Sep 12 2022 to Sep 12 2022 6:30 p.m.

EVENT HAS ENDED

Where

Bangalore International Centre

7 4th Main Rd, Stage 2, Domlur 560071

Event Description

Energy transitions have happened before in human history, but they are rare. They are usually moments where significant parts of society are able to significantly increase their living standards. They are also slow in their scale up. To achieve scale so that entire societies can “transition” cannot be just driven by technical opportunity, but, in fact by three factors: there has to be security of access to energy which requires clear governmental strategies, and to make it affordable at a large scale there has to be a commercially robust economic model, which in liberal societies requires a private energy sector. Thirdly, both “actors” need to be able to minimize environmental impact to not compromise the well-being of the population. Trade-offs among these three determine to a large extend the speed at which a transition will happen. This is no different for the transition to a net-zero energy system. What is new though is that first, there is a time window within which we must achieve enough scale to avoid undesired consequences caused by climate change, as codified in the Paris agreement. Secondly, the environmental impact is now truly global affecting Earth’s atmospheric temperature affecting us all. To meet the global challenge to stop climate change by anthropogenic processes requires a systems approach rather than just a collection of low carbon technologies and fuel substitutions. We will show that the future can be very bright, provided circularity concepts in industrial manufacturing and optimization of supply chains of energy and resources, including waste is developed. This may be enabled by advances by data driven digital technologies. For example supply chains that would provide greater transparency to consumers of how the trade-offs among economics, security and environment may be made in a given society. Also, digitization of (chemical) engineering to build circular concepts in chemical industries around waste repurposing will possibly lead to deep connections with agriculture. Big Energy companies are very good in systems engineering and supply chain development and can be instrumental to help accelerate scale in circularity manufacturing. In doing so, connections between different business sectors including agricultural may be developed. In this session Dirk Smit will discuss some of these concepts and illustrate how large scale systems thinking is crucial for a net-zero transition to happen in time. He will also talk about how this may help establish fruitful collaborations among government, industry and major Academic and engineering thought leaders, as well as institutes to develop necessary innovations needed to accelerate a net-zero energy transition. The talk will be followed by a Q&A session. In collaboration with NCBS and Infosys Science Foundation