Winter 2007
In This Issue:
Focus On Energy
Message from the Director
Energy is a very broad topic that touches on materials in many different ways. On the one hand, the manufacture of materials — high tech, low tech and all over the globe — contributes to the energy problem through both energy consumption and environmental impact. On the other hand, the development of advanced materials, manufacturing processes with life cycle accountability, new solid-state materials for lighting and electronic devices for renewable energy generation, to name a few, are expected to contribute significantly to solving the energy problem.
Penn State is uniquely positioned to address today's energy challenges because our Colleges and Institutes are willing and able to combine their strengths to tackle all aspects of the problem. The challenges, as you will learn herein, are multi-facetted; there are societal, technical and political dimensions which must be considered in a systematic and concerted way to make progress in a timely fashion.
In this issue, you will learn about “the energy crisis” from two points of view: the approaching decline in oil resources worldwide, which could lead to “high economic volatility,” and the increasing concern for the environmental impact of greenhouse gas emissions from the burning of hydrocarbon fuels. Penn State has maintained a viable and diverse energy program throughout the era of cheap oil when most other university energy programs were allowed to fade away. We have internationally renowned programs in climate change, coal, combustion, environmental science, biofuels, clean fuels, fuel cells, hydrogen, solar, and nuclear. None of these are materials technologies per se, but every one of them can be enabled by new, more efficient and sometimes greener, materials.
Penn State's energy task force report (also described herein) provides a roadmap for combining our strengths and capabilities across campus, and with our industrial partners, to meet some of these energy challenges. The possible roles for materials and nanotechnology in energy research and technology extend from catalysts and solar cells through to coatings and lightweight materials. We fully recognize our responsibility to the Commonwealth and to the Nation to engage in and contribute to energy research and technology in any way possible. I am certain that there is more to say and to do about energy and materials than could be included in this one issue of FoM, so consider this issue the first chapter of a long, exciting and challenging initiative.
Sincerely,
Carlo Pantano
Director of the Materials Research Institute
and Distinguished Professor of Materials Science and Engineering
To access the materials expertise at Penn State, please visit our Materials Research Institute web site at www.mri.psu.edu, or the Industrial Research Office web site at www.techtransfer.psu.edu/iro/.
