> Homepage > Print version > View previous issues MAY 2011 News Opinion Women @ Technion Research Energy Campus We’ve got the Power We’ve got the Power With nuclear disasters, global conflict in oil-rich regions, new-found Israeli gas reserves, and plenty of state-of-the-art innovation, the energy crisis is impacting the global realms of politics, economics, technology, and academia. By Georgina Johnson (l-r) Prof. Harry l. Tuller, MIT; Dr Avner Rothschild, Faculty of Materials Engineering; and Prof. Gideon Grader, director of the Grand Technion Energy Program Never before did the decision to set up the multidisciplinary Grand Technion Energy Program (GTEP) seem an act of profound foresight and insight. With over 40 scientists from 12 different faculties, and 100 graduate students involved in energy research, GTEP is steering the science, technology, engineering and education to equip Israel to deal with its new gas reserves. It is also pioneering the frontiers of energy science and technology, with targeted labs for non-carbon fuels, photovoltaics, energy storage and multiple fields of energy innovation - from all-green silicon-air batteries through to innovative systems to generate power from plants, or hydrogen from sea-water split by the power of the sun. In the last year, a host of world-acclaimed scientists have been attracted to the new Technion dynamo of energy research, imparting their ideas to wide Technion audiences and to GTEP students - the energy transformers of tomorrow. Do something NOW “I am one of those that believe that we need to do something now, and quickly,” says Harry L. Tuller, Professor of Ceramics and Electronic Materials at MIT. Tuller was hosted at Technion by his former postdoctoral student, Dr Avner Rothschild of the Faculty of Materials Engineering, as part of an ongoing cooperation with GTEP. Tuller was speaking in the framework of the Israel Pollack Distinguished Lecture Series in December 2010. His research team at MIT focuses on defects, transport and electronic structure of metal oxides and their integration into sensors; fuel cells; solar cells, and MEMS devices. “We need an astronomical increase in sources of energy,” says Tuller, in the first of two lectures: Electroceramics - strategic materials in the quest to solve the energy crisis. “Energy is a crisis, but it is also a big opportunity. It stimulates you to do things... to do something great for humanity but also for the economy - and for the economic stimulation of Israel. The answers are in the materials. Scientists need to work fast to solve the energy crisis to create clean, affordable energy, to improve living standards and to diminish environmental impact.” For a country this size, Israel has a large visibility in technology and innovation, says Tuller, who spent his postdoc years at Technion’s Faculty of Physics. “It was a changing experience… it broadened my perspective tremendously and extended my vision of things,” he says. “It is a pleasure to come back home: a great honor.” “Technion - like MIT - plays a pivotal role as a meeting place for ideas in science and engineering. Visible programs like GTEP are very useful to create new generations of people who are sensitive to core problems and are focused on the challenge.” Bring down the cost In February 2011, GTEP also hosted Prof. Eicke R. Weber - Director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE. Like Tuller, Weber takes the scientists’ view that sees opportunity where others see problems. Weber showed the crowded auditorium the impressive progress of technology in solar power that is bringing it to a point of real competition with conventional fuels. “We are seeing new technologies making the wafers thinner and the cells more efficient, thereby making them cheaper to produce. Another innovative segment is in coatings where we are seeing new technologies help the panels absorb more sunlight for longer in the day to produce more electricity.” Energy shortage = poverty, terrorism, war. Amos Nur, Professor of Geophysics Department at Stanford University, was at GTEP in March 2011. There is an increasingly high risk of confrontation between the world’s largest economic powers - the United States and China - due to struggles for control of oil resources, says Nur, an expert on global oil resources. (l-r) Prof. Amos Nur, Stanford and Prof. Gideon Grader, director of the Grand Technion Energy Program Nur said that many wars are being waged directly as a result of depleting oil resources and the competition for foreign supplies. The first Gulf War, he said, was intended to cause a regime change in Iraq - which has the second largest oil reserve after Saudi Arabia. Astronomical population increases, combined with significant decreases in the supply of fossil fuels, brought Egypt to a position of having to import oil - as a result, food prices doubled, and the cost of fuel rose by tens of percent, which prompted the anger of the masses on Mubarak. Libya is today at the forefront of global energy politics. As an exporter of oil to the West, there is a stated agenda in national security to “guarantee the free flow of oil.” Nur also addressed alternative energy. “It is not ‘alternative’,” he said, “It is a fundamental part of the energy we will need in the future. We will need both... and more.” GTEP is essential, according to Nur. “Israel today lacks the people with the technical manpower required to manage future energy sources - including natural gas - in the right way.” © 2011 Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Division of Public Affairs and Resource Development All rights reserved. If you wish to use any text or graphics contained herein, please contact focus@technion.ac.il