Collaborating on energy policy

Originally published in the Spring 2012 edition of Innovation magazine.

By Eugene Coyle, visiting Fulbright Scholar from the Dublin Institute of Technology

Eugene Coyle

Building on a successful collaboration which has been established in recent years between Dublin Institute of Technology and Purdue University, I am honored to be a Fulbright scholar at Purdue’s Global Policy Research Institute (GPRI) for the current academic year. I am researching energy and energy policy and crafting a book in partnership with Melissa Dark and an invited group of experts, principally centered at Purdue University and at Dublin Institute of Technology. We will be including senior policy advisors from both the United States and the European Union. The book will explore the co-relationship between energy and policy to endeavor to provide an understanding of energy policy and the integration of energy policy into engineering education.

Topics under review in the course of my Fulbright research include increasing greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere and ensuing climatic effects, energy policy and its place in engineering education, and energy demand and continued world dependence on fossil fuel energy sources. In thinking forward we also look back for remindful lessons from both our engineering successes and failures. In this book a review of historical landmark achievements in technology will be carried out together with a counter critique of negative consequential results from otherwise successful technological innovations.  We question what lessons can be learned from past mistakes. A review of both policy and developments in renewable technologies and clean technologies, including future prospects for wide-scale deployment of solar, wind, marine, and biomass, likely in tandem with nuclear energy, and development of smart interconnecting supergrids, is being made. It is envisaged that such grids will facilitate clean energy transportation between nations and across continents.

It is my privilege to be hosted by Arden Bement and his team at GPRI and by the dean of the College of Technology and to have this opportunity of engaging with an excellent team of lead academics spanning the colleges of Engineering, Agriculture, Science and Technology at Purdue University and with similarly talented Dublin Institute of Technology and Trinity College Dublin, based researchers.  In respect of world climate, there is a collective sense of concern and agreement that radical change is needed. This book affords the opportunity of addressing seminal questions and of providing clarity on challenges emerging in policy and technology, and also opportunities presenting to graduates at this pivotal time. The book will be published in July 2013.