TUESDAY: April 1, 2008 at 7:30 p.m. at the Virginia Air and Space Center in downtown Hampton, Virginia. FREE (no reservations).
The world's critical energy problems require solutions beyond those policy makers are exploring now. Global warming is accelerating the rate at which radical transformations of energy systems away from fossil fuels are needed to avoid "dangerous human interference with the climate system." Given the world's large -- but climatically problematical, if CO2 is freely vented to the atmosphere -- coal resources, such a transition might be deferred to the 22 Century. But global warming is the canary in the mine. Already arctic sea ice, tundra, alpine glaciers and the Greenland Ice cap are melting; sea level is rising; tropical disease vectors carrying West Nile virus and cholera penetrate temperate latitudes; and sea surface temperatures have warmed to the point where intense hurricanes like Katrina are not only more probable; but happen. These impacts will only worsen under "business as usual." What to do? To prevent > 2 degree Celsius warming, above which disintegration of the Greenland Ice Sheet and West Antarctic Ice sheets may become irreversible, as global GDP continues growing 2-3%/yr, carbon cycle and climate models indicate that 100-300% of human primary power consumed today must come from some combination of non-CO2 emitting energy sources and "negawatts" of demand reduction from by midcentury. No "silver bullet" or combination of bullets on the shelf will easily solve this problem. But technological options exist in principle that could work with prompt and massive R & D and scale-up: (1) coal gasification combined cycle power plants producing electricity and fuel cell grade hydrogen with CO2 sequestered underground, (2) new generations of operationally safe, proliferation-resistant and waste-managed nuclear reactors burning fuel bred from U-238 and thorium (and eventually fusion) and (3) renewable energy, primarily solar and wind, with innovative transmission and storage technologies deployed at the global scale (including, space-based solar). Given the decades lost since the US last had an appropriate-scale alternate energy R & D program in the 70s I will argue that only a radical and disruptive Manhattan Project- or Apollo Program-style approach will work; and that engineers and scientists need to become pro-active on this issue.
Martin I. Hoffert is Professor Emeritus of Physics and former Chair of the Department of Applied Science at New York University. His academic background includes a B.S. (1960) in Aeronautical Engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; M.S. (1964) and Ph.D. (1967) from the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn (now the Polytechnic Institute of New York) in Astronautics; and a Master of Arts in Liberal Studies, M.A.L.S. (1969) from the New School for Social Research where he did graduate work in sociology and economics. He has been on the research staff of the Curtiss-Wright Corporation, General Applied Science Laboratories, Advanced Technology Laboratories, Riverside Research Institute and National Academy of Sciences Senior Resident Research Associate at the NASA/Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Prof. Hoffert has published broadly in fluid mechanics, plasma physics, atmospheric science, oceanography, planetary atmospheres, environmental science, solar and winds energy conversion and space solar power. His work in geophysics aimed at development of theoretical models of atmospheres and oceans to address environmental issues, including the ocean/climate model first employed by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to assess global warming from different scenarios of fossil fuel use. His early model of the evolving CO2 greenhouse in Mars’ atmosphere is also of interest today -- providing both an explanation of Mars’ riverbed-like channels formed in the distant past and a motivation for terraforming its atmosphere for human habitability in the future.His research in alternate energy conversion includes wind tunnel and full-scale experiments on innovative wind turbines, photovoltaic generation of hydrogen and wireless power transmission (WPT) applied to solar power satellites. His present efforts focus on energy technologies that could stabilize climate change from the fossil fuel greenhouse - including (but not limited to) space solar power. He is a Member of the American Geophysical Union (AGU), the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) was elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). He is presently a consultant to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Versatility Software, Inc.
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Last Updated: January 29, 2008 10:00 AM EDT.
http://shemesh.larc.nasa.gov/Lectures/sigma/s-080401.htm