NC Ch 4 : Making the World

This chapter describes "methods to increase industry's energy and material productivity." Overall, I'd say this chapter is superfluous, but it does have a lot of interesting projects and examples.

- design - self-explanatory
examples: lab fume hoods, mechanical flow controller for cleanrooms, sewage pumps, moving processes closer together to reduce reheating energy, conserving heat with insulation in glass plants, Weiss - Hamburg oil re-refinery

- new technologies - self-explanatory,
examples: superefficient cooling coils, switched reluctance motors, smart materials, rapid prototyping, ultraprecision fabrication, power-switching semiconductors, atomic-scale manipulation, microfluidics, micromachines

- controls - putting in controls in plants to automatically manage energy usage.
Distributed intelligence and self-organizing systems have a lot of potential. Mentions the book Out of Control by Kevin Kelly.
examples: Georgia Power Company installed a computer system to automatically adjust valves, Toyota "self-monitoring" looms

- corporate culture - this section is pretty dumb, actually. It cites a number of mistakes that happen routinely, and basically recommends that people be competent.

- new processes - process innovations in manufacturing. This section is pretty interesting. The authors argue that since living beings, such as spiders, can make strong materials, such as spider silk, without noxious chemicals or super high temperatures, there must be a way for us to manufacture those things as well with less inputs. (p70) The main techniques are to do things at lower temperatures and to use harmless inputs.
Ernie Robertson of Winnipeg's Biomass Institute says - best way to make limestone into a structural material is to feed it to a chicken and get an egg.
examples:
Philip McCrory using hair to clean up oil spills after noticing that oil gets stuck to otters
University of Zurich changed lap course that turned $8000 of simple reagents into toxic goop that cost $16000 to dispose of so that also taught how to turn it back into simple reagents in an exercise of "cycle thinking"
DesignTex division of Steelcase, make upholstery fabric without mutagens, carcinogens, heavy metals, endocrine disruptors, persistent toxic substances, and bio-accumulative substances with the help of Ciba-Geigy, a chemical company

- saving materials
In order to reduce scrap, manufacturing processes should aim to make things that are already in the shape of the raw material. "Netshape" and "near-net-shape" manufacturing techniques involve casting metals into the final shapes instead of into blocks that then need to be cut into the final shapes. The authors then reference Buckminster Fuller and "ephemeralization" when describing redesigning something to be more effective with less materials.

Finally, the authors propose design for reuse.
examples: disposable cameras, "Dow announced a $1 billion, 10-year environmental investment program, and anticipated a 30-40 percent annual return"