The College of Engineering held its first Distinguished Lecture Series on Thursday to address the sustainability of our planet.
The lecture included a panel of experts who discussed the ways their companies are working toward being environmentally friendly. The companies represented were San Diego Gas and Electric, Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) and Microsoft.
“This topic is a pretty important topic,” said President F. King Alexander, who made opening remarks before the panel began. “Not to just us, but to the whole world.”
Nancy McFadden, senior vice president of public affairs at PG&E, was the first to speak. It is McFadden’s job to manage the company’s federal, state and local government relations. McFadden discussed how PG&E began looking at better sustainability 30 years ago. Since then, they have corporate responsibility reports where the company looks toward reinventing its infrastructure.
“The way we are going to achieve what we need to do is to reduce green house gases,” McFadden said. McFadden also discussed how California is a leader is pursuing a more sustainable planet in the United States. One thing we must prepare for, according to McFadden, is the electric vehicle, and Northern California will be the central market for it.
“[We must] pursue all forms of renewable energy to see what will work in the future,” McFadden said.
The PG&E representative said another thing to watch for in the future is the smart grid, which delivers electricity from suppliers to consumers using digital technology. It uses control appliances at consumers’ homes to save energy. In addition, it reduces cost and increases reliability and transparency. Smart meters are the foundation of smart grids, and officials are aiming to have 1 million smart meters by 2012.
“This is absolutely essential,” McFadden said.
Matt Kestian, chief technology officer of Microsoft’s southwest district, developed three strategies in which Microsoft can help be more environmentally stable: reduction, management and business practices. By reducing how much people use and improving management and business practices, Kestian believes they can improve the earth’s environmental situation from where it is today. Kestian is working with Microsoft to reduce the impact of its operations in order to become a leader in environmental responsibility.
“[We’re] hoping software solutions will improve the environment,” Kestian said.
By doing so, Microsoft plans to reduce the 2 percent of energy consumed by software-driven devices, use software to address the larger challenge, partner with leading environmental organizations and experts and lead by example within its own organization.
“We see a city as a biological being,” Kestian said.
The final expert on the panel was Braden R. Allenby, Arizona State University professor of civil and environmental engineering and law. Allenby said the issues concerning sustainability grossly oversimplify the complexity of current and future environments, especially given the planet’s accelerating technology.
“[This is] a serious change is what it means to be human,” Allenby said.
According to Allenby, sustainability fails to consider foreseeable trends such as the extension of human life. He also said sustainability offers very little guidance to an engineer for decision making.
“Our education is obsolete,” he said.
Allenby sees a problem with people who gather together to discuss how much they care about the environment and how it needs to change. Allenby also sees that people who care about sustainability are talking to the wrong people.
“We ought to be talking to people who don’t agree,” Allenby said. Allenby believes that in order to be more sustainable, people must produce engineers who understand what it means to be sustainable and who understand the content of being sustainable.
“It is up to us,” Allenby said.