Profitably Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Speaker: Thomas R. Casten, Chairman, Recycled Energy Development
Date: Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Time: 4:15 PM; reception follows
Location: Landau Building, Room 66-110
Sponsor: MIT Energy Initiative
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.
Powerpoint presentation (PDF) >
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.
