Portfolio 6

The amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmostphere has  greatly increased over time. Evidence shows that CO2, which is capable of trapping heat, has caused the global temperature to rise. If this situation continues, several disaster could happen. However, it's not easy to cut down the amount of CO2 entering the atmosphere. Burning fossil fuels releases huge amount of CO2, but they cannot be easily substituted. As the greatest fossil fuel supply, coal emits the greatest amount of CO2 per unit energy produced. A chemical system to capture CO2 has been used at some industries. This approach can be adapted for coal-based power plants, where smokestacks is replaced with absorption towers, one of which to isolate and absorp CO2 from the other gases, and another to seperate the CO2 from the first tower, so as the chemical can then be reused. Another variation of this approach is to alter the combustion process by burning coal in oxygen. This makes seperating the CO2 from the exhaust easier. However, another problem, which is the need for oxygen, emerges. If this process can be made economical, the cost of CO2 capture can be reduced. Advanced method to generate power from coal also provides a way to capture CO2. In coal-gastification units, burning of coal produces a synthetic gas, which can be converted to other useful gas. Several underground places investigated, such as old gas and oil fields. However, these fields do not have the capacity to store the great amount of CO2. Thus, sedimentary rocks formation might be another prossible way to store CO2. However, although redimentary rocks are highly available, it's unsure whether they can be used safely, as several problems might caused CO2 leakage. Some experts suggests injecting the CO2 into sediments beneath the ocean floor. Although this approach might be a little bit costly, but it's safer. Althought several concern exists, but it's highly possible that these technology will succeed.

References:

National Acedemy of Engineering. (n.d.). Develop carbon sequestration methods. Retrived November 3, 2008, from http://www.engineeringchallenges.org/cms/8996/9077.aspx.

Portfolio 5

As technology evolves, human beings are closer to knowing how our brains thinks and process various information. Such technology, also known as bain mapping, can cause great impact to the society. At the positive side, this technology can be used to identify thoughts and study mental disorder (National Science Foundation [NSF], 2008). However, we should not neglect the negative effects this technology could have on society.

As we can imagine, if this technology is made available to the public, it will be exploited by many parties in different ways. As pointed out by Lou (2003), this technology might be used by companies to examine the thoughts of their employees. If a particular employee is found to be likely to develop a negative habit, he/she might be fired without actual prove. Such situation is undesirable because the right of the employees are not protected.

Besides, a person's privacy might be abused using this technology. As mentioned by Lou (2003), if we are able to build pictures of the brain, then other people can get to know what we are thinking. If this happens, all our thoughts will be revealed to third parties, with or without our knowledge. This situation is highly unfavourable.

To minimize the unethical abuses, a few steps are to be taken. Firstly, the government and the scientists should come to consensus of how this technology can be used. Points such as who will be tested, how the results will be used, and under what circumstances will they be tested must be considered. These points must be considered based on the privacy and the right of a person. Also, the government should take initiative to make laws regarding this matter and make sure the laws are enforced. Whoever break the laws should be fined accordingly with no mercy.

As a researcher, I am very happy that the technology allows us to understand our brain, which is considered as one of the most complex thing in the world. However, the society, especially the government and the scientests should try to minimize potential unethical abuses of this technology as discussed. If used in the wrong ways, this technology can bring big disasters to human being.