Sustainability Plenary: the Challenge of Sustainable Energy

The objective of the session is to explore the long-term challenges of meeting the energy needs of society without serious adverse impacts on humanity and the environment. Accomplishing this goal presents two related issues: generating energy with minimal environmental impact and managing the demand for energy. The point is that the second law of thermodynamics and life-cycle assessment indicate any scheme for energy generation will have some level of impact on the environment. If the demand for energy is high enough, the resulting energy flow and resultant environmental impact can still be unacceptably high on a finite planet. Generating energy with minimal environmental impact falls within the broad scope of engineering, whereas managing the energy the demand for energy is in the realm economics and social science. We propose four invited speakers evenly divided between engineering and social science. Speakers will be by invitation only.