Sustainable Energy
A couple of months ago, I attended a symposium at the University of Michigan that offered a lot of food for thought about the global energy future. There are a lot of people that are working on the problem of supplying the world's energy needs for the next century, and beyond. But the energy supply is only a problem in as much as there is likely to be growing demand for many decades to come. In terms of energy supply, the problem is getting the energy to the people that want it, but there will be no shortage of energy sources for centuries to come, even if we have no further technological advances. We have enough resources to power the growth and development of human civilization for as long as it is likely to exist using existing technology. But we have to make choices about what we want our power supply to look like, and inherent in that choice is a decision about what we want our planet to be like. The decision that we have to make has everything to do with the emission of carbon gases. Now I know that I'm not going to convince any global warming skeptics about anything. The science of the greenhouse effect is there, and the empirical evidence of a precipitous rise in average global temperatures over the last half century that is altogether unheard of in, in terms of magnitude and speed, in at least the last million years is clear. I will say no more about this issue in this post, except to direct interested parties to the recently released United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report of 2007: http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM2feb07.pdf
The IPCC report is very conservative as far as main stream climate science goes. So if you are not convinced by the UN estimates, you must either have a pretty strong counter argument, or you aren't going to be convinced by chunk of glacial ice hitting you in the head.
In terms of looking at the world's energy future, and the decisions that we have to make as a global society, I thought that Nate Lewis' presentation at the symposium presented a pretty good picture of the reality that we are facing. If we wish to create a world that is able to meet the global energy demand without emitting enough carbon gases to raise the atmospheric CO2 concentrations above 350 ppm, and I hope that we are, we have to look at the entirety of the problem. We have to look at the total world demand for energy, and look for solutions, maybe a whole group of solutions, that can address the entire problem. I suggest that anyone that has any interest in the topic of the energy supply to check out Nate Lewis' presentations. The first link is to a video of his presentation last February at the University of Michigan. The second is a presentation that he gave at Cal Tech a couple of years ago. It's basically the same presentation, though the Cal Tech version is longer, and the Cal Tech version offers more information about Lewis's own research into photovoltaic energy production:
U of M symposium
Cal Tech Link
Let me point out that any of the possible solutions to creating a sustainable energy economy include a heavy emphasis on energy conservation. This is a problem that can be solved by technology, but technology alone is not enough without the will.
The IPCC report is very conservative as far as main stream climate science goes. So if you are not convinced by the UN estimates, you must either have a pretty strong counter argument, or you aren't going to be convinced by chunk of glacial ice hitting you in the head.
In terms of looking at the world's energy future, and the decisions that we have to make as a global society, I thought that Nate Lewis' presentation at the symposium presented a pretty good picture of the reality that we are facing. If we wish to create a world that is able to meet the global energy demand without emitting enough carbon gases to raise the atmospheric CO2 concentrations above 350 ppm, and I hope that we are, we have to look at the entirety of the problem. We have to look at the total world demand for energy, and look for solutions, maybe a whole group of solutions, that can address the entire problem. I suggest that anyone that has any interest in the topic of the energy supply to check out Nate Lewis' presentations. The first link is to a video of his presentation last February at the University of Michigan. The second is a presentation that he gave at Cal Tech a couple of years ago. It's basically the same presentation, though the Cal Tech version is longer, and the Cal Tech version offers more information about Lewis's own research into photovoltaic energy production:
U of M symposium
Cal Tech Link
Let me point out that any of the possible solutions to creating a sustainable energy economy include a heavy emphasis on energy conservation. This is a problem that can be solved by technology, but technology alone is not enough without the will.