Energy and The Industrial Revolution: Past, Present and Future

Arun Majumdar discusses a variety of research opportunities and challenges in stationary power and transportation systems that could enable the transition of our energy economy to a sustainable one. Science has shown that our current course of a fossil-based economy is unsustainable. Majumdar explains that the choice that our society is asked to make is often posed as follows: Should we continue our exponential economic growth based on fossil fuels and ignore the environment, or should we reduce our greenhouse gas emissions at the cost of our economic growth? He argues that this is a false choice because it is based on extrapolating the past and does not account for the capacity of research based on science and engineering to create a new industrial revolution for a sustainable energy future.