10:27 a.m., Nov. 16, 2009----The University of Delaware Energy Institute (UDEI) will host the seminar “The Sustainable Energy Challenge” by George Crabtree, senior scientist and distinguished fellow from the Materials Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory, on Thursday, Nov. 19, from 10-11:15 a.m., in the Center for Composite Materials, Room 104/106. Refreshments will be served at 9:45 a.m.

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The dependence on oil and fossil fuels for over 80 percent of energy and the continued emission of carbon dioxide threatening stable climate are captured in a single term: sustainability. Although people generally agree that sustainability is valuable, there is less agreement on how much sustainability is necessary or desirable, Crabtree says.

In his talk, Crabtree will present and apply three criteria describing increasingly strict features of sustainability to evaluate the alternatives to oil and carbon dioxide emission, such as tapping unused energy flows in sunlight and wind, producing electricity without carbon emissions from clean coal and high-efficiency nuclear power plants, and replacing oil with biofuel or electricity.

Implementing these more sustainable alternatives requires new materials of increasing complexity and functionality that control the transformation of energy between light, electrons, and chemical bonds at the nanoscale. Challenges and opportunities for developing the complex materials and controlling the chemical changes that enable greater sustainability will be presented.