Electrical and Computer Engineering Newsblog

Today, April 22, is Earth Day, so it seems appropriate to say a few things about the environmental impact of the work of electrical engineers.

Actually, there is a whole lot to say, much of it surrounding the topic of generation, transmission, and distribution of electrical power. This is not my own area of technical expertise – I am more of a communications and signal processing engineer – so I have to exercise caution in pontificating too much on the topic. I will hasten to point out this is an area of strength for the ECE Department at Michigan Tech, as it has been ever since the department was founded in 1928. We have a lot of good people contributing to the next generation of power and energy technology, and to the education of the next generation of power and energy engineers who are going to make that technology work.

It is safe to say that the development of electrical power has had a huge impact on human civilization over the last 100 years. As a species, we learned how to burn fossil fuel in enormous rotating machines, and through the magic of electromagnetic induction we convert that mechanical energy to electrical energy which can be transmitted over long distances and distributed to homes and businesses everywhere. The development of “universal electrification,” as this is called, was named the #1 technical achievement of the 20th century by the U.S. National Academy of Engineering. It has had an immeasurable positive effect on the standard of living and quality of life for us all. Think about that the next time you turn on a light switch in the middle of the night.

We now understand that this technological advancement comes with a certain environmental cost. One cannot burn fossil fuel without putting some residue back into the atmosphere, and the consensus of the vast majority of professionals who know what they’re talking about is that this is having a detrimental effect on our world (I don’t claim to be one of those people.) As electrical engineers we have to take some responsibility for that problem. Fortunately, if we are part of the problem, we are also part of the solution. A great many smart, dedicated electrical engineers are looking at alternative means for generating and distributing electrical power that do not have the same environmental cost, or so we hope. I can’t begin to go into all the technology and the tradeoffs in alternative and renewable energy generation, and the smart distribution systems that go with them – we have entire courses on that topic – but I encourage all young engineers with a passion for making a big contribution to the planet to consider this as a career possibility.

From my own casual observations, I see a lot of potential in solar power. Everything that we are and everything we consume ultimately comes from the sun anyway. I am particularly fascinated by passive solar technology, whereby arrangements of mirrors are used to concentrate solar energy, creating localized areas of intense heat for turning steam turbines or melting salt. I can’t help but think that there is a lot of real estate in the desert Southwest of the United States where such technology could easily be deployed. [I’ll probably catch a lot of flak from some people for that position – the desert is much more than a lot of sun-baked nothingness, and I get it – but it’s easy to see how one might get that impression when you fly from here to California.] The dropping costs and widespread adoption of solar photovoltaics is a positive sign too – although from an environmental perspective one needs to factor in the cost of acquiring natural resources and manufacturing the panels.

I’m not a big fan of wind power (no pun intended), mostly because I think that the big wind farms popping up all over American farmland are kind of ugly. Other people find them stately and beautiful, so I am willing to be wrong about that. As an alternative means of providing much-needed power that we are most certainly not going to give up, I can see the value. I did read a fascinating article recently in IEEE Spectrum about how wind power is a testament to our dependence on fossil fuel, when one considers everything that goes into the manufacturing, transportation, and deployment of wind turbines: see http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/renewables/to-get-wind-power-you-need-oil.

Steering away from power and energy for a bit, let me add that there are other ways that electrical engineers can practice their trade and have a positive impact on the environment. Watch out for water as a big growth area in the coming decades. Water is something we all take for granted, until something goes horribly wrong as it did with the recent slow-motion trainwreck in Flint. People are now talking about the “water-energy nexus” in which our dependence on water and energy makes one big interconnected system: we need water to produce electrical energy, and we need electrical energy to produce clean water. I foresee a lot of important work to be done, and also a lot of career opportunities.

I’ll use that last assertion to put in a plug for our new Concentration in Environmental Applications, offered as part of our undergraduate degree in electrical engineering at Michigan Tech. We created this concentration to give students with an interest in air quality, water quality, and/or remote sensing an opportunity to pursue those interests and at the same time apply their engineering talents. There are going to be a lot electrical engineers needed for the electrical machinery, automation, industrial control, communication, and signal processing that go into the systems that monitor and improve our air and water quality. Please take a look if that sounds interesting – the ECE Department will be happy to provide all the information you need.

Happy Earth Day!

(Also – happy last day of classes to all our graduating seniors! Take it easy on Senior Walk, OK?)

– Dan

Daniel R. Fuhrmann
Dave House Professor and Chair
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Michigan Technological University

A couple of weeks ago I attended the annual meeting of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department Heads Association, or ECEDHA, in San Diego. I enjoyed seeing old friends, making new ones, and having good discussions about a number of issues that we have in common and may not realize.

One of those issues is that of the ECE “image”, that is, how the general public, and specifically prospective students and their parents, views the field of electrical and computer engineering. There is a lot of angst and hand-wringing over the fact that we as a profession are not widely known or appreciated for what we have accomplished, and that in fact we are “losing ground” to other disciplines who are moving in on our turf.

This brings up a couple of thoughts for me. The first is, should we be worried about this at all? I think I will put that one off, and today I will offer a couple of observations on how I think we got to this point.

First of course is the “nerd” stereotype associated with electrical engineers, and engineers in general. This is promulgated in popular culture – think e.g. of the comic strip Dilbert, or Wollowitz in “The Big Bang Theory”, or many of the characters in “Revenge of the Nerds.” We all cringe at these stereotypes, although most of us in our heart of hearts will admit there is a kernel of truth in them; some even embrace them fully. Still, it is a constant battle to convince young people that one can be an engineer and still live a happy, healthy, productive, and well-adjusted life. I do what I can when given the opportunity.

A second issue is the “invisibility” part, that is, no one knows who we are and what we do. In this regard I think that as electrical engineers we have become a victim of our own success. We happen to work on systems that depend wholly or in part on the manipulation of electricity – voltage, current, electric fields, and the like – and it just turns out that of all the forces of nature in the universe, electricity is probably the most malleable. We can do things at unbelievable scales of both space and time. We can make electrical devices change their state a billion times a second, and can put a billion different such devices on a chip no bigger than a square centimeter. As a consequence, we can build systems that do unbelievable things, like a smart phone that connects to the Internet and downloads and displays videos from half a world away. The problem is, this technology is so successful that it is adopted quickly and commoditized. It is so useful and popular that people will just assume that it exists (or even claim that they have right to it) and they are unaware where it came from and the effort that it took to bring it to market. One can say this about electrical power to the home, telephone service, radio, TV, audio systems, medical instrumentation, computers – the list goes on and on. All this stuff just showed up in our lives in the space of two to three generations. But if you ask kids who invented the iPhone, guess what they will tell you, almost certainly: scientists.

It may be that part of the reason we as a profession are invisible is that the stuff we work with – electricity – is also invisible. The work of a mechanical engineer is obvious in the motion of an automobile, and the work of a civil engineer is obvious in the structure of a bridge. It’s there for all the world to see. However, people just have to take our word for it when we say we are pushing electrons around for the benefit of humanity. You can see the results of our work – that video downloaded to your phone, say – but everything that made that happen remains a mystery to most.

What to do about this situation? I suppose we have to address the first question I asked, namely, should we worry about it at all? Stay tuned; I’ll pick that up another day.

– Dan

Daniel Fuhrmann
Dave House Professor and Chair
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Michigan Technological University

Greetings and Happy Spring everyone.  I am thrilled to bring you some exciting news from the world of high tech.

First off, Google has announced that as part of its effort to develop an autonomous, or self-driving, car, they have been secretly developing the technology that will make it self-powered as well.  Specifically, they have invented a closed-loop wind power system in which the motion of the car turns a roof-mounted windmill that powers both the electric motors and the on-board computers, which require roughly equal power.  At highway speeds the energy conversion is so efficient that the generators create more energy than is needed to propel the car.  The energy is stored in large batteries, and can be sold back to local utilities at “unfilling stations” which Google also plans to deploy at street corners across America, in a cooperative venture with Starbucks.  The new vehicle, called the Blowhard, is expected to eliminate American dependence on fossil fuel for transportation. A second team of civil engineers has been assembled by the tech giant to consider the retrofitting of highway overpasses to accommodate the new design.

Second, Apple and Facebook are teaming up and plan to use their considerable economical and political clout to lobby for a repeal Shannon’s celebrated Channel Capacity Theorem.  At a joint press conference, Apple CEO Tim Cook and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg decried the excessive regulatory burden of this antiquated 68-year-old result.  Said Zuckerburg, “We need relief now from the political correctness of Shannonism and everything it is doing to hinder the awesome power of innovation and entrepreneurship across the U.S.  We now have devices that can access all of human knowledge, but because of a bunch of eggheads who don’t understand the real needs of our industry, all that people can do is use the technology to insult strangers and look at videos of cats.”  Cook concurred.  “We need some fresh thinking in Washington to unlock the true potential of the Internet, to give all Americans something for nothing.  I hope everyone has that in mind as they evaluate the candidates for national office in the upcoming elections.”

Finally, in a surprise move reversing an earlier decision, the National Academy of Engineering has named the automated voice answering system as the #1 technical achievement of the 20th century.
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APRIL FOOLS!!!

– Dan

Daniel R. Fuhrmann

Dave House Professor and Chair

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Michigan Technological University