February 17, 2010

Chris Llewellyn Smith, President of the Council of SESAME (Synchrontron Light for Experimental Science and its Applications in the Middle East), Vice President of the Royal Society, Visiting Professor at Oxford University

Providing adequate food, water and energy for the world’s rising population, in the face of looming climate change and (in the longer-term) depletion of fossil fuels, is the greatest challenge of the 21st century. Provision of adequate energy is the key, necessary, condition for meeting the challenge. The developed world could survive perfectly well with less energy, but an increase is needed to lift billions out of poverty in the developing world, where a quarter of the world’s population lacks electricity. Meeting future demand will be difficult enough: meeting it in an environmentally responsible manner will be an enormous challenge. I will review the nature of the challenge and the portfolio of measures that must be adopted if it is to be met. These include greater efficiency, the deployment of carbon capture and storage (if feasible), expansion of the use of renewable energy sources to the maximum extent reasonably possible, and major expansion of nuclear power. In the second half of the century major contributions will be needed from nuclear power (in the longer term: thorium and/or fast breeder reactors), and/or solar power, and/or fusion: all must be developed as a matter of urgency. I will put special emphasis on fusion, which is still in the development phase, because of its enormous potential, and because I have been working on fusion. The technical challenge is enormous, but the political and economic challenges are even greater.



Bio: Chris Llewellyn Smith is a theoretical physicist. He is currently President of the Council of SESAME (Synchrotron-light for Experimental Science and its Applications in the Middle East), a Vice President of the Royal Society, and a Visiting Professor in the Oxford Physics Department. He has served as Chairman of the Council of ITER (2007-09) and of the Consultative Committee for Euratom on Fusion (2004-09), and was Director of UKAEA Culham (2003-2008), with responsibility for the UK's fusion program and for operation of the Joint European Torus (JET). He was Provost and President of University College London (1999 - 2002), Director General of CERN (1994 - 1998), and Chairman of Oxford Physics (1987 - 1992). While at Culham he developed and vigorously promoted the ‘Fast Track’ approach to the development of fusion power, which has been officially adopted by the European Commission. During his mandate as DG of CERN the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) was approved and started, and the Large Electron Positron Collider (LEP) was successfully upgraded. After completing his Doctorate in Oxford in 1967, he worked briefly in the Physical Institute of the Academy of Sciences in Moscow, before spending periods at CERN and the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, after which he returned to Oxford in 1974. Chris Llewellyn Smith has written and spoken widely on science funding, international scientific collaboration and energy issues. His scientific contributions and leadership have been recognized by awards and honors in seven countries on three continents.



Source: energyseminar.stanford.edu/node/211

 

1. Global Climate Architectural Policy
2. Demystifying and De-Jargoning the Smart Grid
3. U.S. Shale Gas: From Resources and Reserves to Carbon Isotope Anomalies
4. Extending the Grid: Transmission Siting Issues and How to Resolve Them
5. Integrating More Than 50% Wind on the Grid: A Case Study
6. Controlling Climate Change after Copenhagen
7. The Energy Challenge and the Case for Fusion
8. COP15 and the Stanford Student Experience
9. China's Growing Global Influence: A Solar Energy Perspective

The Energy Seminar is produced by the Woods Institute and the Precourt Institute for Energy (PIE) at Stanford University. and is comprised of an interdisciplinary series of talks primarily by Stanford experts on a broad range of energy topics.







The Precourt Institute for Energy (PIE) has been established as a new independent institute at Stanford that engages in a broad-ranging, interdisciplinary program of research and education on energy - applying fundamental research to the problem of supplying energy in environmentally and economically acceptable ways, using it efficiently, and facing the behavioral, social, and policy challenges of creating new energy systems for the U.S. and the world.