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This presentation evaluates the technical, political, and economic challenges involved with widespread adoption of renewable energy technologies. Topics include: the available fossil fuel resources and reserves and the remaining years of supply; a comparison of their economics with those of renewable energy technologies; greenhouse gas buildup limitations on carbon-based power consumption; the level and timescale of R&D investment needed to support the expected global energy demand; the potential of renewable energy resources to support the projected global carbon-free energy demand; and the challenges to the chemical sciences to enable the cost-effective production of carbon-free power on the needed time scale.

Anyone outside NIST wishing to attend must be sponsored by a NIST employee and receive a visitor badge. For more information, call Kum J. Ham at 301-975-4203.

Colloquia are videotaped and available in the NIST Research Library.