Macroengineering

The Brunel Lectures span the last ten years and provide a diversified review of "work in progress" in the theory and practice of macro-engineering. This book is an edited compendium of these lectures and contains contributions from leading figures in the field. The introduction reports on the development of key elements for a power transmission satellite which will ultimately make the exchange of power between distant countries a feasible proposition. The book looks at closed system habitats - a way of applying advanced technology to effect desert rehabilitation; Osaka's financially successful use of artificial islands as an instrument of offshore development, large scale canals including the Grand Canal of China and the possibility of colonization of the Moon. The sociological, financial, practical, philosophical and theoretical implications of macro-engineering are balanced in a book which puts the rapidly developing interdisciplinary area into perspective.

Table of Contents:
Isambard Kingdom Brunel - engineer-manager and engineer-diplomat of the 19th century; macro-engineering - from the Grand Canal of China to the colonization of the Moon; man's enduring technological dilemma - Prometheus, Faust and other macro-engineers; managing macroproject externals - the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway; the study of living systems - a macro-engineering perspective; state of the art of macro-engineering - collaborative developments and future directions; macro-engineering in the 1980s; macroproject risk - an investment banking view; working together outdoors - a Canadian-American conservation corps as a tangible step toward environmental teamwork; transportation problems in the over-congested Tokyo metropolitan area; Osaka - urban redevelopment on the grand scale; the training of French engineers in the humanities and the social sciences; macro-engineering - a solution to drought?; macro-ethics - towards an ethical framework for macro-engineering.