Seth Blumsack, Professor of Energy Policy and Economics

Beyond the Power Grid: The Next Generation of Energy Transitions (and the people who will make them happen)

Many people, when they think about “green energy,” have pictures in their minds of windmills in fields or solar panels atop houses. Producing cheap and reliable electricity without harmful impacts on air, water and climate has been a major focus of energy technology research, policy and business decisions over the course of many decades. After all of that work, the future will be here soon – developed economies (and even many developing nations) are greening their electricity supply rapidly. But electricity turns out to be the easy part of the energy transitions puzzle. The next trillion-dollar energy transitions – in transportation and industry – will be much more complicated but will need to start soon, and can piggyback on cleaner electricity in multiple ways. It will also redefine what it means to work in the “energy industry” for the next generations of energy professionals.