Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771

ENGINEERING COLLOQUIUM

Monday, April 24, 2006 / 3:30 PM, Building 3 Auditorium

Jesse H. Ausubel

"Big Green Energy Machines"

ABSTRACT -- During the past 100 years motors have grown from 10 kilowatts to 1 million kilowatts, scaling up an incredible 100,000 times. During the 21st century, energy demand is likely to grow from the present 10 terawatts to 50 or even 100 terawatts, as chips go into 1000 objects per capita, or 10 trillion objects, and China, India, and other nations log into the game. Modestly compared to the 20th century, we may expect that the largest machines in the energy system will grow 5 to 10 times. I seek an energy system that is 5 to 10 times more powerful than the present system but fits within its present footprint. I will discuss two ideas for big green energy machines suiting the context of the 21st century. The first is the very potent Zero Emission Power Plant (ZEPP) operating on methane. The vision is a supercompact, superpowerful, superfast turbine putting out electricity plus CO2 that can be sequestered. The second is the Continental SuperGrid to deliver electricity and hydrogen in an integrated energy pipeline.

SPEAKER -- Jesse H. Ausubel is Director of the Program for the Human Environment at The Rockefeller University and concurrently a Program Director for the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation in New York City. Mr. Ausubel spent the first decade of his career in Washington DC working for the National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Engineering. On behalf of the Academies, he was one of the main organizers of the first UN World Climate Conference in Geneva in 1979. He was also the main author of the 1983 report Changing Climate, the first comprehensive review of the greenhouse effect, and drafted Toward an International Geosphere-Biosphere Program: A Study of Global Change, the 1983 report originating the Global Change Program. In 1989 Mr. Ausubel moved to Rockefeller to establish a research program on long-term interactions of technology and the environment, patterns of technological diffusion, and means for a large prosperous society that spares nature. In 1991 he published the first paper referring to the "decarbonization" of the energy system. He co-authored several papers on technology and environment with the late Robert Herman (of microwave radiation fame).