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Thursday, 4 May 2006
Future of Nanotechnology in Offshore Energy Research and Technology
Dr. Wade Adams, Director, Rice University Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology
Energy is both the single most important problem facing humanity today and a magnificent scientific opportunity. We will need a minimum of ten terawatts (the equivalent of 150 million barrels of oil) per day from a new, clean energy source by the year 2050. Solving this problem will demand revolutionary breakthroughs in the physical sciences and engineering, and particularly in nanotechnology.
This presentation will discuss the magnitude of the problem, how to address the problem through enabling nanotechnology revolutions, people/workforce issues that impinge on the problem, and how to organize to solve the problem.
Speaker Profile
Dr. Wade Adams is the Director of the Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology at Rice University. The Center is devoted to the development of new innovations on the nanometer scale. Adams retired from the US Air Force senior executive ranks in January 2002, as the Chief Scientist of the Materials and Manufacturing Directorate, Air Force Research Laboratory, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. He was appointed a senior scientist (ST) in the Materials Directorate of the Wright Laboratory in 1995. Prior to that he was a research leader and in-house research scientist in the directorate. For the past 35 years he has conducted research in polymer physics and has written more than 190 publications. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the Air Force Research Laboratory. Adams retired from the Air Force Reserve in the rank of Colonel in 1998. He holds a BS in physics from the US Air Force Academy, an MS in physics from Vanderbilt University and MS and PhD degrees in polymer science and engineering from the University of Massachusetts.
