As lithium-ion battery technologies mature, the size and energy of these systems continues to increase for emerging applications in transportation, grid storage, military use and aerospace. In fact, broadening the application space for lithium-ion batteries from the consumer electronics industries to these emerging markets increases their size from 1-50 Wh batteries for smart phones and laptops to >50 kWh for electric vehicles (EVs) and MWh scale for utility storage systems. As these...

Carrier multiplication (CM) or multiexciton generation (MEG) is a process whereby absorption of a single photon produces multiple electron-hole pairs (excitons). CM could benefit a number of solar-energy conversion technologies, most notably photocatalysis and photovoltaics. This presentation overviews recent progress in understanding of the CM process in semiconductor nanocrystals, motivated by an outstanding challenge in this field - the lack of capability to quickly discern between...

Summary: Due to growing populace and standard of living, many terawatts of energy will be needed in the near future. The sun is the largest source of carbon-neutral and renewable energy that we have available and it is the only source that can provide terawatts of energy without depleting rapidly or causing major environmental and climate concerns. To fulfill this role, revolutionary approaches to solar energy conversion are needed that provide energy at very high efficiency at very low...

Young engineer takes on a global challenge: Clean and sustainable energy, one village at a time
Abby Watrous learned an important engineering lesson while working in rural China.

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Teams design and build homes powered by the sun This past October, taking a walk on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., might have been more like taking a walk into the future. Twenty solar-powered homes were sprawled across the mall's west end, transforming it from a park into something that resembled an innovative new housing development. Park purists take note: the transformation was only temporary. The homes were part of a competition. "The Solar Decathlon is a competition for...

Summary: This talk looks at how energy politics change over time and the factors that influence how struggles over energy play out. I start out by building on two competing theories from environmental sociology that provide political economic explanations of environmental degradation and improvement: ecological modernization (EMT) and treadmill of production (TOP). Ecological modernization theory predicts that as capitalist nations develop the environment will improve. Treadmill of...

Summary: Through the development and analysis of in-depth case studies of the emergence of wind power industries in industrialized and emerging economies, a model of sustainable energy industry development is proposed. The model demonstrates that fundamental economic indicators are insufficient for explaining new industry development. Environmental, institutional and cultural factors idiosyncratic to individual jurisdictions play important roles in the emergence of renewable energy...

Robert Gramlich is Senior Vice President of Public Policy for the American Wind Energy Association, the national trade association of approximately 2,500 entities involved in all aspects of wind energy production, based in Washington D.C. Rob joined AWEA in 2005 and now leads the association’s strategic initiatives related to federal and state legislation, industry information and analysis, and regulatory policy. He has published articles on wind integration, carbon taxes, market power...

Summary: Diesel generators are the traditional means by which people generate electricity in remote locations. Throughout the world, there are many thousands of off-grid communities, industrial sites, and government facilities relying entirely on diesel generated electricity. At $4/gallon, the fuel component alone of diesel-generated electricity is high, about $0.30/kWh. Some remote locations pay over $8/gallon or $0.60/kWh. With diesel fuel prices projected to rise even higher in the long...

Offshore wind power can contribute extensively to a clean, robust, and diversified U.S. energy portfolio. Capturing the Nation's large and inexhaustible offshore wind resource has the potential to mitigate climate change, improve the environment, increase energy security, and stimulate the U.S. economy. This seminar provides a broad understanding of the global offshore wind industry today and the associated technology challenges, economics, permitting procedures, and potential risks and...