[act-ma] Energy (and Other) Events

Sun Mar 14 16:18:12 PDT 2010

MIT

Monday, March 15, 2010

Israeli Cleantech Innovation and Tech Transfer
Speaker: Larry Loev

Time: 8:00a–10:30a

Location: E51-345

Featuring Larry Loev, the Director of Business Development (Physical  
Sciences) at Ramot, the technology transfer company of Tel Aviv  
University.

Israel is ranked 1st in the world for number of start-ups per capita  
and 3rd in the world for Venture Capital availability. As Director of  
Business Development at Ramot, Mr. Loev works with entrepreneurs and  
industrial partners to commercialize a portfolio of 100 technologies  
related to cleantech, medical devices, communications, optics, and  
electronics. Drawing from his Israel experience, Mr.Loev will share  
about the challenges and keys to success in commercializing energy and  
cleantech technology.

Agenda:
8:00-8:15am Networking & Intros (Breakfast and Coffee)
8:15-9:00am Presentation and Q&A
9:00-9:30am Member Announcements & Networking

Web site: http://www.meetup.com/boston-israel/calendar/12650421/

Open to: the general public

Sponsor(s): MISTI, Center for International Studies, MIT-Israel, MIT  
International Science and Technology Initiatives (MISTI), MIT Energy  
Campus Events, Boston Israel Cleantech Alliance, Combined Jewish  
Philanthropies

For more information, contact:
David Dolev
617-324-5581
ddolev at mit.edu

Monday, March 15, 2010

Building Technology Lecture Series/THE FUTURE OF ARCHITECTURE IN A  
WARMING PLANET
Speaker: Norbert Lechner, Architect and Professor Emeritus, Auburn  
University, AL

Time: 12:30p–2:00p

Location: 7-431, AVT

Building Technology Lecture Series

THE FUTURE OF ARCHITECTURE IN A WARMING PLANET
Global warming is the greatest challenge humankind has ever faced in  
recorded history. Fossil energy must be replaced as quickly as  
possible by both clean renewable energy and energy efficiency. Since  
buildings are the main users of energy (about 48%), they must become  
much more efficient. Most of the energy used by buildings is for  
heating, cooling, and lighting all of which are very much impacted by  
the sun. Thus, a sustainable building must be a solar responsive  
building.

Buildings will not be sustainable just by being covered by solar  
collectors. The buildings itself must do most of the work in heating,  
cooling, and lighting itself. The ?Three Tier Approach? explains how  
this is accomplished, and solar responsive design is a major component  
of this approach.

However, a major obstacle to solar responsive design is the complexity  
of solar geometry. Furthermore, many accepted solar design principles  
are incorrect. For example, contrary to widespread belief, a fixed  
south overhang cannot fully shade the summer sun and fully harvest the  
winter sun, fins are not good shading devices on the east and west,  
and shading for north windows is not restricted to southern latitudes.  
Fortunately, powerful teaching and design tools called heliodons are  
available to bust these and other myths and make solar responsive  
design both easy and accurate.

Open to: the general public

Cost: Free

Sponsor(s): Building Technology Program, Department of Architecture

For more information, contact:
Alexandra Mulcahy
617-253-0463
amulcahy at mit.edu

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Wide Bandgap Devices for Energy Efficient Solutions
Speaker: John Palmour, Co-Founder, CREE

Time: 4:00p–5:00p

Location: 34-101

MTL Seminar Series
Refreshments at 3:30 p.m.

MTL hosts a series of talks each semester known as the MTL Seminar  
Series. Speakers for the series are selected on the basis of their  
knowledge and competence in the areas of microelectronics research,  
manufacturing, or policy. The series is held on the MIT Campus during  
the academic year on Tuesdays at 4:00 pm. For more information  
regarding the MTL Seminar Series, send e-mail to valeried at mit.edu.

Web site: http://www-mtl.mit.edu/seminars

Open to: the general public

Cost: free

Sponsor(s): Microsystems Technology Laboratories

For more information, contact:
Valerie DiNardo
253-9328
valeried at mit.edu

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Transportation at MIT presents Marta Gonzalez on "Modeling Human Mobility"
Speaker: Marta Gonzalez

Time: 4:00p–5:00p

Location: 3-270

Transportation at MIT Seminar Series
This semester, the Transportation at MIT seminar series will cover a  
variety of transportation topics including: Propulsion, Vehicles,  
Sources of Transportation Energy, Environmental Impacts and Climate  
Change, Logistics and Supply Chain Management, Urban Transportation,  
Automation, Transportation Networks, Dynamic System Control, and  
Behavioral and Economic Sciences.

I present the results of statistical analysis from extensive data  
sources coming from mobile phone communication and subway smart cards.  
Our goal is to gather information from the data to characterize  
individual travel behavior. For each individual we measure the  
frequency of visits to preferred locations and analyze the distances  
of travels and stay time distributions from the whole population. The  
obtained results are shown to be useful in modeling spreading of  
viruses at a country scale. Work in progress is shown, comparing  
individual travel patterns at metropolitan areas from three countries.  
In the second part of the talk I explore potential applications of  
data analysis to understand the interactions of individuals with space  
within urban environments, in particular multiplicative random  
processes are applied to model the distribution of locations of supply  
and demand in urban spaces to explain measured distribution of travel  
distances.

Web site: http://transportation.mit.edu/events.php

Open to: the general public

Sponsor(s): Transportation at MIT

For more information, contact:
Rebecca Fearing
transportation.seminars at MIT.EDU

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Optimal Use of Solar Thermal Energy for Combined Power Generation and  
Water Desalination
Speaker: Dr. Amin Ghobeity, MIT, Dept. Mechanical Engineering

Time: 4:30p–5:30p

Location: 3-343

Center for 21st Century Energy - Reacting Gas Dynamics Laboratory  
Seminar Series

Seawater desalination is being increasingly considered as a viable  
method to address the global shortage of potable water. Conventional  
desalination methods are, however, energy intensive. Desalting  
seawater using renewable energy sources is a promising alternative,  
particularly for islands and remote areas. In this talk, I will  
present conceptual design, system-level simulation models and  
optimization of a novel process for combined power generation and  
seawater desalination using solar energy. The thermal energy collected  
in a salt pond is used downstream for seawater desalination and  
electricity generation. Physics-based system-level dynamic models are  
developed, which are detailed enough to allow for optimization of  
operation and design under various weather, location and operating  
conditions (e.g., partial-load, recharging, etc.). The optimization  
problem is formulated as a nonlinear program (NLP) with dynamics  
embedded, and a heuristic global optimization approach is used. Plant? 
s nominal operating conditions, found from the time-invariant  
optimization, are further improved through the time-dependent  
optimization of a seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) system, which is  
considered for seawater desalination in combination with multi-effect  
distillation (MED). Time-dependent optimization of SWRO is formulated  
as a mixed-integer nonlinear program (MINLP), allowing for periods of  
shut-down. The results of optimization will be presented and discussed.

Open to: the general public

Sponsor(s): RGD Lab

For more information, contact:
Patrick Kirchen
pkirchen at mit.edu

Tuesday, March 16, 2010
CTL Distinguished Speaker Series
Speaker: Chris Anderson, Editor-in-Chief, Wired Magazine
Title: The New Industrial Revolution: Why Atoms are the New Bits
Refreshments will be served and the talk will be videotaped.
 > 5:30-6:30pm
 > E14-633 (Media Lab Extension Building, 6th floor)

background reading http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/01/ff_newrevolution/

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

If, When and How Social Science Can Contribute to National Security  
Policy
Speaker: Michael Desch, University of Notre Dame

Time: 12:00p–1:30p

Location: E40-496, Lucian Pye Conference Room

SSP Wednesday Seminar Series

Open to: the general public

Sponsor(s): Security Studies Program

For more information, contact:
617-253-7529
valeriet at mit.edu

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

A Long Way From Home: The Environmental, Economic, and Social Impacts  
of a Lack of Affordable Housing
Speaker: Professor William M. Rohe, Boshamer Distinguished Professor  
of City and Regional Planning; Director, Center for Urban and Regional  
Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Time: 12:30p–2:00p

Location: 9-450

DUSP Speaker Series
Weekly Lecture Series of the Department of Urban Studies and Planning.  
Light lunch served.

Weekly Lecture Series of the Department of Urban Studies and Planning.

Open to: the general public

Sponsor(s): Department of Urban Studies and Planning

For more information, contact:
Ezra Glenn
617-253-2024
eglenn at mit.edu

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Materials Science and Engineering Seminar: Atomic Structure Details of  
Nano-Carbon Materials
Speaker: Professor Sumio Iijima (Faculty of Science and Technology,  
Meijo University; Director, Nanotube Research Center, National  
Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Japan)

Time: 4:00p–5:15p

Location: 66-110

Materials Science and Engineering Seminar Series
Seminars for the Materials Science community

Nanoscience and nanotechnology addresses the nano-scale structures of  
materials. Electron microscopy is a critical tool for knowing and  
controlling structures at the atomic level. Research examples in this  
talk will include latest results on structural characterization of  
carbon nanotubes, graphene, and boron nitride mono-layer films

Open to: the general public

Sponsor(s): Center for Materials Science & Engineering, Dept. of  
Materials Science and Engineering, Materials Processing Center,  
Materials at MIT

Friday, March 19, 2010

MRS Lunch 'N Lecture Seminar: The "Materials Genome" Project at MIT --  
Accelerated and Large-Scale Materials Discovery in the Energy Field
Speaker: Prof. Gerbrand Ceder, Dept. of Materials Science and  
Engineering, MIT

Time: 12:00p–1:00p

Location: 6-104, Chipman Room

The need for novel materials is the technological Achilles Heel of our  
strategy to address the energy and climate problem facing the world.  
The large-scale deployment of photovoltaics, photosynthesis, storage  
of electricity, thermoelectrics, or reversible fuel catalysis can not  
be realized with current materials technologies. The "Materials  
Genome" project, started at MIT, has as its objective to use high- 
throughput first principles computations on an unparalleled scale to  
discover new materials for energy technologies. I will show how  
several key problems such as crystal structure prediction and accuracy  
limitations of standard Density Functional Theory methods have been  
overcome to perform reliable, large scale materials searching.

I will show successful examples of high-throughput calculations in the  
field of lithium batteries and radiation detectors and discuss our  
developments in other fields.

Please join us for refreshments at 11:40 AM in 6-104.

Web site: http://web.mit.edu/mrschapter/seminars.htm

Open to: the general public

Sponsor(s): MRS Chapter at MIT, Dept. of Materials Science and  
Engineering

For more information, contact:
Tiffany Ziebell
tiffanyz at mit.edu

Friday, March 19, 2010

Seminar on Enviromental and Agricultural History
Speaker: Joseph E. Taylor, Simon Fraser University and University of  
Portland

Time: 2:30p–4:30p

Location: E51-095

"Pilgrims of the Vertical: Yosemite Rock Climbers and Modern  
Environmental Culture"

Web site: http://web.mit.edu/history/www/nande/modTimes.html

Open to: the general public

Sponsor(s): History Office, STS

For more information, contact:
Margot Collet
253-4965
history-info at mit.edu

BU

EWB BU is hosting its second speaker event in the speaker series. The  
lecture will take place as follows:

Pablo Suarez of the Red Cross/Red Crescent Climate Center
Tuesday March 16th
7pm
SED 130, on Two Silber Way, Boston

For the second event in our EWB/ONE Spring Speaker Series, we are  
hosting Pablo Suarez of the Red Cross/Red Crescent Climate Center.

Pablo Suarez got involved with the Red Cross/Red Crescent Climate  
Center as a technical advisor. His work as researcher and consultant  
focuses on the integration of climate information into decision making  
for reducing vulnerability, both at community level and through  
national and global policies.

Pablo will talk to us about work the Red Cross is doing to develop  
early warning and early action systems, including a pilot program in  
Sengal.

Other

Tuesday, March 16 at 7:00pm
Central Square Library, 45 Pearl St.

GreenPort Forum
The Leadership Campaign: Building a Movement for 100% Clean  
Electricity in Massachusetts by 2020

Between October 24th and December 7th, students and community leaders  
across the Commonwealth refused to sleep in housing powered by dirty  
electricity. Instead, calling on leaders to take the lead on climate  
legislation, they chose to camp out on the Boston Common and other  
prominent locations around the state. The Act to Create an Emergency  
Task Force to Repower Massachusetts was introduced at the beginning of  
this legislative session and is currently moving its way through the  
house.

Come learn about this growing movement and consider joining the first  
sleep-out on Cambridge Common, Sunday, March 28th!
For more information, contact Steve Morr-Wineman at swineman at gis.net

March 16, 2010 7:30 pm

Design Museum Boston Launch Party
West End Johnnies
138 Portland St.
Boston, MA

RSVP:  http://designingamuseum.ning.com/profiles/blogs/prepare-for-a-launch-party

Green Jobs Program

The City of Cambridge has announced a green jobs training program.    
Through the Cambridge Green Jobs Program, individuals will receive  
training to become energy efficiency technicians through the Energy  
Efficiency Technician Apprenticeship Program (EETAP), or green  
building maintenance technicians through the Building Energy Efficient  
Maintenance Skills Program (BEEMS).  Working in collaboration with the  
Asian American Civic Association (AACA), the City will offer training  
beginning in April 2010.

An orientation session will be held on March 17, 2:30 to 4:30,  
Cambridge City Hall Annex.  Registration is encouraged.

For more details, see http://www.cambridgema.gov/deptann.cfm?story_id=2575 
.