An idea that I see in a lot of futuristic films or video games is the idea that your work place would be connected to your house/living area or very close by so that you could just walk there or take a little train or elevator to work or to the store. Everything would be super close by or in the same building as your home. This would save a lot of the space we use up now a day for roads and other things, we could build up instead of sideways. This is a concept I feel like would be very beneficial in a smart city and it makes sense.

2.       Natural Resource Depletion: In a smart city, I would like to see how we come up with a way to better balance the depletion of natural resources, because as we have seen it is causing environmental problems. In addition to better balancing our resource, switching to renewable sources of energy such as wind, biogas, and solar would decrease our impact considerably. We don’t normally use these resources because the infrastructure and maintenance is expensive, but because of new technological advance the prices have decrease in recent years.
-Karina 

Professor Yi

Physics 2426

7 December 2017

                    Smart City

Humans have made huge advancements in technology in just the past 2 centuries alone. We industrialized which revolutionized the way we live today. We have bigger outputs than any human era before us. Two major things came from the rise of the industrialization age: machines and fossil fuel energy. Fossil fuels have positively affected us in some areas, but has produced negative effects in others. The fossil fuel industry has created new jobs, but it is simultaneously making our home planet inhospitable. I believe future cities will be dominated by clean energy and robots will have taken over human jobs.

There is a lot of alternatives to the fossil fuels that we are using today as a means of energy. In fact, clean energy is one of the fastest growing industries. One of these possible alternatives to fossil fuel energy is wind power. The problems with wind energy today is that wind turbines are not relatively cheap. Another issue is that most of the energy that could be produced by wind is in the Earth’s atmosphere where the winds blow much harder. Companies like Shell are investing into something known as kite power. The principle behind this technology is you attach two kites to a generator by immensely long wire cables. As the kites start to take off the wire unraveling creates rotation in the generator, therefore, producing power. As the kites are in the air, one raises while the other one lowers. The speeds of the kites are controlled by a hydro accumulator that stores potential energy. The cost of producing offshore wind is about $170 today, but that number is expected to fall to $95 by 2030 with this new technology of wind power. Another positive outcome of future cities is that machines will be smarter.

Machines, undeniably, have been taking our jobs for the past few decades. Mostly factory jobs because the machines we have today are good at doing simple tasks and not so good at complex tasks. For example, the total output of hours by Americans in the year 1998 was 194 billion hours and in 2013 that number stayed the same despite an increase of population of 40 million Americans. However, machines are getting smarter and they might actually take our jobs pretty soon. Today, we can teach machines to gather information to teach themselves by giving them a lot of complex algorithms about the things we want them to get better at. The information age could be a good opportunity to revolutionize humanity again and perhaps even drastically reduce poverty.

Human advancement in technology is a positive thing. We are developing clean energy and soon enough we might not even have to work at all. Future cities will probably be far cleaner and efficient than what we could possibly imagine. These advancements in technology will give us opportunity to advance our species and perhaps raise the standards of living. 

 

2.      Everyone knows that plastic bottle takes too many years to decompose. According to national geographic, only 9 % of plastic bottle is recycled. Where is 91 % of plastic bottle at? It is in the landfill, under the ocean and other natural environment. There is the new idea that I really like and hope we can use it soon. It is edible bottle. It is clear and in a sphere shape like water drop shape. They make it from seaweed. It could decrease amount of waste in land fill. I heard there is some of package that made from natural material and it can 100 % compostable. But I think it would be better if there is a way to decrease amount of waste too, something that people can eat. So, there will not be something left after we eat our food.  

Another idea that would be great for a smart city would be to grow and change how you get your fruits and vegetables. For example, it would be good for the environment if more people started growing their own fruits and vegetables or to buy locally. Growing your own fruit and using local produce cuts down on factory processing, packing and transportation costs that can increase carbon footprint. Growing your own produce can also improve your health by helping you eat more fruits and vegetables, it will also have more nutrients and it will taste much better than to get something from the supermarket. 

One of the biggest problems many cities will soon face in the future is the continuous waste of fresh water. As it is now, even though the earth is covered by very large oceans, the fresh water we use in our everyday lives is less than three percent of that water in our globe. Even though it may not seem like a big thing to worry about, the ability for cities to continue to provide fresh water to its residents will soon be a huge problem. One way to combat this predicament in the smart city would be to implement water distribution meters in each residence. The meters would only allow the water to flow into the house according to the number of people that live on that house. This will make people think twice on how they use their limited amount of water and ensure that future generations won’t have to worry about the water they use.

 Another change that will have to be made in the smart city will be some future technology to convert salt water into fresh water. This technology is already being made as we speak, but the mass implementation will be critical to our smart city. With all homes connected to a massive machine that in turn is connected to the ocean, the saltwater can be turned into drinkable water. Although this will cause the use of the meters useless we can’t let our guard down and waste such a valuable resource such as water.