Love him or hate him, Bill Gates does have influence. In this new Wall Street Journal video of an on-stage interview at WSJ’s recent “ECO:nomics” conference, Gates discusses several key points, including:

• Energy is what enabled civilization to evolve dramatically over the most recent centuries.

• People in “poor” nations pay more for energy than anyone because there is no grid, so they basically are paying for diesel power.

• People, including knowledgable scientists and engineers, underestimate how hard it is to develop and change a global energy system so that we can get to the point where fossil fuels provide only half of the energy needs in 50 years. People tend also not to look deeply at subsidies or appreciate the energy needs of developing world.

• The potential for innovation in the 20-year range can be dramatic. If one looks at the 75-year range, there is a chance to set some aggressive goals and see substantial reductions in CO₂.

• People overestimate what can be done now. There are limits because of what has already been installed or what will be installed over the next 20-30 years. But by 2050, however, we could have all new energy generation plants in the “rich” world built with zero CO₂ emissions. Nevertheless, we would still need much more time to have significant reductions in CO₂ because of dependency on previously installed bases.

• The ability to run digital simulations and models in energy-related work is much more advanced than people appreciate, but the IT experience over the last two decades also tends to make people overly optimistic about the possible speed of innovation in the energy field.

• Gates discusses the need to have at least one of five “miracle” things to happen, such as 1) dramatically increase reliance on natural gas and be aggressive about related carbon capture during gas processes at 90+ percent level or 2) signficant adoption of Gen IV Nuclear energy with full “passive safety” design (doesn’t require human intervention), or 3) address the special storage and transmission needs of energy sources that require “farming” (solar, wind or biofuel).

• Gates says that for every one of these energy innovation paths, we need 200 “crazy” people who think their idea alone can provide the solution, “some of who we will declare ’sane’ in the future.” He says, “It’s what should happen because it drives both conservation and innovation.”

• For society’s future, he says we need to fund basic energy research at at least twice the level we do right now. That would increase the probability of success for achieving one of the miracles.

• Gates says the greatest energy failure of our energy policy is to not have a carbon tax being imposed or rolled in at some point in the future that incentivizes power industry into reducing CO₂ emissions.

• He says the division of financial support for intermittent energy (such as wind) is wrong, with only 2% going to R&D and most of the rest going in various forms of subsidies, tax credits, etc.. for manufacturers and wind farm investors. Gates says he isn’t really talking about things like DOE’s budget, which he believes is just modest, but things that are hidden or not obvious to the public in the form of tax credits, etc. When all that is aggregated, it should seem obvious that we are spending the money foolishly, he says.

• Gates predicts that the lack of political will or good policies in the US over time will be strongly influenced when energy prices in other countries (he suggests China, for example) becomes less expensive in the US.

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A “criticality matrix” shows how the impact of supply risk for certain critical minerals. This matrix was developed by the National Research Council panel for a 2008 report, “Minerals, Critical Minerals and the U.S. Economy.” Credit: NRC; NAE.

The Advanced Manufacturing Office of DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy will be holding a half-day workshop on April 3 in Arlington, Va., to “discuss foundational aspects for a Critical Materials Energy Innovation Hub.” The registration deadline is soon — March 30!

The workshop anticipates a Funding Opportunity Announcement and will explain the concept of critical materials, review background and introduce the Critical Materials Hub focus and expectations.

The Hub’s mission includes “identifying more efficient use of critical materials in energy technologies and improving the efficiency, and reducing the production costs, for supplies of critical materials” to help reduce the risk of supply shortages and interruptions for domestic manufacturers.

A limited number participants can attend via webinar, and the entire event will be posted on the AMO website sometime after the event.

Outside of the DOE realm, see “Issues of scarce materials in the United States,” by Steve Freiman and Lynnette Madsen in the the April issue of The Bulletin (see e-magazine version online) for an in-depth analysis of critical and scarce materials. Freiman also was a guest on a recent Kojo Nnamdi radio show on the subject.

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A June workshop is being organized to address issues relating to ceramic materials property data. Credit: data.gov.

Steve Freiman (along with Lynnette Madsen and John Rumble) first brought the issue of ceramic property data to the attention of the broader ACerS community last year with their article in The Bulletin, “A perspective on materials databases.” The article outlines the status and issues related to collection, verification, standardization and access to ceramic materials property data. They conclude with a call to action:

The time has come to plan for the future and assess where we are and where we need to go. This assessment requires understanding of what and how materials property data are currently available electronically on an international basis. … It is critical to determine viable business models that can be applied to establish a sustainable materials property data access approach.

Since the article was published, the issue of data has become urgent with the announcement of the Materials Genome Initiative and the National Nanotechnology Initiative. Also, integrated computational materials engineering, modeling and simulation are increasingly important R&D tools that are data dependent,

Answering his own call to action, Freiman is organizing a workshop in June to begin addressing these issues. It will be June 4-5, 2012, at the Virginia Tech Research Center in Arlington, Va. Freiman outlines the goals and approach of worshop and invites all interested parties to contact him for more information. His announcement follows:

E-Ceramics 2012: A Workshop on Improved Access to Ceramics Property Data

E-Ceramics 2012 is a workshop on the prospects and challenges for improved access to and quality of ceramics property data. The workshop is designed to bring together expert users to define and address issues related to today’s ceramics property data.

The increasing pace of technological advances and the need for shortened product development times requires rapid access to up-to-date and accurate ceramics property data. Data are needed for design and manufacture of advanced components as well as for predictions of long-term reliability. For example, the National Nanotechnology Initiative and the Materials Genome Initiative both underline the need for such data to reduce times from innovation to commercialization. In today’s connected world with ubiquitous search engines, it might be assumed that data access is no longer an issue. As any user of ceramics data knows, however, that is not the case for many types of important data.

The goal of this workshop is to determine whether the needs of industry, government laboratories and academia for electronic access to ceramics property data are being met, and if not, what actions are needed. Workshop participants will hear from key researchers, informatics experts and industrial developers. Sufficient time for detailed discussions has been allowed. The outcome of this workshop will provide major input in decisions regarding how to meet stated needs. Topics to be discussed include:

• What are today’s requirements for access to ceramics property data?
• Are the needs of ceramics data users being met, and if not, which needs are most critical?
• Is the quality of available ceramics data, especially that available online, adequate, and if not, what are the gaps?
• Is there a need for more centralized access to ceramics data?
• What actions are other disciplines taking to make their data more readily available?
• What resources might be required to provide improved access and quality?

A workshop report will describe and prioritize the needs of the ceramics community and make recommendations as to further actions.

If you are interested, please contact Diane Rumble at diane.rumble@randrdata.com

Workshop Organizer: Stephen Freiman; Steve.freiman@comcast.net; 240-499-6447

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Steve Freiman, ACerS past president, was a guest on the Kojo Nnamdi radio show on Monday to discuss the science and politics of rare earth elements. Sharing the studio with Freiman was Richard McGregor, Washington bureau chief of the Financial Times. Nnamdi is based at WAMU at American University in Washington, D.C.

The issue lit up on Nnamdi’s radar when the United States recently asked the World Trade Organization to settle a long-standing trade dispute with the  Chinese earlier this week.

Freiman explains how they are used in applications, how their electronic structures give them their unique properties and make it difficult to find substitutes. He also talks about the difficulties connected with mining of rare earth ores, the pending reopening of the Molycorp mine in the US, urban mining and more.

Coincidentally, Freiman wrote (with Lynnette Madsen) an article on this topic for the April issue of The Bulletin. The article (pdf), “Issues of scarce materials in the United States,” discusses critical raw materials in terms of the ideas of scarcity and criticality of raw materials, including rare earths. Frieman was a member of the 2008 National Research Council Committee on Critical Material Impacts on the U.S. Economy.

The interview is the first 28 minutes of Monday’s broadcast. Nnamdi asks insightful questions and does a good job balancing the scientific and political challenges involved with the rare earth issue.

The April issue of The Bulletin is available online now, and will land in mailboxes later this week.

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Mario Affatigato from Coe College identified the interaction between glass and living matter as a grand challenge that can be addressed by the glass and ceramics research community. Credit: ACerS.

What are the next “grand challenges” for ceramic materials research? What emerging research areas should the ceramic materials research community make its priority? What are the big questions that ceramic materials can answer?

Those are the questions that a workshop taking place this week is working on answering. Greg Rohrer, professor at Carnegie Mellon University, organized the workshop to tap into the collective eyes-and-ears of about 40 scientists from academia, industry and government labs. The workshop is supported by a National Science Foundation grant.

According to Rohrer, the last such workshop was in 1997, so it’s been awhile since the ceramic research community undertook a systematic self-evaluation. “There are new tools and capabilities, especially in microscopy and computers. It’s a new landscape, and our research needs to reflect that,” Rohrer said in his introductory remarks.

Established in 1950, NSF’s mission is to “initiate and support basic scientific research and research fundamental to the engineering process, and to initiate and support programs to strengthen scientific and engineering research potential.” Other agencies, like DOE and the military research offices, also support ceramic materials research, but always in the context of their mission applications. Free from the constraints of mission-based applications, the NSF is in a unique position to provide a framework for this kind of exercise.

Rohrer says, “As researchers working on ceramics, we need to be able to say, ‘This is why ceramics research is relevant, and these are the important scientific challenges that the ceramics research community intends to address in the next five to ten years.’”

Rohrer set out three goals for participants (paraphrased):

• Identify 6-8 scientific grand challenges with a five- to ten-year horizon,
• Consider the status U.S. ceramic research in a global context,
• Comment on effectiveness of NSF funding mechanisms.

Yesterday and this morning are “set-up” days. Participants have been giving short talks about their work and identifying the grand challenges they see. Rohrer organized the talks into four materials categories: glasses, non-oxide ceramics, composites and oxide ceramics. After each grouping, panel discussions help the group hone in on common themes across the materials groups and bring focus to the unique challenges facing each group.

The hard work begins later today. Each group will draft summary reports based on what they heard and discussed, and this afternoon’s talks will mix in the international and NSF pieces. Tomorrow the four committees will build-out their draft summary reports and present them to the group. These reports will be the basis for a full report including references, images, etc. that will be published in the Journal of the American Ceramic Society in late 2012. Also, Rohrer will be presenting the report at ICC4 meeting in Chicago this July in a track on Emerging Topics in Ceramics Research.

What themes have emerged so far? Yesterday I heard a lot of interesting ideas about surfaces and interfaces, including some new ways of thinking about them. Nanoscale effects on properties and processing, nanoscale characterization and computational methods also were mentioned frequently. It will be interesting to see how the four committees interpret what they heard and what they collectively tease out as Grand Challenges.

Rohrer emphasized that this exercise is intended to be inclusive and welcomes input from others engaged in ceramic research. “I know there are people who should be here, but participation had to be limited. I’m interested in collecting as many ideas as possible,” he said. Rohrer’s contact details are available at his website.

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