Past CSPO Events
- March 11, 2016CSPO DC - New Tools for Science Policy
Different Technologies, Different Learning Rates: Policy implications for energy investments
Learning curves have become a robust technique for modeling technological change in energy portfolios and as inputs into forecasting models. However traditional financial strategies have been applied to energy generation portfolios without full consideration of the effect of learning rates.
The simplicity and universality of the experience curve (or performance curve) framework led R&D managers to apply it to everything from airplane manufacturing to nuclear power plants. It has been well understood for some time that different technologies have very different learning rates, but there was little or no theory as to why. Deborah Strumsky will discuss recent work that provided insights on the underlying determinants of learning rates differences across technologies, and the extent to which policies are able to accelerate or influence them.
Dr. Strumsky will discuss the implications of her research for policies related to mitigating climate change. Learning curves have become a robust technique for modeling technological change in energy portfolios and as inputs into forecasting models. However traditional financial strategies have been applied to energy generation portfolios without full consideration of the effect of learning rates. Dr. Strumsky will offer simulation results from recent work on improved energy portfolio investment strategies, and what it may mean for technologies like photovoltaics.
Deborah Strumsky
- February 29, 2016CSPO DC
Climate Change: This Time, It’s Personal
Personal narratives can provide the diversity of voices and values needed to effectively confront the complex challenges of a changing world. In a provocative new essay, award-winning environmental journalist Andrew C. Revkin brings forth one of these vital stories: his own. Chronicling the shifts in his thinking (and writing) over thirty years of covering climate change for outlets like the New York Times, he concludes, surprisingly, “global warming doesn’t worry me.”
Please join us for a wide-ranging conversation with Andrew about the challenges of writing about climate change and making an impact on readers through personal narrative. He will be joined by Lee Gutkind, founding editor of Creative Nonfiction, and Daniel Sarewitz, co-editor of Issues in Science and Technology; Andrew’s essay appears in the current issues of both magazines.
Andy Revkin, Daniel Sarewitz, Lee Gutkind
- February 24, 2016Co-sponsored
EnLIGHTeNING Lunch with Lauren Withycombe Keeler
Helping cities cope with disruptive technologies: The case of self-driving cars
Presentation of the opportunities and challenges posed by anticipatory governance and responsible innovation for helping cities plan for, absorb, and direct disruptive technologies within their jurisdictions by exploring the case of self-driving cars.
Lauren Withycombe Keeler
- February 15, 2016CSPO AZ
Future of Consciousness
Part 1 of the "Future of X" series presented by the School for the Future of Innovation in Society
Conversation about the futures we want to create
with Gregg Pascal Zachary, Professor of Practice, School of the Future of Innovation in Society and Gaymon Bennett, Assistant Professor of Religion, Science, and Technology
Light snacks, refreshments provided
RSVP online: bit.ly/FutureOfTalksGaymon Bennett, G. Pascal (Gregg) Zachary
- February 12, 2016Co-sponsored
Symposium with Laura Hosman
Appropriate Technologies and Experiential Learning: Possibilities, Pitfalls & Pivots
This talk will explore some of the issues associated with appropriate technologies, and more specifically, with technology-in-the-schools projects in the developing world.
Laura Hosman
- January 28, 2016Co-sponsored
Science Fiction TV Dinner: Starships from the 1970s
with Dave Guston
Join us for a screening and conversation with Dave Guston, founding director of ASU’s School for the Future of Innovation in Society, and Ben Minteer, Arizona Zoological Society Endowed Chair in the School of Life Sciences.
David Guston, Ben Minteer
- January 27, 2016CSPO enLIGHTeNING Lunch
EnLIGHTeNING Lunch with Darrin Durant
How to be quixotically unreflexive: surprising results from climate change politics in Australia
Drawing upon interviews with climate scientists advising government in Australia about climate change, I do not find them to be as cavalier as the quixotically unreflexive thesis would lead us to suspect. Are Aussie’s standing exceptions?
Darrin Durant
- January 21, 2016Co-sponsored, Energy and Society: Communities of Energy in Transition
Moderate, Temporary, and Responsive Solar Geoengineering
A presentation by David Keith
David Keith, one of the most prominent researchers advocating for research in this field, will review the science and technology and of solar geoengineering, arguing that systematic management of climate risks requires the capability to implement these technologies.
David Keith