Credit: MIT
Susan Hockfield,President, MIT
Posted on 05/04/2006 1:53:00 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
<
CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--The Massachusetts Institute of Technology issued a preliminary report on Wednesday that calls for technology development and government policies to avert a "perfect storm" forming around energy.
MIT's Energy Research Council report (click here for PDF) was the result of a year-long study. It concluded that industrialized nations need to accelerate a switch to cleaner and more efficient sources of fuel, a transition that could take 50 years.
During a presentation at the university on Wednesday, MIT President Susan Hockfield said that addressing the world's energy problems "is one of the most urgent challenges of our time."
The university intends to create a permanent energy laboratory or center within five years, which it will do over several phases. Its report calls for the creation of several multidisciplinary programs, each requiring up to several million dollars in funding per year.
Hockfield said that interest in energy is higher than it has been in a generation, and she expects that interest to remain high in the coming years.
She said a combination of rising energy demand around the world, security issues related to energy, and environmental problems--notably global warming and climate change--from pollution "are not going away."
"I think the energy challenge is far more pressing than the energy challenge that presented itself 20 years ago," Hockfield said.
In her inaugural university address last May, Hockfield called for the creation of the 16-member Energy Research Council, which involves all of MIT's schools.
Council co-chair Ernest Moniz, from MIT's physics and engineering systems divisions, said that the worldwide energy picture is very complex and resists a single solution.
Instead, during a presentation on Wednesday, he called for research in a broad range of topics, including nanomaterials to improve the conductivity of fuel cell catalysts as well as improvements in renewable energy and energy storage.
"There is no silver bullet," said Moniz. "All of this is really about options, technologies and policies to provide to the marketplace to respond."
Moniz said the council will involve faculty from several different disciplines and will work with both government and industry partners.
Some one might have believed you.....ROFL!
I thought it was true when I was a child...but now I realize I was an idiot...well at least a nerd.
Our consumer-based economy is driven by and dependent upon readily-available, reliable energy-- choke that off, and we'll all be back to using one rotary dial phone in the dining room, watching one TV in the living room, and driving one car per family-- probably a Hudson Hornet or a Nash Metropolitan...
We need to
1) end the nonsensical ban on offshore drilling off California and Florida--read & weep:
Castro Plans to Drill 45 Miles from US Shores, But We Can't
2) build a lot of next-generation nuclear power plants, not just for electricity, but for any process requiring heat, power, or steam.
And if we replaced our existing nuclear plants with this one there would be significant benefits.
3) end Jimmy Carter's idiotic ban on recycling nuclear waste, and reprocess the stuff rather than fighting over where to bury it. Europe has done this for decades.-- what to do with spent nuclear fuel? Answer here: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1468321/posts?page=50#50 hattip: Mike (former Navy Nuclear Engineer)
4) use the 300-500 years worth of coal we have on our own land, using the new clean-coal technology.
-Clean Coal Centre--
5) and finally, there's nothing wrong with conservation, we should all practice it- but you can't conserve your way out of a shortage. Nor is there anything wrong with "alternative" energy sources- except they don't supply the vast ( not to mention readily-available ) amounts of power we need at a price competitive to more conventional sources. Then again, there is this to ponder:
Energy From the Gulf Stream
http://www.energy.gatech.edu/presentations/mhoover.pdf
We do need to get serious about this before we get strangled by a bunch of petty thieves and dictators who don't like us much.
My tongue-in-cheek collection of energy-related links:
Sticker Shock-$3 a gallon gas? Click the picture:
And kindly note, and note well-- the first reply to this post ( when gas was $1.45 a gallon ) was derisive... so, who's laughing now?
Vest-Pocket Summary:
1- drill for gas & oil like crazy- onshore, offshore, and in Alaska
2- go nuclear for power
3- convert stationary plants to clean coal technology or Next-Gen Nuclear
4- slash taxes and regulations like crazy
Thats the problem, they don't know either.
free market at work!!! but don't expect the media to blow a trumpet.
Wow! This lady IS a genius. They can't go away if the NEVER EXISTED. She shore is smart.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/analysis_publications/oil_market_basics/Demand_text.htm
Always good to hear from you, Ernest_at_the_Beach.
05/04/06 FOX News Poll: Gas Prices a Problem, but Not a Crisis
*****************************AN EXCERPT ***********************************
Fully 79 percent of Americans think giving tax incentives to companies to encourage development of alternatives fuel would help the energy situation, and 68 percent think it would help to drill in the and the Gulf of Mexico.
Consumers have mixed views on whether $100 rebate checks to taxpayers (40 percent help, 42 percent hurt) and relaxing environmental standards (46 percent help, 44 percent hurt) would do more good or more harm. Two-thirds think it would hurt the long-term energy situation to raise gas prices above $5 dollars a gallon to encourage conservation (65 percent).
Overall, Americans now lean toward focusing on the supply problem. By a 49 percent to 35 percent margin, the public thinks the better way to reduce dependence on foreign oil is to increase supply by drilling more in the United States rather than decreasing demand by requiring conservation.
FNC Poll: 05/04/06 FOX News Poll: Gas Prices a Problem, but Not a Crisis ~ increase supply...
What government grants? Have a look at the US DOE website; the grants are very few. If a scientist wants a grant, he or she should apply to an oil or coal corporation. They have the grant money. Exxon alone has doled out more than $18 million alone in grants to scientists who are willing to support its ideology. That's just one company.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.