Thursday, November 8, 2018
Goalposts for the 2015 Paris Agreement to undo global warming have moved. Meanwhile, consumption of petroleum products internationally gallops ahead. The world’s top climate scientists in early October declared that keeping Earth’s temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius – per the Paris agreement – is no longer sufficient. Instead, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a consortium of experts from 40 countries, said that unless warming of 1.5 C (or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels is prevented, billions of people will face social and natural dangers such as rising seas, melting Arctic ice, and massive agricultural, industrial, and economic damage.
Carbon management, also called decarbonization, isn’t just about electrifying vehicles, increasing non-fossil fuel sources of electricity such as solar and wind, and improving energy storage with better batteries. Decarbonization of industrial processes, such as steelmaking and cement making, sequestering carbon underground, and reducing the carbon produced by heating and cooling, aviation, and long-distance transport by trucks and rail are very challenging.
Combating global warming through social action and technology innovation – including converting carbon dioxide from a global liability to a neutral element or even a profit center – seems to be gaining strength in the U.S., despite the U.S. government’s plan to walk away from the Paris accord. Is it possible to successfully transition our infrastructure from carbon producing to a net-zero carbon emissions energy system? What would it take to cut carbon emissions by half before 2030, and go carbon-neutral by 2050? This expert panel will discuss working innovations and others that are needed to affordably generate emissions-free electricity, create alternative materials, and reduce carbon dioxide from our world’s air.
Speakers
Roger Aines, Energy Program Chief Scientist, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Kendra Kuhl, Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer, Opus 12
Arun Majumdar, Director, Precourt Institute for Energy, Jay Precourt Professor, Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Stanford University
Sonya Vial, Team Lead, New Energies Research and Technology, Shell
Moderator: George Peridas, Senior Scientist, Climate and Clean Energy Program, Natural Resources Defense Council
Event Details
Agenda
Registration, networking, & hors d’oeuvres 5 p.m.
Program 6 p.m. – 7:15 p.m.
Location
SRI International
333 Ravenswood Avenue
Menlo Park, CA 94025
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