What is the most important engineering problem of our future?

[Bill Moore]

Originally Posted by KenWittlief

there is enough space and room for people to survive (at this point), but there are not enough resources for every person on the planet to have a 4 bedroom house, 2 cars, 4 computers, 5 TVs, all the food they can eat...

there are only so many acres of land that can be farmed. Once the population gets above 1 person per acre, or 2 people per acre of farmland, people will starve.

That's a fair statement for todays conditions, but not going forward. Already our farmland is being converted from food sources to non-food product sources. Soy beans to diesel fuel, corn being used to make plastics . . . our main farmlands will become a battleground between producing enough food for a growing population and satisfying our desire to have unlimited cheap material resources.

The major engineering challenges for the future will be related to agriculture -- genetic engineering to squeeze greater yields per acre, hydrologic engineering to allow us to crop currently non-arable land, and bioengineering to create microorganisms that will turn any marginal bioresidue into useful product.

It doesn't matter when the price of oil becomes "too" high, it'll still take 3 generations before the population weans itself off the excess energy we think we need.