Climate Crisis & Science Priorities: A Case Study on Thermoelectric Technology A Colloquium at University of Rochester's Energy Research Initiative By Cronin B. Vining, Auburn, Alabama, cvining2009@cvining.com
The Climate Crisis requires reevaluation of priorities and long term planning beyond anything ever attempted. 40 years ago we put men on the moon, but since then we’ve had a new 5-year plan every 6 months. Humans aren’t good at long-term planning. By 2050, about 40 years from now, we need to replace practically everything about how we use resources on earth with sustainable technologies. The scale of the problem is sobering. Business-as-usual science and technology priorities won’t get us there: only a sustained, focused global effort will. Scientists particularly need to reevaluate their own specialties with respect to the global scale of the problem and the timescales involved. The need for sustainable energy technologies are particularly acute. For example, we need to replace a 1 gigawatt electrical power plant every day for 30 years just provide today’s electricity consumption. This talk focuses primarily on thermoelectric technology as a case study in the context of the Climate Crisis. The basic principles and capabilities of thermoelectric technology will be discussed with particular attention to its potential to impact the Climate Crisis. This is timely since thermoelectric technology has been discussed as a possible major player in solar-thermal electricity generation, waste heat recovery in automobiles and other power generation applications. The core findings in this respect were presented to former Vice President Al Gore at one of his Solutions Summits in 2008.
}, year = {2009}, month = {20090610}, address = {Universtity of Rochester, Rochester, NY}, url = {https://cvining.com/system/files/articles/vining/presentations/20090610-Rochester.pdf}, language = {eng}, }