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Integrated Energy and Resource Recovery from Waste and Wastewater

Craig Criddle, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Stanford University

Richard G.Luthy, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Stanford University

Monday, February 13, 2012 | 04:15 PM - 05:15 PM | NVIDIA Auditorium, Jen-Hsun Huang Engineering Center | Free and Open to All

 

 

 

 

 


Craig Criddle

  


Richard Luthy

        

By the end of the 20th century, the United States had about 15,000 wastewater treatment plants and 13,000 landfills. These systems were designed to prevent environmental harm and to protect public health. Other factors, such as energy costs and climate change, were not a consideration. Waste and wastewater were collected, transported to centralized facilities, treated to remove harmful agents, and the effluents and residuals discharged. Now these systems have reached their design life and are in need of revitalization. Energy costs, climate change, and demand for secure supplies of water, food and materials provide powerful incentives for technological innovation through the creation of circular markets. In such markets, wastewater becomes a resource for local production of freshwater and nutrients, and organic waste becomes feedstock for local production of energy and biomaterials. Many groups around the world are now developing technology to enable such innovation.

 

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Precourt Institute for Energy at Stanford: The Grand Challenge

Lynn Orr, Keleen and Carlton Beal Professor in Petroleum Engineering, Energy Resources Engineering Department Director, Precourt Institute for Energy

 

Panelists: 

Wednesday, October 6, 2010 | 04:15 PM - 05:15 PM | Building 420, Room 40 | Free and Open to All

Franklin M. ("Lynn") Orr, Jr. became the director of the Precourt Institute for Energy at Stanford upon its establishment in 2009. He served as director of the Global Climate and Energy Project from 2002 to 2008. Orr was the Chester Naramore Dean of the School of Earth Sciences at Stanford University from 1994 to 2002. He has been a member of the Stanford faculty since 1985 and holds the Keleen and Carlton Beal Chair of Petroleum Engineering in the Department of Energy Resources Engineering, and is a Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment. His research activities focus on how complex fluid mixtures flow in the porous rocks in the Earth's crust, the design of gas injection processes for enhanced oil recovery, and CO2 storage in subsurface formations. Orr is a member of the National Academy of Engineering. He serves as vice chair of the board of directors of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, and he chairs the Science Advisory Committee for the David and Lucile Packard Foundation and was a foundation board member from 1999-2008.

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Nano-scaled Materials for the Synthesis of Fuels from Sunlight

Thomas Jaramillo, Stanford University

Wednesday, April 21, 2010 | 04:15 PM - 05:15 PM | Building 420, Room 40 | Free and Open to All

Solar energy is an attractive option that could potentially provide our energy needs in sustainable fashion, but a number of major scientific challenges stand in the way of developing cost-effective methods to capture and store solar energy at the terrestrial scale. One means to store this energy is in the form of fuels, i.e. using solar energy to drive redox reactions such as splitting water into H2 and O2 or the conversion of atmospheric CO2 to alcohols and hydrocarbons. This talk will focus on the development of the three key components needed to synthesize liquid and gaseous fuels from sunlight: (1) semiconductors with appropriate electronic band structure for solar photon absorption and for sufficient photovoltage to drive redox reactions, (2) water oxidation catalysis to provide the protons and electrons needed for the fuel synthesis reduction reactions, and (3) electro-reduction catalysis for the evolution of hydrogen and/or the reduction of CO2 to liquid fuels. The exploitation of nano-scale effects will be discussed as a means to tailor material surface and bulk properties to fit these needs.

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Solar Cell Technology in 2009 and Beyond

Professor Michael McGehee, Director, Center for Advanced Molecular Photovoltaics, Stanford University

Wednesday, November 11, 2009 | 04:15 PM - 05:15 PM | Building 420, Room 40 | Free and Open to All

Professor McGehee will provide an overview of the technologies and economic considerations covered in his Solar Cells course. He will compare crystalline silicon, amorphous silicon, CdTe, CIGS, tandem and organic solar cells as well as emerging concepts that utilize multiple exciton generation and nanowires. He will explain how the solar cells are made, how they operate, what limits their performance and how their performance to cost ratio is likely to evolve over time.
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