Green Engineering

The extensive use of technology distinguishes the activities of humans and their civilization from other living organisms. Technologies comprise the tools human use to transform their environment, from those that shape their social organization, like markets and financial instruments, to the products they produce and use, such as automobiles and computers. While technology has improved human living standards over time (some more than others), it is also implicated in the deterioration of ecosystems, including many of those on which human civilization is dependent. As the human-environment relationship evolves toward greener values and practices, technologies can potentially be harnessed to make that relationship more sustainable (Welsh, 51).

Green technology describes those technologies applied to environmental problems or technologies that are more environmentally benign than conventional ones. The term itself is very broad, describing an array of technologies from those dealing with water treatment and purification, to those related to energy efficiency, renewable energy generation and storage. Green technologies are often referred to as clean technologies, which means technologies that strive to utilize or generate renewable energy, reduce resource or raw material use, and eliminate toxic materials and waste streams (Urry, 14).

In 2009, investments in environmental technologies were in the tens of billions of dollars in venture capital and private equity, and in the hundreds of billions of dollars for government spending and tax incentives. The three largest green technology sectors as of 2010 are wind power, solar photovoltaic, and bio-fuel, all of which would fall into the broader renewable energy sector. As the global economy confronts issues ranging from climate change, aging energy infrastructure, water scarcity, and other environmental problems, green technology will continue to grow in the short term, especially if they are able to capitalize on synergies between government infrastructure spending and green jobs growth.

Areas of Green Technology Innovation

Green technology has been incorporated into a number of industrial sectors, including those related to energy, transportation, water and materials. While many of these areas overlap, the most crucial growth of green technology has been in the area of renewable energy generation, energy storage, energy efficiency, and transmission (Ayres, 34). Solar photovoltaic create electricity from the sun, utilizing the photovoltaic effect, where incoming photons displace electrons in the top semiconductor layer and migrate to the opposite pole, helping to create an electrical current. This technology receives more investment than any other current environmental technology. Government policy has stimulated the industry by advancing tax incentives for both consumers and manufacturers. Growth in solar photovoltaic has also been driven by new technologies, novel semiconductor materials and manufacturing processes, and economies of scale, which have significantly reduced their cost (Dunlap, 22).

Wind power technologies are another major green technology sector. Of the renewable energy technologies, global wind power is coming the closest to achieving what is known as grid parity, where the price of the renewable energy is cost competitive with conventional energy sources. Along with issues related to aesthetics and wildlife impacts, wind power also suffers from being an intermittent energy source, meaning that is ...