ASME Energy Committee Colloquium II

 

Purpose – This event provides attendees with the opportunity to view and participate in extended presentations and discussions about energy related issues with energy committee members and other engineering/science professionals and academics. Building on the success of the ASME Knowledge & Communities Sector Energy Committee’s Energy Colloquium I, this year’s event is jointly located with the ICONE and Power Conferences at the wonderful Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim. 

 

Invited – The Colloquium is open to everyone interested in Energy issues of today's world.  We especially invite local ASME members and engineering students to attend and participate in this forum. A small charge of $50 per attendee ($40 for students) will be used to offset the cost of the luncheons.

 

Accommodations – Accommodations for the C-II can be found on the ICONE/Power Conference website.  Please check here for details.

 

10:00-10:30 Colloquium Opening, Introductions and Presentations - Steven Unikewicz (Chair)

10:30-11:30 Inaugural J. A. Falcon Medal and Address: Robert G. Kennedy, III, P.E.
"Dyson Dots: Geoengineering with Giant Photovoltaic Mirrors in Space"

Abstract: No study of coping with climate change is complete without considering geoengineering. We propose placing a large (300K – 1M km2) lightsail(s) in a radiation-levitated non-Keplerian orbit just sunward of the Sun- Earth Lagrange-1 point. The purpose of this syncretic concept is twofold: (I) As a parasol, it would reduce insolation on Earth by at least one-quarter of a percent, same as that which caused 1.8°C drop during the “Little Ice Age” (~1550-1850), and same as the IPCC Third Report’s mid-range value for global warming by 2050. Lowering temperature will reduce the atmosphere’s water vapor content, which should reverse the increasing frequency and severity of storms, likewise reducing the damage accompanying climate change. The sail would utilize the very photons it diverts from us to maintain its position without expensive fuel. (II) As a photovoltaic power station, the sail could displace about 300 EJ/a (~100 trillion kWh/yr) of fossil-fired electricity for its creators, roughly the entire global demand forecast by 2050, in turn displacing most carbon burners from the terrestrial grid, providing revenue from clean energy sales to pay for the scheme. This approach to geoengineering is linear, scalable, incremental (“pay-as-you-go”), customizable, minimally intrusive, and above all, reversible. If a Tellurian spacefaring civilization built lightsails to fuel its exponential growth, then eventually there might be enough of them to have a detectable effect on Sol’s apparent luminosity as seen from far away, similar to the eponymous Dyson Sphere. For this reason, we tagged our concept with the moniker “Dyson Dot”.

11:35-12:30 Fossil Fuels – Phil Grossweiler, Larry Baxter
--Economics/Subsidies
--Peak World Oil
--Natural Gas: Science of Hydraulic Fracturing
--CCS

1:45-2:45 Fossil Fuels (cont’d) – Phil Grossweiler, Larry Baxter
--Economics/Subsidies
--Peak World Oil
--Natural Gas: Science of Hydraulic Fracturing
--CCS

2:45-4:45 The Science of Climate Change – Donald Rapp, Joshua Willis, Chuck Kutscher

4:45-5:45 Social Hour, Meet and Greet, Energy Discussions

9:00-9:15 Welcome, Brief Introductions - Steven Unikewicz (Chair)

9:15-10:30 Transmission – George Taylor, Rick Meeker, Tom Stacy

10:30-12:00 Renewables –George Taylor, Rick Meeker, Tom Stacy
--Wind
--Solar
--Integration of renewable into the grid

1:15-3:15 Nuclear - Ken Kok, Jonathan Labaki, Tom Hafera, Joe Miller, Nate Hurt           
--Current Status of Nuclear Power in the US and the World
--ASME Presidential Fukushima Task Force
--“Spent” nuclear fuel as a resource
--Small Modular Reactors and Early Career Engineering
--Generation IV Reactors

3:15-4:45 Biofuels - Tom Houlihan

4:45-5:30 Presentation by Don Gimpel