“Powering the Planet” Nate Lewis

One of my favorite lines was in his conclusion,

What we must do is have an informed discussion of how much risk we are willing to live with, and then adjust our level of investment commensurate to being comfortable with that level of risk, with respect to developing globally scalable and economically viable technologies capable of producing 10-20 TW of carbon-free power by the mid-21 st century.

- Nate Lewis

Nate Lewis’ lecture was very well put together. I really liked the fact that even though he was talking about a topic, that could be seen as complex his audience was able to understand and following what he was saying. His lecture was full of facts and he was able to keep his opinion out which was nice. He was teaching his audience and they were interpreting what he was saying. I couldn’t find anything in what he was saying to be false or misleading and I feel like his lecture conveyed urgency as well as hope.

Not only did he present the problem but he presented possible solutions. For example he talks about ways we could possibly improve solar power. He said, “It is also useful to compare “artificial photosynthesis” in which inorganic or organic materials, such as those used in photovoltaics, are used in an integrated system to produce fuels as described above, with modification of natural photosynthesis, i.e., bioengineered plants and bioengineered biomass farms, to produce fuels. Both are solar energy farms broadly defined.” (It sounds better and less complex when you see him explain it in his lecture).

As the lecture proceeded I kept thinking to myself, “Dang, we have a lot of work to do, this isn’t going to be easy.” He kept coming back to the point…we could either find a more productive way to create energy or we could keep living the way we are and see what happens. I think that, that was one of the strongest points in his lecture. It really hits home and makes you think…do you really want to take that big of a risk? It’s not like your gambling your money away in a Casino, you’re gambling with life (many lives) and the assets you can lose are greater than yourself (meaning-the world).