EE563 Presentation

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Technology and Environment 1989, National Academy
Press Regularities in Technological Development
An Environmental View Author Jesse H. Ausubel
California Polytechnic State University, San Luis
Obispo EE 563 Graduate Seminar - Fall
2003 Professor Dr. Harris Students Akihiro Oi
Lloyd Albright October 17, 2003
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Regularities in Technological Development An
Environmental View

• Thesis in fact, there are such long-term
  regularities in technological development
• Introduction
• What are the regularities?
• - Determination and use
• Regularities seen through
• - Transportation and energy examples
• Problems with regularities and solutions
• Summary
• Critique

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Introduction New Technologies are both cause
and cure of environmental problems

• Forgotten Episode Massive expansion of railroad
  system caused wide threat to timber resource but
  ended as hype.

• Because
• Creosote was introduced to preserve wooden
  crossties.
• Wooden ties were replaced by concrete ties.
• Railroad network reached saturation.

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What are Regularities? - Their Determination

• Q How do we determine regularity in a
  socio-technical system (ST system)?
• A By examining a lifecycle of ST system.
• Example 1
• Upper Bio-system (sunflower growth)
• Lower ST System ( of treated wooden railroad
  crossties)

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What are Regularities? - Their Determination

• Many technologies proceed through a life cycle
  just like biological organisms in constrained
  environments.
• Example 2
• Upper Bio-system (sunflower growth)
• Lower ST System (wire length for US telegraph
  system)

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What are Regularities? - Their Use

• Q How can knowledge of regularities benefit us?
• A By regularities we can
• Create substitution models allowing percent of
  market share.
• Predict when a new technology will replace an old
  one.
• Predict possible environmental problems for the
  replacement technologies.

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What are Regularities? - Their Use

• Examples
• Market share
• Replacement technology
• Environment prediction

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Examples of Regularities

• Transport Systems Upper Right
• Long term highway maintenance
• Fully mature
• Decreasing as major transport system in favor of
  air.
• Enviro Example
• Road salt to de-ice roads
• Energy Evolution Bottom Right
• Early Deforestation ? wood
• Sulfur Emissions ? coal
• NOx Emissions ? oil gas
• Note how close enviro problems follow
  transportation problems

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Prediction Difficulties

• Difficulties in Predicting Future
• Replacement technologies are not seen i.e.
• Steam ? Diesel trains
• Propeller ? Jet
• Vehicle emission system etc..
• Materials Sector
• Figure shows that demand will lead to resource
  exhaustion. 1970 est.
• Regularities did not predict smart engineering
  creating
• Plastics
• Composites
• Ceramics etc.

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Prediction Difficulties

• ATT Example
• Before smart engineering consumption of lead may
  reach 8 billion pounds per year.
• Smart engineering allowed lead cable sheathing to
  be replace with polyethylene.
• Prediction problems arise due to lack of good
  data to back up the generalizations firmly.

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Improving Predictions

• Demandite Solution
• What demandite is
• How to apply
• How it improves predictions.
• Steady Monitoring

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Summary

• What are the Regularities?
• Determination by S-curves and linear transforms
• Used by substitution models
• Regularities seen through
• Transportation system example
• Energy example
• Prediction difficulties
• Replacement technology predictions
• New materials predictions
• ATT example
• Improving predictions
• Demandite
• Steady Monitoring

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Critique

• Papers strengths
• Papers weaknesses
• Theorys strengths
• Theorys weaknesses
• Application to other technologies

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CritiquePapers Strengths

• Cites early railroad experience
• States creation, development, and use of theory
• States weaknesses in theory
• Provides solutions to weaknesses
• Direct us toward future applications

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CritiquePapers Weaknesses

• Author states evidence of three long term
  regularities but only provides evidence of one.
• Provided substitution model evidence and examples
  
• Provided very little evidence for
• Evolution model
• Diffusion model
• Lack of analysis on socioeconomic and political
  elements which cause prediction problems

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CritiqueTheorys Strengths

• Good indicator of past trends in
• Transport infrastructures
• Energy resources
• Hydrogen evolution
• Good predictor of major technology changes
• Good predictor of the need for new technologies
• 50 year cycle for transport infrastructure
• 40 year cycle for energy

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Critique Theorys Weaknesses

• Too difficult to predict future trends because
• Complex specific systems may not often follow the
  regularities
• Replacement technologies are not seen at present
• Dependency on socioeconomic and political
  elements

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Critique Application to Other Technologies

• Limited application at the time of publication
  (1989)
• We predict more application at present because
• More efficient computer modeling
• More efficient data gathering
• Additions and refinements to regularity theory
• Greater need in prediction results for
• Marketing
• Environmental concerns
• Engineering
• City and regional planning, etc

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Questions
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Thank you