Dr. Joseph Romm is a leading expert on hydrogen, fuel cells, and advanced transportation technologies. He is author of the forthcoming primer, The Hype About Hydrogen: Fact and Fiction in the Race to Save the Climate. Romm is the principal investigator for the National Science Foundation project, “Future Directions for Hydrogen Energy Research and Education.”
Romm was Acting Assistant Secretary at DOE's billion-dollar Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy during 1997 and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary from 1995 though 1998. In that capacity, he helped manage the largest program in the world for helping businesses develop and use advanced energy technologies and to begin the transition to a hydrogen economy.
The Office is the lead federal agency for developing technologies for hydrogen production and storage, PEM fuel cells, hybrid vehicles and other advanced transportation technologies, cogeneration, wind, photovoltaics, and other renewables. The Office is also the lead federal agency for accelerating the deployment of alternative fuel vehicles. Romm was in charge of technology and market analysis for the office. Romm helped lead formulation of the Administration's climate change technology strategy. Romm helped launch the program’s multi-million dollar efforts on stationary PEM fuel cell applications.
Romm is a principal with Capital E, a premier provider of strategic consulting, technology assessment, and sustainable design services for fuel cells and other clean energy technologies (www.cap-e.com). Romm is also executive director and founder of the Center for Energy and Climate Solutions—a one‑stop shop helping businesses and states adopt high-leverage strategies for saving energy and cutting pollution (www.cool-companies.org).
Romm has co-authored some of the first energy and environmental analyses of fuel cells in buildings. He oversaw the first DOE analysis of the role PEM fuel cells could play in saving energy and reducing emissions in buildings. He co-authored one of the first peer-reviewed articles to compare fuel cells with other micro-cogeneration technologies in commercial buildings and one of the first articles to examine the energy savings from co-generating fuel cells in residential buildings. Romm performed the first environmental analysis of a system integrating cogenerating fuel cells, fly wheels, and power electronics aimed at achieving very high-availability power.
Romm consults with businesses such as IBM, Johnson & Johnson, Collins Pine, Nike, Timberland, Texaco, and Lockheed-Martin on energy technology and environmental strategy. He is author of the first book to benchmark corporate best practices for using advanced energy technologies including fuel cells to reduce greenhouse gas emissions: Cool Companies: How the Best Businesses Boost Profits and Productivity By Cutting Greenhouse Gas Emissions.
Romm holds a Ph.D. in physics from M.I.T. He has written and lectured widely on advanced transportation technologies, hydrogen, fuel cells, distributed energy, business and environment issues, including articles in Technology Review, Forbes, Foreign Affairs, The New York Times, Houston Chronicle, Washington Post, Science magazine, and The Industry Standard. He is co-author with Charles Curtis of "MidEast Oil Forever," the cover story of the April 1996 issue of the Atlantic Monthly, which predicted that the major oil-exporting nations would regain pricing control of oil within the decade and discussed alternative energy strategies. Romm is widely quoted in the media on energy technology matters, including the Wall Street Journal, Fortune magazine, Time, Newsweek, Business Week, NBC Evening News, and NPR.
Good catch about the author, Cog. I know you are one of the moderate voices about Global Warming here on FR, and your input is appreciated.
Typical liberal, when in the face of logic turn to a personal attack. Some of the facts that Crichton put out there was very damaging to their money making efforts.
A physicist points out that a novelist bent the truth in his FICTIONAL story line. Gasp! Say it isn't so. He needs to get over himself.
".. Jurassic Park (fear of biotechnology)."
I thought Jurassic Park was about the fear of being eaten by velociraptors?
Romm is a Moron...what a waste of Oxygen.
Crichtons book was great, and More fact than fiction.
Enviromentalists..are Insane, arrogant, Retards...and Romm proves it.
It is a fact that they Lie, Cheat, skew, and everything else
to Brainwash the public into thinking the World is "Doomed!"
All to "Save Us from the Evil Industrialists"
I am Not the least Impressed with MIT or any Degreed Idiot
who comes from there. Degrees are not worth the Paper they are printed on today.
Universities today are P.C. strongholds of Crap.
Go to Hell Romm...We dont Believe you. go tell it to
Bill Mahar.
I remember in the 60's and 70's that summer weather reports always included a statement on temperature inversions. The inversions kept the smog low to the earth. I used to see brown clouds floating at several hundred feet from the fossil fuel plants around Boston. That's all gone now. The air is clean, No more reports about temperature inversions.
Now that the sunlight gets through, the we should feel warmer. Maybe the global warming fanatics could change black rubber roofs to white. And, paint the roads white to boot. With our cleaner air, we have a greater need to reflect light back to the heavens. Either that or bring back light blocking sooty smog.
I am not sure that it follows that Dr. Romm's comments regarding the alleged inaccuracies in Crichton's novel should be dismissed without consideration. He gives specific examples of incorrect information - if he is not accurate, deal with that, not his scientific orientation.
Say what? So far as I can tell, the only 'fact' modern novelists respect is that any difference between a .44 Magnum and a tac nuke can be overcome by handloading. There are a couple of authors (Ludlum, for one) who I no longer read because their plots are based on 'facts' so recklessly mangled that they insult the readers' intelligence.
Huh, well, most did. The statement is correct. I have a book published back then making that prediction. No one was talking about "Global Warming" at all.
In the 1970s, it was not yet clear whether the cooling effect from aerosols would be greater than the heating produced from greenhouse gases. Now we know: the heating wins. This episode, fairly explained, would give readers greater confidence in our understanding of climate science, not less.
What this means is that if the environmentalists didn't force us to "clean up" the air from the 1970's onward, we'd still be in a cooling state.
What I really think is that we've averted a likely restart of the ice age (which is the global "norm", actually), and I think kudo's should be given to every petroleum worker for their hard ward in saving the planet.
Obviously Dr. Romm has a substantial vested interest in keeping global warming hysteria alive. His living, his professional reputation, and his research funds depend on it.
"That’s a major mistake by Crichton: seismic tsunamis aren’t caused by global warming, as any climate scientist, even an evil one, knows."
That didn't stop one environmental pin-head from declaring EXACTLY that after the Tsunami of 12/04.
Asses.
"Global warming did level off between 1940 and 1975. We now know that this was largely a result of dust and aerosols sent by humans into the atmosphere that temporarily overwhelmed the warming effect from greenhouse gases. In the 1970s, it was not yet clear whether the cooling effect from aerosols would be greater than the heating produced from greenhouse gases. "
Whenever I hear someone talk about human activity "causing" global warming, I have to wonder if they've ever seen the eruption of Mount St. Helens which spewed thousands of tons of debris, noxious chemicals and gases into the atmosphere. Over time, mother nature managed to 'scrub' it all out of the air. These are the events which have an impact on climate change and they occur all over the world on a fairly regular basis.
The depth of ignorance of some people knows no limit.....
It looks like Dr. Romm is being somewhat dishonest himself. A person holding a Ph.D. in physics almost certainly knows that 1) hydrogen does not naturally occur in a free state (on Earth, anyway)--it is always covalently bonded to other atoms; 2) it takes as much energy to break a bond (to free the hydrogen) as one gains by making a bond (how the fuel cell releases energy); 3) there is never 100% conversion of energy from one form to another--IIRC, the best one could hope for would be ~90%, in an ideal system. Hydrogen fuel cells MIGHT be clean (hmm, do they contain heavy metals?), but producing the energy to produce the hydrogen won't be any cleaner than any other production of energy.
Since Dr. Romm is himself dishonest, how can I trust his truthfulness in any criticism he could make of Crichton? Or that his depiction of what Crichton wrote is accurate?