Summary: An accurate estimate of the long-term production of oil, gas, and coal would be helpful for the ongoing policy discussion of alternatives to fossil fuels and climate change. It takes a long time to develop energy infrastructure, and this means that it matters whether we have burned 20% of our oil, gas, and coal, or 40%. In modeling future temperature and sea-level rise, the carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels is the most important factor. The time frame for the climate response...

Summary: As the coal-reliant countries of the world have been increasingly forced to consider reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions to mitigate climate change, carbon capture and storage (CCS) has emerged as a technology with critically important political influence. Visions of so-called "clean" coal-fired power plants that will not emit CO2 into the atmosphere have provided powerful motivation for large public and private investments in CCS. The scale of CO2 emission reductions deemed...

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...

Summary: Energy impacts every aspect of our lives – yet energy remains a vast and complex subject. For the past two years I have been filming a major documentary on global energy. Based on personal visits to many of the world’s leading energy sites and conversations with top industry, academic and government leaders, I will look inside the complex world of energy and provide a realistic and balanced view of energy supply, demand, efficiency, infrastructure, and scale. All major forms of...

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...

Renewable energy sources currently provide about only about 10% of the nation’s electricity, with most of that coming from large hydro sources. Renewable energy sources are scattered around the country, with much of the best wind and solar resources located in remote locations. These sources also may have a big footprint compared to conventional sources. Finally, solar and wind are often described as intermittent due to their variable and uncertain output. As a consequence, it is often...

Addressing the Challenge of Truly Large Scale Photovoltaics: the Industrial and Thermodynamic Potentials of Organic Solar Cells In order for photovoltaic systems to ultimately provide a considerable fraction of the world’s energy needs they will need to meet a number of stringent performance metrics regarding their cost, efficiency, and robustness. In addition, they will need to be manufactured with very high throughput methods in order to realize the enormous production scales...

Summary: Why have the predicted global oil and natural gas shortages and demise of civilization by 2010 related to these vanishing supplies not occurred? The static view has created a pessimistic outlook based on historical perspective such as the Hubbert curve analysis which results in the inescapable and inevitable depletion that will result in catastrophic consequences for civilization. A new paradigm, a dynamic or petroleum system view demonstrates a different and more optimistic...

Rob Knight of the University of Colorado on "Spatially and Temporally Resolved Studies of the Human Microbiome" at the 6th annual Genomics of Energy & Environment Meeting on March 23, 2011.

Historically, questions of oil supply have been addressed by citing volumes of reserves and/ or resources. Supply, however, cannot be estimated from volumes alone but must include economic considerations. An optimistic outlook on global oil supply commonly will include large volumes of unconventional resources or undiscovered fields. While very large` such resources cannot add proportionately large supply rates due to logistical limitations, project cost and funding constraints. One need...