“Artificial intelligence is creating a new culture, climate change is creating a new physical environment, and both processes are out of control.” That is what inspired ISA Fellow, engineering consultant and author Béla Lipták to write his latest book, “Controlling the Future.” Subtitled “Controlling Nonindustrial Processes: Preventing Climate and Other Disasters,” the book provides a comprehensive analysis of how processes developed and perfected by the automation industry can be used to tackle the climate change problem. “Humankind has reached a fork in the road of its evolution where it has to select one road that leads from the fossil to the green energy age or the other that is a dead end,” said Lipták.
“I was also inspired by knowing that in the past, humankind fixed such global threats as the need to close the ozone hole in the atmosphere. I believe that the coming generation is also ready to fix things. All it needs is a roadmap of how to proceed.” Other books discuss climate change, artificial intelligence (AI), or process control, but none combines all three. This book analyzes the probable future effects of AI and global warming using the tools of process know-how that accumulated over the last century.
“This book aims to provide the information needed to guide the coming generations into a physically safe, culturally healthy and peaceful future,” said Lipták. Reviewers within the International Society of Automation agree. “In his groundbreaking book, Bela Liptak leverages his world-class expertise in dynamics and process control to ingeniously recalibrate our approach to government policies,” says ISA Fellow George Buckbee, PE, president of Sage Feedback LLC. “With visionary insights, he paves the way toward a sustainable future, offering actionable solutions to combat global warming, and confront pressing crises.
I am thrilled to order copies of this book for my adult children. With Bela's unparalleled knowledge and dedication, he is not only providing solutions for the world's problems but also inspiring the next generation to become informed, think critically and act responsibly." “Readers may find this book beyond their expectations,” said Prakash Jayprakash Bapat, director of ISA’s Automatic Controls and Robotics Division.
“‘Controlling the Future’ alerts the conscious reader to the magnitude of global warming (GW) ; occurrences of disasters due to climate change (CC); the need for timely action toward deployment of technologies such as carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS); prioritizing rapid transition from fossil fuel-based energy to hydrogen-based green energy; and the requirement to focus on R&D and subsequent deployment of currently unavailable technologies like reversible fuel cells (RFCs).” Jayprakash continued: “The book adds valuable information, a variety of relevant data sets, and even the cost of remedial measures.
The reader is warned through striking comparisons of GW to, for example, the heat generation of five Hiroshima atomic bombs per second and the added weight of five Empire State Buildings per hour. [That brings] the harsh reality to the table.” Lipták said his other goal in writing the book was to bolster recognition for the automation and control profession. “In contrast with all other professions, it can also analyze the largest and most complex nonindustrial processes. This is not well understood,” he said.
“When I was teaching process control at Yale University, the course was offered as a chemical engineering course; and when I published my process control books, the publisher listed them among their electrical engineering volumes.” Those organizations had nothing against the automation and control profession; “they did not even realize it existed. I hope this book shows that it does,” he explained. Lipták said he has spent the last several years “in an effort to fully understand the dynamic ‘personality’ of the multivariable and extremely complex process of climate change and to determine if my conclusions agree with the presently accepted predictions on where it leads.”
The result is knowledge that “the main process control rule is that global processes can only be controlled by global action, which requires establishing global institutions that can overcome the resistance of political and corporate interests.” “Controlling the Future” provides an abundance of facts and data and lists several steps that can be taken to achieve specific goals: “Not only converting to a carbon-free (hydrogen-based) energy economy but also being realistic about the steps needed during the transition, which probably include the temporary use of safe (underwater) nuclear energy,” Lipták said. “Controlling the Future” is available to order in print and digital formats through the International Society of Automation.
About Béla Lipták
Béla Lipták was born in 1936 in Hungary. As a Technical University student, he participated in the revolution against the Soviet occupation. He escaped and entered the United States as a refugee in 1956. In 1959, he received an engineering degree from Stevens Institute of Technology; he received a master’s degree from the City College of New York in 1962; and later, he did graduate work at Pratt Institute.
In 1960, he became the chief instrument engineer at Crawford and Russell, where he led the automation of dozens of industrial plants for more than a decade.
In 1969, he published the multivolume “Instrument and Automation Engineers’ Handbook,” which is currently in its fifth edition. Lipták has published more than 300 technical articles on climate change, global warming and the automation of the new infrastructure they require, as well as more than 20 books on various aspects of automation, safety and energy technology. This feature originally appeared in the May Sustainability issue of AUTOMATION 2024.
