Joint Colloquium Distinguished Lecture Series
Balancing the Energy & Climate Budget: Personally, nationally, globally
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Wednesday, April 28, 2010 |
Abstract:
The average American uses 11400 Watts of power continuously. This is the equivalent of burning 114 x100 Watt light bulbs, all the time. The average person globally uses 2255 Watts of power, or a little less than 23 x100 Watt light bulbs.
What are the consequences of us all using this much power?
What is the implied challenge of global warming in terms of how we produce power?
What are the things we do as individuals in terms of using power that we might change? What is the scale of the engineering task to build the infrastructure required to hit our climate goals? Which technologies can actually get to scale?
What temperature do we set climate change at? What CO2 concentration does this imply we need to aim at? How much power can we get from fossil fuels while still meeting this goal? How much power do we need to install and produce from non-carbon technologies? What does this mean for countries, corporations, and individuals?
By detailed self examination this talk gives us a realistic, data-driven to do list on how we might change our behaviors as individuals as well as our collective behavior as societies and global citizens, if we are to meet the great challenge of the 21st century - how to live in a world where we increasingly understand the resources to be finite, and the consequences of our actions complex & inter-twined.
Reference:
www.energyliteracy.com
www.wattzon.com
www.makanipower.com
www.otherlab.com
Biography
Inventor and MacArthur fellow Dr. Saul Griffith has multiple degrees in materials science and mechanical engineering and completed his PhD in Programmable Assembly and Self Replicating machines at MIT. He is the co-founder of numerous companies including: Low Cost Eyeglasses, Squid Labs, Potenco, Instructables.com, HowToons and Makani Power. Saul has been awarded numerous awards for invention including the National Inventors Hall of Fame, Collegiate Inventor's award, and the Lemelson-MIT Student prize. A large focus of Saul's research efforts are in minimum and constrained energy surfaces for novel manufacturing techniques and other applications.
Saul holds multiple patents and patents pending in textiles, optics, nanotechnology, and energy production. Saul co-authors children's comic books called “HowToons” about building your own science and engineering gadgets with Nick Dragotta and Joost Bonsen. Saul is a technical advisor to Make magazine and Popular Mechanics. Saul is a columnist and contributor to Make and Craft magazines. He's fascinated with materials that assemble themselves, and with taking advantage of those properties to make things quickly and cheaply.
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