Читать книгу Sustainable Nanotechnology - Группа авторов - Страница 80

Technology is a tool to solve many problems in society. The concept of ideal technology is a hypothetical technology that can solve all problems of human beings and provide luxury and comfort in life without affecting the society and environment. Ideal technology should have characteristics in order to elevate the quality of life to a unique level with perfect equality so that every human being in this universe should lead a happy and comfortable life and realize the so‐called concept of heaven on earth. Based on various factors which decide the ideal technology system characteristics, a model consisting of input conditions, output conditions, environmental conditions, and system requirements is developed [89]. The input properties are (i) Manipulate the fundamental nature of matter to provide solutions to the basic and advanced problems of mankind. (ii) In‐expensive and self‐reliable in terms of resources to make it attractive to be used by people/countries of varied economical situations. (iii) Ubiquitous so that the technology provides solutions and services at anytime, anywhere, any amount of time to the users. (iv) Affordable to everybody so that it uses common materials available in nature and manipulates effectively to the need of a human being at an affordable cost. The output properties are (i) Solve basic needs like food, drinking water, renewable energy, clothing, shelter, health, and a clean environment. (ii) Provide comfort life to the users by providing solutions to their desires. (iii) Equality: ideal technology provides equal opportunity and similar solutions to every user irrespective of their gender, religion, background, education, economic status, and country of origin. (iv) Automation: ideal technology automates all processes in every type of industry to avoid human interference in work/control in order to provide an expected output based on programming. (v) Immortality is the ultimate goal of ideal technology so that it can create an avenue for a deathless situation or enhancement of the human life span. The System Requirement Properties are (i) General purpose technology to support all fields and problems of human and living beings on the earth. (ii) Self‐directed, self‐controlled, and self‐regulated so that technology can control itself in order to achieve its goal. (iii) Easy, simple, quick, and user friendly to solve all types of problems and to provide a quick ideal solution. (iv) Scalable so that it is used for solving small and simple problems to large and complex problems of life. (v) Omni‐potent to identify and solve problems and provide comfortability to human beings and feeling him like God. (vi) Exploring new opportunities to improve and explore comfortability and further leisure in the life of people. (vii) Infinite potential for further development of life in the universe. The environment/external properties are (i) Maintain a clean environment through its processes and avoid the footprint of processes, while achieving specific functions. (ii) Infinite business opportunities by creating new products/services with ideal characteristics. (iii) Adaptive to any situation to achieve the stated goal. (iv) No side effects such that it should be safe for users and the environment. Any technology which has the above properties/characteristics is considered as ideal technology and conventional technologies have serious drawbacks/limitations in terms of the above properties [89]. One of the properties of ideal technology is sustainability and zero green gas emissions to the environment, i.e. ideal technology is green technology (GT). Every technology can be made sustainable by adding green components so that they can avoid environmental degradation and converted into green technologies to provide a clean environment for future generations.

Table 3.3 SD goals and suitable technologies to achieve them.

Goal No.	Focus issue	Goal by 2030	Objective	Technology
1	Reduce poverty	To zero	Minimize	NT
2	Reduce hunger	To zero	Minimize	NT
3	Health and well‐being	To everyone	Maximize	NT
4	Quality higher education	To everyone	Maximize	ICCT
5	Gender equality	To everyone	Maximize	ICCT
6	Clean water and sanitation	To everyone	Maximize	NT
7	Affordable renewable energy	To everyone	Maximize	NT
8	Decent employment	To everyone	Maximize	NT and ICCT
9	Sustainable industrialization	Everywhere	Maximize	NT and ICCT
10	Reduced inequalities among countries	To zero	Minimize	—
11	Safe and sustainable cities and communities	Everywhere	Maximize	ICCT
12	Ensure sustainable production and consumption	Everywhere	Maximize	NT and ICCT
13	Combat on climate change	To zero	Minimize	NT
14	Conserve ocean and marine resources	Everywhere	Maximize	NT
15	Protect life on land	Everywhere	Maximize	NT
16	Ensure peace and justice	To everyone	Maximize	ICCT
17	Global partnership for sustainability	To highest	Maximize	ICCT

As discussed earlier, NT is expected to solve both the basic needs and comfort want of human beings. The basic needs of human beings are food, drinking water, energy, cloth, shelter, health, and environment, and the comfort wants are realizing automation in every field, space travel, and expanded lifespan, and so on. NT is the manipulation of matter on an atomic, molecular, and supramolecular scale. Planned and controlled development of NT leads to environmental sustainability and hence can be used as GT. GNT is evolving as a general‐purpose technology due to its applications in all areas of society. Hence in the advanced form, it will have a significant impact on almost all industries and all areas of society by offering better built, longer‐lasting, cleaner, safer, and smarter products for the home, for communications, for medicine, for transportation, for agriculture, and for every industry, in general. Thus, by controlled utilization of NT for environmental sustainability, it can be developed as GNT technology for sustainable development.