Friday June 25, 2021 Eddie Robins - The Past, Present, and Future of Energy Production: A Civilizational Perspective

Eddie Robins will speak on The Past, Present, and Future of Energy Production: A Civilizational Perspective. Humans have existed on the Earth in their current form for perhaps a half-million years, but it has been only in the past eight thousand years or so that civilizations have arisen and flourished. This is no coincidence. In these latter years, the world has exhibited an unusual climate along with an unprecedented stability, enabling relatively easy and consistent access to resources such as wood, water, oil, gas, metals, animal species to both work our fields and machines and provide fats to light homes and cook our food. Relatively reliable wind patterns have enabled ships to use wind power and navigate across oceans to colonize distant continents and islands. This use of wind energy for transportation is really an example of the more general case: Energy production is geared to service applications that humans demand. Those applications are changing, part of it being driven by the changing climate and its related issues, but also by the kinds of future demands that are evolving. Technology advancement is making the production and use of energy cheaper and more efficient, and new horizons are opening up, including potentially space travel and off-world colonization. We will explore the symbiotic connection of energy and its sources to its utilization, how it was in the past, how it is today, and, finally, how energy's future is being shaped and readied for the world of tomorrow.

Dr. Eddie Robins has had a forty-year career in scientific and technological roles across a number of industries and within academic institutions, as well as joint academic-industry collaborations. His academic pursuits have included the fields of atomic physics, nuclear fusion, surface/interface and semiconductor physics, software and algorithm development, complex systems & computer simulations, medical devices, telecommunications, and advanced data storage systems. He has worn a number of hats including teacher and researcher at the University level, industry scientist, R&D manager, consultant to large government and corporate organizations in technical and strategic planning roles, as well as advised and participated in a number of technological start-ups. His industry roles have spanned from simple Scientist to VP and Chief Scientist and industry consultant. At EMC (which is now part of DELL), his final sojourn, he served as a Reliability and Complex System Simulation Engineer and Individual Contributor, as well as internal consultant. He has authored many scientific, technical and industry studies, and is author of several patents ranging from Bayesian decision analysis, to reliability and data management in data storage systems. He received his bachelor degree in physics from Imperial College. London (1971), a Masters from the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST - now part of the Victoria University of Manchester, UK) in 1973, and a Ph.D. (1977) from the same institution.

A Piece of Personal Philosophy:
Dr. Robins considers science as a way of thinking that enables us to understand the world as best we can, and accept it for what it is, so we can make decisions as well as we can. He is not unaware of the limitations of its approach, but that being said, truth is truth: Wanting it to be different does not change the reality. Unfortunately - or fortunately - we do not have that power, but we can choose how we take it, and what we do with it.

Friday June 11th, 2021 Dr. Joel Myers - The Future of Weather Forecasting

Friday, June 11^th, 10:30 am:  The Future of Weather Forecasting

Our next meeting is scheduled for June 11, when AccuWeather Founder and CEO Dr. Joel Myers will speak with us on the topic of his essay from The Bridge entitled “The Future of Weather Forecasting.” Dr. Myers will first review the evolution of weather forecasting and how it has accelerated in fewer than 60 years from vague, general two-day forecasts to detailed, highly accurate, weather forecasts for pinpointed locations, extending weeks into the future. He will also highlight the roles of the three key sectors of The Great American Weather Enterprise – government, academia and commercial companies – and the quantum leaps achieved in saving tens of thousands of lives and preventing hundreds of billions of dollars in property damage as well as significant savings to business, industry and people in the U.S. and worldwide. As we will learn, twin pillars of the Enterprise’s success stand on the establishment of private-public-academic partnerships as well as on the innovations of the commercial weather sector due to a heady mix of ingenuity, creativity, vision and guts. The game-changing results: weather forecasts delivered with greater accuracy and detail, superior communications and displays and an increasing focus on weather’s impact to people and businesses, enabling them to make better decisions. However, America’s modern weather forecasting history packs its share of drama. Dr. Myers will trace this epic tale from its WWII origins, when government dominated the field, to the headwinds AccuWeather faced from government, parts of academia and business competitors, to hard-fought strategic alliances among the three sectors that have enabled the U.S. to produce the best weather forecasting services in the world.

Dr. Joel N. Myers is recognized as “the father of commercial meteorology,” the man who transformed weather into an industry and led the applications of weather forecasts to far-reaching societal and commercial benefit. Dr. Myers received three degrees from Penn State, taught its advanced forecasting class for 21 years, and served as a Penn State Trustee for 40 years. While a graduate student at Penn State in 1962, Dr. Myers started AccuWeather at his kitchen table.SP Over the nearly six decades since, he has guided AccuWeather through continuous innovation and growth to where it is today – the world’s most used and respected global weather information source. Every day over 1.5 billion people worldwide, more than half of the Fortune 500 companies, and thousands of other businesses and government agencies globally rely on AccuWeather’s forecasts and warnings to help them plan their lives, protect their businesses, and get more value from their day.

The link to the 50th anniversary volume follows: https://www.nae.edu/244832/The-Bridge-50th-Anniversary-Issue.   The article by Dr. Myers is https://www.nae.edu/244878/Future-of-Weather-Forecasting.