Session H06: Fighting Climate Change: Overcoming hurdles to implement non-carbon technologies

Leo Szilard Lectureship Award: The Right Path to Decarbonization

Human-caused climate change is arguably the greatest threat we face as a civilization. Efforts to attack and deny the scientific evidence have constituted a major impediment to action over the past two decades. At a time when we appear to be moving past outright denial of the problem, we face a multi-pronged strategy by polluting interests to distract, deflect, attack, and divide the climate activist community. Among their tactics is the promotion of risky, unproven mitigration strategies that seek to enable the continued burning of fossil fuels that is at the very root of the problem. There is still time to for us to avert the worst impacts of climate change if we act now and we act boldly, but there is no time left for dead ends and wrong turns. I will discuss what we need to do, emphasizing the importance of both urgency AND agency in addressing the climate crisis.   

Global Rare Earth Supply Chains: Persistent Myths and Possible Pathways Forward

 This talk addresses some of the most common misperceptions about global rare earth supply chains, based on over a decade of international research and engagement with local communities, policy-makers, and industry stakeholders.      

Making Power Markets Designed for Fossil Generation Fit for Purpose When Renewables and Storage Dominate

The goal of power markets is to provide incentives for generators, transmitters, and users of power to meet our electricity needs sustainably, reliably, and at least cost.  Principles of good design include penalizing pollution, establishing level playing fields that are open to all comers and reward performance, and prices that reflect for how decisions at one place and time affect system reliability and costs elsewhere and later.   How do the very different operating characteristics of storage, variable renewables, and demand response challenge existing electricity market designs and policies, which were designed primarily for systems with large dispatchable thermal gennerators?  Can those designs be adapted, or should they be scrapped for altogether different approaches?