DOE ARPA-E Director at the Stanford Energy Seminar

1 October 2012 | News
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Former Director of the Dept of Energy ARPA-E Program, Dr. Arun Majumdar, came to the weekly Energy Seminar on Monday, Oct 1. His talk was titled “A New Industrial Revolution for a Sustainable Energy Future” and was an overview of a paper he published with the Secretary of Energy, Dr. Steven Chu.

Read the full paper here & watch the full lecture here or see the video below:

 

A couple of interesting points jumped out from his talk including the following pieces of food for thought:

  • We have emitted 1.1 Tn tons of CO2 since the industrial revolution, but if you emit all the CO2 based on current fossil reserves it totals and additional 3Tn tons.
  • At our current rate, we could deplete these remaining fossile resources in the next 75-100 years. In other words, we could emit 3x more CO2 than we have in the last 300+ years in less than 1/3rd the time.
  • The stone age did not end because we ran out of stones…we transitioned to better solutions

Other topics covered include: Advances in power electronics to replace aging transformers with new, more compact alternatives; Ways to reduce weight with new body and battery materials for electric vehicles; Liquified natural gas for long-haul trucking and consumer vehicles; Alternative ways to produce carbon based fuels from CO2 (electrofuels); etc.