What is the role of the university in meeting the nation and world’s energy challenges?
University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Chancellor Jimmy G. Cheek is part of a conference being held this week at The Ohio State University (OSU) to explore that question.
Sponsored by OSU, Colorado State University, and the Association for Public and Land-grant Universities, the three-day event has brought together public university, industry, and government leaders from around the country to discuss the evolving role of the university in solving substantial questions about energy in the twenty-first century.
Cheek is part of the university president and chancellor’s panel exploring the challenges of the next fifty years.
The university has established a key role in tackling the world’s energy challenges. It is home to Center for Ultra-wide-area Resilient Electric Energy Transmission Networks (CURENT), a one-of-a-kind center developing smart grid technologies to overhaul our nation’s chronically overstretched electric power grid.
UT also offers one of the country’s first interdisciplinary doctoral degrees in energy science and engineering, which is educating students in transformational energy-related fields. The university also breeds ideas like Professor Barry Bruce’s to use plant’s photosynthetic power to make efficient and inexpensive energy and architecture students’ unique designs for an award-winning energy-efficient and solar-powered house.
UT also offers one of the country’s first interdisciplinary doctoral degrees in energy science and engineering, which is educating students in transformational energy-related fields. The university helps support ideas like Professor Barry Bruce’s to use plant photosynthetic power to make efficient and inexpensive energy and architecture students’ unique designs for an award-winning energy-efficient and solar-powered house. The chancellor can also offer insight into how the university has cut energy costs. This past year, the campus community helped to save more than $900,000 in electricity costs. UT is nationally recognized for its efforts to become climate-neutral.
The conference is being held in celebration of the 150th anniversary of the Morrill Act, which established the nation’s land-grant universities and transformed the United States to make college education a reality for millions of Americans. Other sessions being held will focus on wind, solar and renewable energy, biomass and biofuels, shale energy, smart grid, transportation innovations, and building efficiencies. For more information, visit http://energyinnovation2012.osu.edu/.