Gigatechnology: Developing Sustainable Urban Infrastructure to Solve Gigaton Problems

JOHN C. CRITTENDEN, Director of the Brook Byers Institute of Sustainable Systems, Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar of Sustainable Systems, and Hightower Chair of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology

Gigaton problems refer to those most severe problems challenging humanity, which can often be measured at the “gigaton (billion tons)” scale. For example, the annual world energy consumption is around 12 billion tons of oil equivalent (Gtoe), 80% of that from nonrenewable fossil fuels. The combustion of these fossil fuels emits approximately 29 billion tons (Gton) of CO₂. In addition, the world uses more than 79 Gton of materials each year, only about 29% of which are renewable. These gigaton problems call for solutions which can meet the gigaton scale, or gigaton solutions.

Urban centers are the largest complex, adaptive gigatechnology systems that humans create and within which humans manipulate mass and energy. They are the largest infrastructures in which human manipulate matter and energy. Design of more sustainable and resilient urban system can solve the gigaton problems. A new transformative science for gigatechnologies has been established called, ”Infrastructure Ecology,” with new engineering standards, protocols, tools, and workers to apply its laws and rules for building cities that are sustainable, resilient, equitable, and efficient.

Read more about Gigatechnology and Sustainable Infrastructure.