Newsletter
The CITRIS conference in June in Copenhagen focused on the
relationships among public policy, the role of business, and
technological means that could be used to fight global warming.
New materials under development by Ali Shakouri,
Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of
California, Santa Cruz, stand to convert energy now wasted as heat into a reusable new source of
electricity.
Within 15 years, solar power could produce as much as 15 percent of all the energy consumed in California. However, given our current inability to predict reliably the amount of direct solar irradiance available to the state’s energy grid at least a day or two in advance, utility companies cannot risk relying on this highly productive source. CITRIS researchers are working to solve that problem.
CITRIS researchers are developing engines that use 15 percent less fuel than gas engines and emit only 30 percent of the NOx of a typical diesel engine. Thus, they appear to combine the best of both engines. Except for one problem: temperature variations.
Reliable and inexpensive broadband connects rural patients to eye doctors.
Shawn Newsam is developing a network of several dozen cameras that can
collect data and possibly analyze air particulates around the Central
Valley. The project could provide a quick, easily accessible way to
evaluate local air quality in real time.
