IGERT 720 students Bobby Barker, Elizabeth Barrow and José Contreras-Mora present their plan for cutting South Carolina's carbon-dioxide emissions.
"We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” — Albert Einstein
During the past few months, I have gotten to know some of the brightest young minds at the University of South Carolina, and the experience has inspired me to take a very optimistic view of our energy future.
It was my privilege to serve as part of the teaching team for IGERT 720: Public Energy Policy, a graduate course for chemists and engineers sponsored by the National Science Foundation and South Carolina’s electric cooperatives. IGERT stands for Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship Program, and the nine students in the course all hold impressive academic and scientific credentials. The task of the teaching team was to help these young scientists explore the world beyond the laboratory, where their work will intersect with politics and business.
The course focused on one of the biggest problems (an optimist might say opportunities) in the energy sector today—how to deliver affordable and reliable electricity while achieving the carbon-dioxide reductions called for in the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Program.
This is no easy task. The proposed regulations require South Carolina power plants to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions 51 percent by 2030, the most demanding reduction target in the nation. Electric cooperatives, investor-owned utilities, environmental groups and state regulators are all working together to develop a state implementation plan (SIP) following four EPA-mandated building blocks. For their course project, we assigned the IGERT students to work in teams to develop their own SIPs focusing on two of these building blocks—improving energy efficiency and developing new sources of renewable energy.
To help our students hone their ability to pitch science-based solutions to political and business leaders, we added another twist to the assignment. In a format inspired by the television show “Shark Tank,” we had the teams present their plans in a public forum before a distinguished panel of energy-policy experts: U.S. Rep. James Clyburn, the third-ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives; Hamilton Davis, energy and climate director of the Coastal Conservation League; Myra Reese, chief of the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control’s Bureau of Air Quality; Dukes Scott, executive director of the S.C. Office of Regulatory Staff; and James Spiers, vice president of business and technology strategies for the National Rural Electric Cooperatives Association.
Rising to the challenge, the students delivered their blueprints for a brighter energy future with confidence and poise, even in the face of some tough questions from the panel. More important, all three of their proposals reflected the kind of new thinking that Einstein would have loved. The IGERT students did more than run the numbers on kilowatt hours produced and tons of carbon dioxide saved; they considered how the costs might be fairly allocated, as well as the positive economic benefits that renewable energy could bring to South Carolina.
The team of Bobby Barker, Elizabeth Barrow and José Contreras-Mora took the top award from the panel, but the experts were quick to praise all three proposals. “The plans are incredibly smart,” Dukes Scott said. “Somewhat idealistic, but very smart.”
“I have a great feeling of confidence in our young people,” Rep. Clyburn said. “The ingredients are all here in South Carolina to do what the EPA wants us to do.”
As a result of my experience with IGERT 720, I share the congressman’s optimism, and I am more convinced than ever that this generation of young scientists will find the solutions to our energy and environmental issues. Our future is in good hands—or, more accurately, some very capable minds.