E-Portfolio 3 – Summary of Presentation by Professor Palmer, Assistant Professor Sovacool and Associate Professor Rajasekhar

First speaker, Professor Palmer begin his presentation by saying that if climate changes happen, we should accept the world as it is and response through adaptation, alteration and conservation of energy. The third speaker, Professor Rajasekhar highlight on the increase of global temperature with the support of ‘2007 IPCC Report”. There are some common points between the presentations of Professor Palmer and Professor Rajasekhar. Both of them addressed various factors that affect earth temperature and potential consequences that might arise from Global Warming. They also suggested some possible solution for Global Warming such as to increase energy efficiency, reduce green house gasses emission, and we can even store the excessive carbon dioxide in the ocean. While pointing out there are various difficulties in dealing with climate change, both of them said that it is the responsible of everyone living on the Earth to combat global warming. Government should play their role while each individual should corporate to combat climate change.

The second speaker, Assistant Professor Benjamin K. Sovacool presented about Using Science & Technology Studies to Address Energy (and Technological) Problems. According to him, technology cannot be separated from the social system because they will have heavy influences on political and social issues in the human world. He added that technologies are produced by processes which involved negotiation and compromise on human part. Power and interest of people play an important role in deciding if a technology will work. It means to say that whether a certain technology fails or is accepted doesn’t have anything to do with the technology itself. For example, it can actually be a good concept but it is not accepted by humans simply because it clashes with human interests.

Throughout the 1.5 hours presentation, I was impressed by the technique to store carbon dioxide in the ocean. It captured my attention since this is the first time I heard about this technology, although it has been around for more than a decade. Basically engineers will first of all compress the carbon dioxide and convert it to liquid form, and then keep the liquid carbon dioxide with a layer of membrane like material. According to Professor Palmer, liquid carbon dioxide is denser than sea water at the depth of 2750 meters in the ocean and therefore it will sink to the sea bed and stay there permanently. Therefore we can continue to store the excessive carbon in the ocean as long as the sea level remains in the safe height.