[E&E seminars] Tomorrow: MITEI Seminar Series - Thomas Casten

[Jameson Twomey]

We are pleased to announce the first speaker for the fall 2008 MIT Energy
Initiative Seminar Series. The seminars will take place each month in room
66-110 from 4:15 -5:45 pm and will be followed by a reception. For more
information, please visit the MITEI website at
http://mit.edu/mitei/news/seminars or contact Jameson Twomey at
jtwomey at mit.edu

 

We hope you will join us tomorrow, September 9 to hear Thomas Casten,
founder and CEO of Recycled Energy Development.

 

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Profitably Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Thomas R. Casten, founder and CEO of Recycled Energy Development

 

Date: Tuesday, September 9

Time:  4:15 pm - 5:45 PM [Reception follows]

Location:  66-110 (Landau Building, 25 Ames Street, MIT Campus)

 

 

Abstract

Climate change and energy concerns call forth energy policies, but there is
a failure to understand societal costs of each alternative action.
Furthermore, economists and policy advisors assume the present energy
conversion system is economically optimal, given current technology.
Drawing on 30 years of developing $2.0 billion of local generation projects
that recycle waste energy, Casten analyzes the societal costs and savings of
twelve alternate approaches to generating electricity. The presentation will
show how the U.S. could achieve two billion tons of CO2 reduction per year
while saving over $100 billion per year. The presentation ends with
suggested policy changes to induce profitable GHG reductions and start an
energy efficiency revolution. 

 

 

About the Speaker

Thomas R. Casten has spent 30 years developing decentralized energy
recycling projects. He was founding president and CEO of Trigen Energy
Corporation, a New York Stock Exchange corporation and its predecessors from
1977 through 2000; and he served until 2006 as founding chair and CEO of
Primary Energy Ventures LLC. Tom also has served as president of the
International District Energy Association, received the Normal R. Taylor
Award for distinguished achievement and contributions to the industry, and
has been named a "CHP Champion" by the U.S. Combined Heat and Power
Association. He is co-founder and former chairman of the World Alliance for
Distributed Energy (WADE), an umbrella organization of national CHP and
distributed energy associations, equipment vendors, government agencies, and
foundations that promote distributed generation to optimize the world's
power system. In 2006, the WADE board inducted Tom as the first member of
the WADE Hall of Fame. Tom's book, Turning off the Heat, published by
Prometheus Press in 1998, explains how the world can save money and
pollution. He recently co-authored a chapter in Energy Myth and American
Society, Thirteen Myths (Sovacool & Brown), challenging the assumption that
the U.S. electric system is optimal.

 

 

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MIT Energy Initiative Seminar Series [Fall 2008 - Spring 2009]

The MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI) is an Institute-wide initiative designed
to help transform global energy systems to meet the needs of the future. Led
by Ernie Moniz, Director, and Bob Armstrong, Deputy Director, MITEI is
building community around energy events and a collaborative research agenda.
The energy seminar series continues this fall and will feature speakers on a
variety of energy-related issues. 

 

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