Review of energy solutions to global warming, air pollution, and energy security

NOTE: This is a Friday.

This Forum will review and rank major proposed energy-related solutions to global warming, air pollution mortality, and energy security while considering other impacts of the proposed solutions, such as on water supply, land use, wildlife, resource availability, thermal pollution, water chemical pollution, nuclear proliferation, and undernutrition. Nine electric power sources and two liquid fuel options are considered in this study. The electricity sources include solar-photovoltaics (PV), concentrated solar power (CSP), wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, wave, tidal, nuclear, and coal with carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. The liquid fuel options include corn-ethanol (E85) and cellulosic E85. In addition, twelve combinations of energy source-vehicle type are considered. The talk will conclude with recommendations on the most effective combination of technologies as a solution to global warming, air pollution, and energy security.

Presenter(s)

Prof. Jacobson is Director of the Atmosphere/Energy Program and Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Stanford University. He is also Professor of Energy Resources Engineering, by courtesy and Senior Fellow of the Woods Institute for the Environment, by courtesy. He received a B.S. in Civil Engineering with distinction, an A.B. in Economics with distinction, and an M.S. in Environmental Engineering from Stanford University, in 1988. He received an M.S. in Atmospheric Sciences in 1991 and a PhD in Atmospheric Sciences in 1994 from UCLA. He has been on the faculty at Stanford since 1994. His work relates to the development and application of numerical models to understand better the effects of energy systems and vehicles on climate and air pollution and the analysis of renewable energy resources. He has published two textbooks, "Fundamentals of Atmospheric Modeling" and "Atmospheric Pollution: History, Science, and Regulation," and over 80 peer-reviewed scientific journal articles. He received the 2005 American Meteorological Society Henry G. Houghton Award for "significant contributions to modeling aerosol chemistry and to understanding the role of soot and other carbon particles on climate.". His paper, "Effects of ethanol versus gasoline on cancer and mortality in the United States" was the top-accessed article in the Journal Environmental Science and Technology April-September, 2007. A news story on his paper, "On the causal link between carbon dioxide and air pollution mortality," was one of the top three most popular research news stories of 2008 published by Environmental Research Web. His recent paper, "Review of solutions to global warming, air pollution, and energy security," can be found at www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/revsolglobwarmairpol.htm.