Chris Edwards	Lynn Orr	Bob Reidy
Joe Stagner	Jim Sweeney	John Weyant

Representatives from Stanford's office of Land, Buildings & Real Estate will introduce the project and provide an overview, followed by a panel discussion with professors Chris Edwards, Lynn Orr, Jim Sweeney and John Weyant.

• clean tech
• climate change
• energy efficiency
• environment
• greenhouse gases
• impacts
• industry expertise
• renewable energy
• sustainable built environment

Our global clean energy goals are really about controlling carbon fluxes. The basis for any expectation that we can achieve sustainability is our understanding of the Earth’s natural carbon cycles. To change global climate, the amount of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere needs to change, which in turn requires a change in the way carbon is moved around among the various forms and places it exists in and on the Earth. If one looks backward millions (and billions) of years into deep geologic time, and compares the Earth to other planets, it is possible to grasp how carbon can be moved in and out of planetary interiors, and how natural cycles have acted to regulate the Earth’s surface temperature. Although many of the details are uncertain, evidence indicates that natural processes have produced large changes in the amount of atmospheric CO2 in the geologic past. But, an essential aspect of geologic processes is that they act extremely slowly, even during times regarded as examples of rapid change.

• climate change
• energy policy
• environment
• greenhouse gases

The ocean covers 71% of the Earth's surface. It is abundant in renewable energy resources such as wind, wave, tidal, and gradients of salinity and temperature. With the exception of some offshore wind farms along the northern European coast, this vast reservoir of non-fossil fuel energy is untapped, even though roughly 40% of the world's population lives within 100 kilometers of the coast. With continued development of offshore wind power in Europe and initial projects planned for the US east coast, China, and Korea, larger contributions of offshore wind power are on the horizon. Similarly, several wave energy converters are in full scale prototype testing at sea.

Development of both renewable energy sources in co-located sites may improve the electric power performance of a combined wind and wave energy farm. While wave energy is primarily a wind driven phenomenon, at a particular location and time, the energy levels in the wind and waves may be different. Analysis of wind and wave data along the US Pacific coast indicates a synergy where combining the two energy sources in a co-located offshore farm reduces the variability in electric power output. The variability of electric power from renewable energy sources has been identified as a challenge to their large scale integration in the electric grid, but combining variable resources mitigates this problem, producing smoother power output than either resource can separately.

• asia
• china
• clean tech
• climate change
• environment
• greenhouse gases
• ocean energy
• renewable energy
• wind

A combination of policy measures and reduced costs have driven a rapid growth in global installed capacity of solar photovoltaics. This rapid growth has prompted concerns over the net energy yield of PV energy production. Mik will analyze the energy balance of the PV industry given historic and projected growth in capacity. Results suggest that, despite the large amount of energy required to manufacture and install PV systems, there is a high likelihood (greater than 80%) that the industry became a net provider of electricity between 2009 and today. If current trends continue, the industry will almost certainly be a net electricity producer by 2015 and will have ‘paid back’ the energy subsidy required for its early growth by the end of this decade. This analysis raises a number of implications for PV research, development and deployment including: further reducing the energy embodied within PV systems, including balance of system components; designing more efficient and durable systems; and deployment in regions that will achieve high capacity factors.

• clean tech
• climate change
• economics
• energy and climate policy
• energy efficiency
• energy for the developing world
• energy policy
• environment
• greenhouse gases
• impacts
• modeling
• renewable energy
• sustainable built environment