Conferència a càrrec de Roel Snieder (Colorado School of Mines and Stanford University, USA)
SEMINARIS DE LA FACULTAT DE GEOLOGIA I L'INSTITUT DE CIÈNCIES DE LA TERRA "JAUME ALMERA"

Universitat de Barcelona (UB)
Consell Superior d'Investigacions Científiques (CSIC)

Dia: Dijous 14 d'abril
Hora: 16:00h.
Lloc: Aula Magna de la Facultat de Geologia

A stable and sustainable energy supply is one the major issues of this Century. World-energy demand is expected to increase with about 70% in the coming 20 years, while the production of the main source of energy, petroleum, is likely to peak in this period. The combination of rising demand and declining production of conventional oil raises the question: "what is the plan?" In the absence of a plan for a sustainable energy supply, coal and non-conventional oil are likely to become the main source of energy. These energy sources lead to much higher CO2 emissions per unit energy than than the sources currently used. Combined with the expected increase in energy use, this aggravates global warming. We face the challenge to develop a strategy to develop a sustainable energy system with acceptable environmental impact. In my presentation I give examples what one can do as a teacher, student, consumer, businessman and as a citizen to make progress towards a more sustainable energy system.

Bio-sketch:

Roel Snieder holds the Keck Foundation Endowed Chair of Basic
Exploration Science at the Colorado School of Mines. He received in
1984 a Masters degree in Geophysical Fluid Dynamics from Princeton
University, and in 1987 a Ph.D. in seismology from Utrecht University.
In 1993 he was appointed as professor of seismology at Utrecht
University, where from 1997-2000 he served as Dean of the Faculty of
Earth Sciences. Roel served on the editorial boards of Geophysical Journal
International, Inverse Problems, and Reviews of Geophysics. In 2000 he
was elected as Fellow of the American Geophysical Union for important
contributions to geophysical inverse theory, seismic tomography, and
the theory of surface waves. He is author of the textbook ``A Guided
Tour of Mathematical Methods for the Physical Sciences'' that is
published by Cambridge University Press. Currently he is on a sabbatical leave and
works with the Global Climate and Energy Project (GCEP) of Stanford University.