As much of the world embraces the urgency for developing alternative sources of energy, and sources of fossil fuel become less reliable and more expensive, this lecture series explores the most promising new innovations and technologies currently in development for sustainable, affordable, and renewable power.
Speakers address these issues, as well as the science, economics, and politics behind bio-fuels, solar, wind, and clean-coal technology, and the critical role businesses and governments will play in creating a new energy paradigm.
Bio
Tom Becker
Tom Becker is the president of Chautauqua Institution. Becker joined Chautauqua in March 1985 as a vice president of the Institution and vice president of the Chautauqua Foundation. Over the years he was promoted to executive vice president and CEO of the Foundation.
In 2001, he continued as chief executive officer of the Foundation and was named executive vice president of Chautauqua Institution. As chief executive, Becker oversaw the growth of the Foundation into a professional fund-raising organization and led it to raising over $100 million in support of the Institution.
Arvind Subramanian
Arvind Subramanian is senior fellow jointly at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and the Center for Global Development and senior research professor at the Johns Hopkins University. He was assistant director in the research department of the International Monetary Fund, where he worked on trade, development, Africa, India and the Middle East. He has also served at the GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) during the Uruguay Round of trade negotiations and taught at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.
Subramanian has written on growth, trade, development, climate change and renewable energy, oil, India, Africa, the WTO and intellectual property. He has published widely in academic and other journals, including the American Economic Review (Papers and Proceedings), Foreign Affairs, World Economy and Economic and Political Weekly. He has also published or been cited in leading magazines and newspapers, including The Economist, Financial Times, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek and New York Review of Books. He has been interviewed on PBS' "Charlie Rose Show" and is a columnist for India's leading financial daily, Business Standard.
Any of various renewable power sources to use in place of fossil fuels and uranium. Fusion devices (seenuclear fusion) are believed by some to be the best long-term option, because their primary energy source would be deuterium, abundant in ordinary water. Other technologies include solar energy, wind power, tidal power, wave power, hydroelectric power, and geothermal energy. The amount of energy in such renewable and virtually pollution-free sources is large in relation to world energy needs, yet at present only a small portion of it can be converted to electric power at reasonable cost.
There are some flaws in your argument. For one, batteries can be recycled and those methods are improving constantly, although I agree there are concerns about switching to a metal dependency. I do not believe anyone is thinking of lowering global temperature considering we are mostly failing to meet all goals concerning climate change or bio diversity. The hope is to slow the change as much as possible to give ourselves more time to come up with solutions.
You can question the "theory", as you put it, of anthropogenic climate change science, but to question all the science that relates to what will happen to food supplies, bio diversity, desertification, and water issues if the temperature increases as predicted is just being willfully dense. No vacation to the tropics is going to help the next generation to adapt to a world with water and food shortages. There is no big conspiracy. What could possible be the motivation of the worlds scientist to lie to you? On the other hand, there is plenty invested in keeping the status quo.
Fora2, let us say that your so called "theory" of anthropogenic climate change is correct,by how much Co2 will we have to forgo to reduce the temperature of the Earth by, let us say, 1 degree. ??? (I find it quite humorous that our hallowed IPCC holds out on the very piece of information that would allow us to see if what their saying is true, but I digress) This number turns out to be 2 trillion tons of Co2. "Phew", now the problems with numbers like trillions is that their unreasonable to work with, but then again this statement is based on the fact that anthropogenic climate change is real, so I shall continue. The U.S.A produces 30 billion tons of Co2 yearly and the world produces around a 100 billion tons of Co2 yearly. SO, TO REDUCE THE EARTHS CLIMATE BY ONE DEGREE, WE WOULD NEED TO SHUT DOWN OUR WHOLE CARBON FUELED ECONOMY FOR 20 YEARS. That means, NO CARS, VIRTUALLY NO ELECTRICITY, NO LOCOMOTIVE POWER, PLANES CANT FLY, EVERYTHING (including the economy) SHUTS DOWN AND WE ALL GO BACK TO THE STONE AGE. :0 Im sure your 20 years of Stone age bill will be written into law soon ....Have a nice day
Oh and don't even get me started on your so called solutions, just think about whats going to happen to all those nice, warm car batteries in 20 years, "holla at ma toxic waste".
You want to know the best way to deal with the problem, relax, spend a few days in Hawaii and accustomed to the warm climate. It is much easier, cheaper and safer to ADAPT to your environment than to try and change it, duh, and I'm sure your neighbors will thank you for not trying to put another unnecessary tax on them :P. The world has been warming up and cooling down for the last millions of years and lifes still here, Climates random, DEAL WITH IT.
We make 90 million tons CO2 each DAY. That's 3.4% of the natural production.
Atmospheric CO2 is rising 2ppm per year (0.5%), TWICE that of 50 years ago.
CO2 levels are 37% above the highest levels for 650,000 years.
35% of CO2 is dissolved in oceans.
In 25 years CO2 will reach 450ppm which most oceanographers warn will interfere with growth of calcium carbonate forming planktons and corals.
They make the base of the ocean's food chain. Oops!!!
We can get off most fossil fuels within 20-30 years if we put a concerted effort into solar, wind, fuel cells, electric cars, algae biofuels, and new nuclear technologies.
We also need a new national smart power grid to move electricity.
We can use a carbon tax on fossil fuels to pay for it, and it'll provide millions of JOBS that can't be exported.
Europe & China are ALREADY doing this and America will lose out in future green energy technologies, if we don't.
We owe it to our grandchildren.