Live Blog: 2011 BERC Innovation Expo
Here I am, standing in the main atrium of the Berkeley Art Museum, completely surrounded by brilliant masterpieces of priceless beauty. No, I’m not referring to the museum’s collection of Caravaggio paintings nor its stunning exhibition of Himalayan sculptures. I’m talking about the poster session of the BERC Innovation Expo, the opening event of the 2011 BERC Energy Symposium. Hundreds of academic researchers, entrepreneurs, teachers and everyone in between have converged here tonight to network and promote outside-the-box ideas that will help solve our current global energy problems.
At about 7:30 PM, Jigar Shah, CEO of Carbon War Room, will take the stage of the Museum Theater to deliver the evening’s keynote address. Until then, I’ll circulate the floor of the poster session and post live updates about all the thought-provoking work on display. There’s a ton of ground to cover: solar, nuclear, biofuels — you name it, it’s here. So let’s get started, shall we?
08.43pm PDT, Brian Lambson
That concludes tonight’s proceedings, but this isn’t the end of BSR’s coverage of the Energy Symposium. Visit our website again tomorrow morning, as Anna Goldstein picks up the live blogging session from the Pauley Ballroom to cover tomorrow’s portion of the symposium. Thanks for joining us!
08.42pm PDT, Brian Lambson
The awards ceremony was incredibly brief. It took less than five minutes to announce the winners, and the event is abruptly over.
08.41pm PDT, Brian Lambson
The first-place winner is Jonathan Bolesca, for a discovery related to yeast for biofuel applications. Congratulations, Jonathan!
08.40pm PDT, Brian Lambson
Awards ceremony underway. Eight thousand dollars in total prizes being given away.
08.39pm PDT, Brian Lambson
An earthquake struck during the middle of Jigar’s talk. His response: “does this kind of thing always happen in Berkeley?”
08.38pm PDT, Brian Lambson
Jigar, a soft-spoken, passionate, and opinionated man with a casual speaking style just finished up his talk. His takeaway message: actions speak louder than ideas; researchers need to understand that even their most brilliant ideas have little intrinsic value to society, and that it is entrepreneurs and activists who bring change to the world.
07.36pm PDT, Brian Lambson
It’s time for the evening’s keynote address. The museum theater is filled to capacity. The speaker is Jigar Shah, CEO of Carbon War Room. Jigar has an enviable list of accomplishments to his name, most notably his role as the founder SunEdison back in 2003. However, I do notice one gaping hole in his resume: no Cal connection. It’s a wonder he’s been able to accomplish anything in the energy business without it.
07.25pm PDT, Brian Lambson
I’ll group themes two at a time from now on to see if I can get through them all. The hottest themes of all, Solar Fuels and Solar Photovoltaics, are well represented here. Several teams are trying to engineer plants so that they more efficiently convert light into fuels, while other teams are working on nanorods that generate solar electricity at the lowest cost possible. A lot of the projects are in the very early stages of development, with many years of work ahead before practical applications can be envisioned. But it’s good to see that we aren’t even close to running out of new ideas to try.
07.01pm PDT, Brian Lambson
Whoops, I forgot to look at the second side of the list of poster presenters — there’s actually 12 themes. Looks like I’ll really need to put my foot on the gas now! I just passed through the largest theme, Policy, Planning, and Renewable Integration, speaking to Imran Sheikh and Bret Strogen along the way. Did you know we can save up to 500 million dollars per year in ethanol transportation costs through greater national coordination on fuel policy? Someone should get those squabbling politicians on the line and let them know.
06.42pm PDT, Brian Lambson
The posters are grouped by theme. There are 9 themes in total, so I’ll have to rush to get through them all. I just did a pass through the Thermoelectrics and Scavenging posters, speaking to Deepa Madan, Edy Cardona, and Donghyeon Ryu along the way. I’m surprised by the diversity of approaches being investigated to harvesting waste energy. Self healing materials, printed temperature sensors, and solar powered strain detectors are among the variety of intriguing ways to make use of otherwise unusable energy on display here.
[...] tuned. I will be blogging this morning’s events here as they unfold. And don’t miss Brian’s post covering last night’s Innovation Expo. [...]
[...] talking about, take a look at Anna’s liveblog entries from earlier today, as well as Brian’s experience last night at the Innovation Expo. The quick bit is that the BERC is a gigantic energy club that [...]
[...] Lambson live blogged the 2011 BERC Innovation Expo on Thursday night [...]