2020 Energy Seminars

January 9 | Dartmouth's Energy System 

Dartmouth Sustainability Director Rosi Kerr gives a presentation and answers questions about the campus energy system, developments in plannng, and the future of energy at Dartmouth. 

Read a student report on the presentation

January 23 |High-Performance Nickel-Iron (NiFE) Permanent Magnetics for Electric Motors and Turbines 

About this talk: Demand for high-performance permanent magnets for motors is increasing rapidly for applications such as wind turbine generators and motors in electric and hybrid cars. Sm-Co and Nd-Fe-B rare earth (RE) magnets, which have the highest energy product (BH)_max of any magnets, are used for such challenging applications. However, RE magnets are very expensive and RE mining has been associated with severe environmental degradation. In this project we aimed to establish a low-cost method to produce bulk L1_o - structured NiFe, which has magnetic properties comparable to the best RE magnets.

VIEW A PDF OF PROFESSOR BAKER'S PRESENTATION

January 30 | Energy and Society in Northern Greenland

About this talk: Arctic indigenous communities have valued hunting and fishing lifestyles for thousands of years. Today, Arctic subsistence lifestyles are being threatened by their current dependence on expensive fossil fuels. With sunlight availability on the scale of months rather than hours, life on a windless frozen Arctic fjord may become sustainable through a systems approach that includes adaptation of renewable energy technologies in solutions for interlinked energy-societal-environmental challenges. Upon the invitation of citizens of Greenland, in this stakeholder-driven pilot project we partner with the citizens of Qaanaaq to identify and articulate their needs, goals, and collaborative short-term and long-term projects that could lead to a sustainable hunting/fishing lifestyle in this remote area. The co-generation of knowledge in this Irving Institute-funded study is establishing a solid partnership and has set the stage for a larger recent award from NSF for continued research.

VIEW A PDF OF PROFESSOR ALBERT AND TEAM'S PRESENTATION

February 13 | Hawaii Energy Landscape: Examining the Transition to 100% Renewably Sourced Energy by 2045 with Tuck Students

About this talk: The Revers Center for Energy T'20 Fellows packed their Hawaiian shirts and traveled to Honolulu and Kona, Hawaii to examine the challenges of transitioning from exporting all energy to becoming 100% renewable energy by 2045. Visits included the Hawaiian Electric Company, the Hawaii State Energy Office, the Office of Climate Change, Sustainability, and Resiliency, the Elemental Excelerator, University of Hawaii, AES Hawaii (coal plant), Covanta Honolulu H-Power Waste to Energy plant, a microgrid, the Natural Energy Laboratory, and of course Parker Ranch with Dutch Kuyper T'92 and Jonathan Mitchell T'12. Come hear from the team on their conclusions about the state's diverging economic interests, technological limitations, cultural and religious elements, and competition for limited land that complicate this clean energy transition.

Feburary 20 | Student Experiential Learning and Research World Cafe with Dartmouth Undergraduate and Graduate Students

Read more about this event here.

Projects and Participants

• Dartmouth Energy Alliance: Max Holden, Joe Hall, Caroline Goggins
• Energy Blockchain for Financing and Carbon Offsetting: Junyang Ke
• Sustainability Corps: Hannah McGrath, Brandon Holmes, Emma Miller
• Gulf Coast Immersion Trip: Jennifer Chen & Pierce Wilson
• Studied Hydropower Resources, Snow Accumulation, & Snowmelt in Mt. Hunter, Alaska: Katie Anderson
• Installation of a Micro‐Hydroelectric Generator for the Inian Islands Institute in Alaska: Kevin Yang, Mallory Byrd, Abigail Brazil, Marissa Magsarili, and Ben Sacconne
• Exploring the structural capacities of mycelium as a novel building and insulative material, as well as its ability to cleanse rainwater of acidity and nutrient deposition: Kevin Yang
• Dartmouth Energy Future Team : Kevin Yang, Alex Derenchuck, Mallory Byrd
• Electrochemical Society Conference in Atlanta : Andrew Hamlin & Julia Huddy
• Research & Development of a Wearable Biomechanical Energy Harvesting Device: Haley Richards
• WindEurope Offshore 2019 Conference in Denmark: Rick Basak

March 5 | Analysis of Energy and Indigenous Environmental Studies in the Americas 

About this talk: Anthropologist Laura Ogden will discuss key themes important to Indigenous scholars working on energy issues in the United States. These themes include the centrality of water, energy and sovereignty, health and energy inequalities, as well as infrastructure politics. The Arthur L. Irving Institute for Energy and Society supported this project.

Read a student report about this talk  

April 21 | Earth 2020 

Our first Zoom-based seminar will feature a talk and Q&A with Irving Institute Director and Professor of Environmental Studies, Elizabeth Wilson. Professor Wilson will be discussing "Energy," a chapter she co-authored in the new book, Earth 2020: An Insider's Guide to a Rapidly Changing Planet (2020, Open Book Publishers, Philippe D. Tortell, ed.). 

Pre-reading is not required for attendance, but you can download the chapter here to read ahead of the event. Questions are encouraged! 

View a video recording of Professor Wilson's talk. 

May 5 | Darren Peers '96, TU'01, Senior VP, Capital Group: Near-term Dislocations and Longer Term Challenges of Energy Procurement

The world is experiencing an unprecedented supply/demand imbalance in energy as many nations' populations shelter at home to stop the spread of COVID-19. Darren Peers, an equity investment analyst at Capital Group financial services company, will discuss the current energy procurement landscape and the examine the medium and longer term challenges created by this supply/demand imbalance. 

Darren Peers has research responsibility for oil and gas exploration and production in the U.S. and Canada, oil and gas refining and marketing, as well as large-cap machinery companies in the U.S. He has 23 years of investment experience and has been with Capital Group for six years. Prior to joining Capital, Darren was a portfolio manager and energy analyst at NWQ Investment Management Company. Before that, he worked as an energy analyst and investment associate for Putnam Investments. He holds an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College and a bachelor's degree in economics from Dartmouth College.

View a video recording of Darren Peers' talk. 

May 19 | "Research with Impact —  Dartmouth's Role in Advancing New Hampshire's  Clean Energy Future"

ABOUT THIS TALK
As academics in the energy field, we are often publishing our research on how to best transform our energy systems to meet the challenge of global climate change. We develop new technologies, design new market mechanisms, and propose new policy measures. But publishing our research is one thing and making meaningful change is another.  

Fortunately, in 2019, the State of New Hampshire passed Senate Bills 284 and 286.  The former establishes a statewide, multi-use online energy data platform. The latter allows municipalities and counties to establish community power aggregators that can entirely transform retail electricity markets.  This presentation summarizes'  the speakers' role in in making New Hampshire's clean energy future a reality.  We will describe our contributions to Clean Power New Hampshire as a nascent community power program.  Furthermore, Salas and Farid have recognized that the success of such programs relies on timely and accurate data.  To that end, Salas will describe her Irving Institute-funded NH energy dashboard project. Farid will go on to describe his systems engineering efforts to architect NH's energy data platform as part of the NH PUC "Data Docket". The establishment of data-rich community power programs creates the potential for new transactive energy retail electricity markets that can accommodate large quantities of variable renewable energy resources.  To conclude the presentation, Farid will describe his Irving Institute-funded "LEBTEC" project that develops a transactive energy blockchain prototype for the City of Lebanon.

View a recording of this talk. 

June 2 | The Health Impacts of Air Pollution, Laura Paulin

Ever wonder what's in the air you breathe? Laura Paulin, Assistant Professor of Medicine, Section of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine and Assistant Professor of Epidemiology at the Geisel School of Medicine, will join us for the next Dartmouth Energy Collaborative online energy seminar on June 2. In this talk, Dr. Paulin will describe the basic chemical and physical properties of air pollution and review landmark epidemiological studies examining the human health impacts of air pollution. We will explore how several decades of air pollution research has shaped current legislation to mitigate air pollution exposures, and how these standards have impacted current pollutant concentrations. We will point out the limitations of US ambient air pollution standards, and discuss settings of interest, including rural pollution exposures.

View a recording of this talk.

June 30  | "Modern Environmental Politics: Big Data, Behavioral Science, and Why Voting Is Everything"

Co-sponsored by the Nelson A. Rockefeller Center for Public Policy and the Social Sciences at Dartmouth, the Dartmouth Government Department, and the Anthropocene Working Group at Dartmouth. 

View recording. 

About the Talk: Environmentalists aren't voting as much as they ought to, but recent advances in data analytics and behavioral science offer hope for 2020 and beyond. With fresh data from recent elections and mobilization experiments, voter turnout expert Nathaniel Stinnett will discuss how modern political campaigns identify and mobilize voters, and how that impacts environmental policy at the local, state, and federal level.

About the Speaker: Nathaniel Stinnett is the Founder and Executive Director of the Environmental Voter Project, a non-partisan nonprofit that uses data analytics and behavioral science to mobilize environmentalists to vote. Named one of five global "climate visionaries" by The New York Times in 2018, and dubbed "The Voting Guru" by Grist magazine, Stinnett is a frequent expert speaker on cutting-edge campaign techniques and the behavioral science behind getting people to vote. He has held a variety of senior leadership and campaign manager positions on U.S. Senate, Congressional, state, and mayoral campaigns, and he sits on the Board of Advisors for MIT's Environmental Solutions Initiative. Formerly an attorney at the international law firm DLA Piper, Stinnett holds a BA from Yale University and a JD from Boston College Law School, and he lives in Boston, MA with his wife and two daughters.

July 14 | Energy Stimulus Panel

Co-sponsored by the Nelson A. Rockefeller Center for Public Policy and the Social Sciences at Dartmouth and the Dartmouth Government Department

View recording.

Recent editorials by Sue Tierney and Dan Reicher '78 have presented interesting and important perspectives on opportunities and challenges facing stimulus investments in the energy sector. Join energy experts Tierney, Reicher, Abby Hopper '93, Tom Kiernan '81, and Jeff Dagle as they discuss stimulus investments supporting the creation of new energy systems. Read about the panelists here.

July 28 | Caitlyn Bunker, "Clean Energy Transition: What We've Learned from Partnering with Caribbean Islands to Develop Inclusive Approaches that Accelerate Progress"

View recording
 
About the Talk: Caribbean islands are among the first to be impacted by our global climate crisis, although their direct contribution to GHG emissions is minimal. At the same time, islands have chosen to be leaders in clean energy transition, recognizing that moving from their current centralized fossil-fueled electricity systems to distributed clean energy options brings a range of benefits, from reducing emissions to lowering electricity costs, increasing system resilience, and using local resource options. The Rocky Mountain Institute Islands Energy Program partners with Caribbean islands to define optimal pathways and accelerate their clean energy transitions. This presentation and discussion will focus on the approach developed by the RMI team to best support islands in their efforts through inclusive energy planning processes and a whole-systems approach. While there are unique aspects of small island electricity systems that create both challenges and opportunities, the presentation will also highlight aspects of islands' experiences that are relevant to larger electricity systems in other regions.

About the Speaker: Kaitlyn Bunker, Ph.D., P.E. leads the Islands Energy Program at Rocky Mountain Institute, including leading energy modeling and technical analysis to complete integrated resource plans in partnership with Caribbean island utilities, governments, and regulators. These plans take a whole-systems view of various options for the future of the electricity sector on each island, and lead to specific investment plans for clean energy solutions. She has worked closely with stakeholders in Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Belize, the British Virgin Islands, the Turks and Caicos Islands, and Bermuda. Kaitlyn also leads modeling efforts related to small island microgrid opportunities. She joined RMI after completing a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Michigan Technological University in Houghton, MI.

While often invisible in our daily lives, energy intersects with nearly every aspect of human experience, from health to wealth to the environment. As American voters cast their ballots in the November elections, the pandemic, the economy, and the climate will be at the forefront of their minds. Join us this fall as the Dartmouth Energy Collaborative hosts speakers who will explore energy-related issues that are impacting – and will be impacted by — the election. From the ways in which energy and climate are covered in the media to the social and racial justice implications of energy sourcing and infrastructure to the ways in which the clean energy transition is helping to mobilize a new generation of voters, we'll hear from a range of experts and practitioners to look at how energy shapes the political landscape.

September 15 |  Covering Climate Change on the Campaign Trail

View a recording of this talk

How have environmental issues — and in particular, climate change —impacted the ways that voters are communicating with their elected officials and reflecting changing priorities at the ballot box? NHPR environment and energy reporter Annie Ropeik will share her insights and perspectives on how climate change is showing up on the campaign trail and how it is shaping the 2020 election. 

About the Speaker: Annie Ropeik joined NHPR's reporting team in 2017, following stints with public radio stations and collaborations across the country. She has reported everywhere from fishing boats, island villages and cargo terminals in Alaska, to cornfields, factories and Superfund sites in the Midwest.

Her work has appeared on NPR, the BBC and CNN, and earned recognition from PRNDI and multiple state press clubs.
Originally from Silver Spring, MD, Annie caught the public media bug during internships at NPR in Washington and WBUR in Boston. She studied classics at Boston University and enjoys a good PDF, the rule of threes, and meeting other people's dogs.

September 29 | Wändi Bruine de Bruin: What Psychology & Behavioral Science Tell Us About Improving Climate & Energy Communications

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Grasping the basic science and implications around climate and energy issues is essential for citizens to make well—informed decisions around these issues. However, it can be a challenge for scientists to translate their expertise into widely apprehensible information. In this talk, Wändi Bruine de Bruin, Provost Professor of Public Policy, Psychology and Behavioral Science at the University of Southern California, will summarize key insights from a variety of projects on how to improve risk and science communication aimed at members of the general public.  

About the Speaker: Wändi Bruine de Bruin is Provost Professor of Public Policy, Psychology and Behavioral Science at the University of Southern California, where she is affiliated with the Sol Price School of Public Policy, the Dornsife Department of Psychology, the Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics, the Center for Economic and Social Research, the Center for Sustainability Solutions, and the National Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events (CREATE). Wändi holds a PhD in Behavioral Decision Research and Psychology from Carnegie Mellon University. Before coming to USC, she spent 7 years at the University of Leeds, where she directed the Centre for Decision Research and was deputy director of the Priestley International Centre on Climate.  Wändi's research uses insights and methods from behavioral science and psychology to understand and inform how individuals make decisions, about a wide variety of topics, including climate change and its impacts, sustainability, personal health, and household finance. She has published more than 120 peer-reviewed papers on this topics, in academic journals in psychology, environmental science, engineering, public health, and other fields.  She is on the editorial boards of the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, the Journal of Risk Research, the Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, Psychology and Aging, Decision, and Medical Decision Making. She has served on several expert panels on risk and science communication, including at the National Academy of Sciences and the Council of the Canadian Academies. 

October 13 | Jennie Stephens: Diversifying Power: Why We Need Antiracist, Feminist Leadership on Climate & Energy

View a recording of this talk.

The climate crisis is a crisis of leadership. For too long too many leaders have prioritized corporate profits over the public good, exacerbating climate vulnerabilities while reinforcing economic and racial injustice. Transformation to a just, sustainable renewable-based society requires leaders who connect social justice and antiracist, feminist principles to climate and energy.  During the Trump era, connections among white supremacy; environmental destruction; and fossil fuel dependence have become more conspicuous. The inadequate and ineffective male-dominated framing of climate change as a narrow, isolated, discrete problem to be "solved" by technical solutions has inhibited investments in social change and social innovations. But inspiring leaders who are connecting climate and energy with job creation and economic justice, health and nutrition, housing and transportation, are advancing exciting transformative change. Bold diverse leaders are resisting the "the polluter elite" to restructure society by catalyzing a shift to a just, sustainable, regenerative, and healthy future.

About the Speaker: Jennie C. Stephens is Director of Northeastern University's School of Public Policy & Urban Affairs, Dean's Professor of Sustainability Science & Policy, and Director for Strategic Research Collaborations at the Global Resilience Institute.  She is an internationally-recognized expert on renewable transformation, energy justice, climate resilience, and gender in energy innovation. Trained at Harvard and Caltech, she is a transdisciplinary academic with two decades of experience linking environmental science and technology with policy and social change. Visit her website at www.jenniecstephens.com.

October 27 | Leah Stokes: Short Circuiting Policy: Interest Groups and the Battle Over Clean Energy and Climate Policy in the American States

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In 1999, Texas passed a landmark clean energy law, beginning a groundswell of new policies that promised to make the US a world leader in renewable energy. As Leah Stokes shows in Short Circuiting Policy, however, that policy did not lead to momentum in Texas, which failed to implement its solar laws or clean up its electricity system. Examining clean energy laws in Texas, Kansas, Arizona, and Ohio over a thirty-year time frame, Stokes argues that organized combat between advocate and opponent interest groups is central to explaining why states are not on track to address the climate crisis. She tells the political history of our energy institutions, explaining how fossil fuel companies and electric utilities have promoted climate denial and delay. Stokes further explains the limits of policy feedback theory, showing the ways that interest groups drive retrenchment through lobbying, public opinion, political parties and the courts. More than a history of renewable energy policy in modern America, Short Circuiting Policy offers a bold new argument about how the policy process works, and why seeming victories can turn into losses when the opposition has enough resources to roll back laws.

About the Speaker: Leah Stokes is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science and affiliated with the Bren School of Environmental Science & Management and the Environmental Studies Department at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB).

She works on energy, climate and environmental politics. Within American Politics, her work focuses on representation and public opinion; voting behavior; and public policy, particularly at the state level. Within environmental politics, she researches climate change, renewable energy, water and chemicals policy. Her research has been published in top journals including the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, British Journal of Political Science, Nature Energy, Energy Policy, and Environmental Science & Technology. She has also published articles in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, CNN and elsewhere.