by John G. Falcioni, Editor-In-Chief

There's a great deal of excitement over this sixth edition of Mechanical Engineering Power, a supplement to Mechanical Engineering magazine.

For starters, this may be our best yet. One of our newest associate editors, Jeffrey Winters, was put in charge, and has done a skillful job of producing a well-balanced mix of interesting articles related to power-, process-, and energy-related topics.

Then, there is tie-in between brewing initiatives within ASME International to better coordinate the collective power (pun intended) of energy-related technical divisions and our own magazine's plans to generate a quarterly publication—like this one—to best serve this marketplace. Watch for new initiatives in coming months.

 

Energy Futures by Jeffrey Winters, Supplement Editor

Remember the power crisis? Just two years ago, rolling blackouts across California—and the prospect that other sections of the country would be facing them soon—monopolized the national headlines. All that seems a long time ago. But power is no less important today, and if the signs of crisis are no longer visible, there are very real strains just over the horizon. That's where most of the writers in this year's Mechanical Engineering Power are focusing, on sustainably meeting the power demand anticipated 10 or 20 or 50 years from now. It's there that the idea of a crisis really begins to get teeth. It is expected, for instance, that the worldwide power demand will triple in the next half-century. How can this demand be met? Gail Marcus describes efforts by an in- ternational consortium to develop a new generation of nuclear reactors. These reactors are designed to fulfill the long-time promise of nuclear energy: to be a clean, safe, and affordable power supply. It's an ambitious program, but one that is enormously important if we are going to wean ourselves from fossil fuels. Likewise, Frank Kreith and R.E. West examine the energy efficiency of various potential successors to the gasoline-powered internal combustion engine. One widely hyped alternative, electric vehicles, already has foundered, and Kreith and West show why we should be thankful that battery-powered cars have not taken off. After tracking energy losses from the well to the wheel, they say that EVs are incredibly inefficient. Finally, Marty Hoffert, Ken Caldeira, and Gregory Benford present the idea that global warming is as much an opportunity as a crisis. Instead of denying that global warming is a problem, they suggest the engineering community should get behind an Apollo-style program to revamp the world's power supply. They present 14 potential projects, ranging from building an energy-efficient community to erecting an orbiting power station, that would demonstrate the technology needed to meet long-term energy needs. "Only engineers," they write, "can ensure that civilization as we know it can survive the 21st century." It's a tall order, but one that the engineering community has the talent to meet.

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