Title: Energy Needs and Energy Resources
Speaker: Mark Petri, Director, Iowa Energy Center
Abstract: As world population grows there will an increasing demand for energy. Our main supplies of energy, though, are limited and are causing global climate disruptions. For electricity generation, the world can turn to resources such as coal, natural gas, nuclear fission, hydro-electric, geothermal, wind, and solar. But are these resources large enough to meet the demand, which is expected to grow by 50 percent by 2040? Dr. Mark C. Petri, Director of the Iowa Energy Center, will explore the link between population growth, climate change, and energy demand and will assess the availability of global electricity resources.
Speaker Bio: Dr. Mark C. Petri is Director of the Iowa Energy Center, which was founded by the Iowa General Assembly in 1990 with the aim of advancing Iowa’s energy efficiency and renewable energy use through research, education, and demonstration. The center includes research facilities for the testing and demonstration of commercial-building HVAC systems and for pilot-scale demonstration of biomass conversion processes.
Petri was formerly the Technology Development Director within Argonne National Laboratory’s Energy Engineering and Systems Analysis Directorate, where he developed and coordinated multidisciplinary applied and basic research programs aimed at sustainable energy production, transmission, and efficiency. The work included research on a wide range of alternative energy sources and power grid modeling and simulation.
Petri received his Ph.D. from Purdue University through the School of Materials Science and Engineering. From 2007 to 2008 Petri served as Science and Technology Advisor to Illinois Senator Richard J. Durbin in Washington, D.C., where he focused on energy and environmental issues.
Prior to joining Argonne, Petri held positions at Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory, the Kyoto University Research Reactor Institute, and Combustion Engineering, Inc.