Climate change 'the biggest threat to society'

Lester Kok speaks to two clean energy experts who sit on the advisory board of the new Energy Research Institute
Straits Times 19 Jun 10;

PROFESSOR Ashok Gadgil from the University of California, Berkeley, who is also on the seven-member advisory committee at the Energy Research Institute at Nanyang Technological University (ERI@N), holds great expertise in both environmental engineering and in water technology.

He has won several awards for his efforts in innovations such as a low-cost way of disinfecting water in developing nations, and a fire stove which is three times more efficient than normal fire stoves.

# Why is there a need for energy research?

I think it's a really exciting development that Singapore has decided to set up the energy research centre. We have, globally, seriously under-invested in future-looking energy technologies. Climate change represents the greatest threat to modern human society that we have ever faced and most of the modern society is still not aware of the urgency of the threat. I think, globally, we are unprepared for the scale of change and also the speed of change in energy technologies that is essential to stabilise the climate.

# How will energy research and development affect the world?

It should shape how billions of people use energy on a large scale in the world. The potential for ERI@N will be the engine for industrial advancement for energy development and use in other parts of the world. In some sense, if ERI@N takes the leadership in super efficient buildings, electric vehicles and integration of renewable energy into the power grid... (research in these areas will be) research drivers for entire sectors of society.

# How does water research tie in with energy?

We expect more and more people to need to use energy to obtain their water. Rapidly, we have grown in world population and are beginning to rely more on ground water, which we need to use energy to pump. We are using a lot of energy in fact to transport water... There is the use of energy for extracting water, processing water, transporting, and also desalination of water. On the other hand, we need water for producing electricity. Shortage of water for cooling (power plants) is already a concern. Energy and water are really two related problems and they're coming closer and closer to each other in terms of how the solution of one impacts the availability of the other.

# Many of your inventions look simple and low-tech in nature. Why is this so?

It looks low-tech, but making anything complicated is always easy. Making something simple is much, much harder. It takes a lot of good creative engineering science to come up with something simple, low- maintenance and robust.

Science and technology has fantastic opportunities for solving problems, even for poor people, to make solutions affordable to them... If lots of bright people work hard, then some of us will succeed... that's the point!

A bright future for renewable energy sources in Singapore
Lester Kok speaks to two clean energy experts who sit on the advisory board of the new Energy Research Institute
Straits Times 19 Jun 10;

PROFESSOR Michael Gratzel is the chairman of the advisory board of the new Energy Research Institute at Nanyang Technological University. He is the winner of this year's Millennium Technology Prize from Finland - an honour equivalent to the Nobel Prize in this field.

The Swiss scientist is the inventor of dye-sensitised solar cells, a cheap and good alternative to conventional silicon solar cells, which are costly and not as efficient.

# What is the aim of energy research?

This is the name of the game: get consumption down and save energy. Save energy in buildings. It is very sad that people are used to wasting energy in buildings, like leaving the air-conditioning on when there is nobody around.

We have to change also the culture of people to be more aware that a kilowatt hour (the energy consumed when 1,000 watts are used for one hour) is something that is very valuable. It can drive your electric car up to 10km.

# What changes do you foresee for the future?

A key thing for the future is electric cars. I think this city needs electric cars or hybrid cars, and the power can come from solar energy.

A very promising activity that I see is to integrate electric cars with a renewable energy source like solar power.

# How can your research and expertise help Singapore in its quest for clean power?

It's particularly applicable for Singapore because you don't have many roofs to mount solar panels. The dye-sensitised solar cells can be made transparent... so you can use it on vertical surfaces like windows. These cells are also ideally suited for indoor use, as with fluorescent light, we can get 20 per cent efficiency from it, much better than silicon cells.

# What about other sources of energy such as nuclear power?

Nuclear energy is an option... We have nuclear reactors in Switzerland, but we have problems and so do other countries. Nobody wants the waste as the radioactivity will last for a very long time.

The issue is how to control and safeguard the waste over thousands of years, and what cost and obligation this presents for future generations. It's 100,000 years of radioactive waste you have to take care of - that's almost as long as mankind has existed on this earth. That is a very long-term issue there.

Let's try to do it with renewable energy as much as we can. In the end, there will be only renewables, so we might as well invest in it appropriately now.