation as it will take to meet the next nano-challenge.

And, we must do this with the same level of competitive attitude we profess for other efforts. We must ask; how in the world can we tolerate building roads that require repair each year and replacement in three years as many of the TEA-21 investments appear headed for. How can we tolerate putting gas lines in the ground using directional drilling so close to water lines that any break in one will likely break the other, either directly or during excavation. How much longer will we bury things we know we must dig up rather than building modular streets with intrinsic access and expandability.

About the author : John G. Voeller, PE, is a Senior Vice President of Black & Vetch, and an ASME Fellow of The Federal Office of Science and Technology Policy. He can be reached at jvoeller@ostp.eop.gov.

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