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Strengthening the Andlinger Community
Planning for Major Climate Displacements
Current approaches for planning relocation for potentially millions of people affected by climate change and related risks are “woefully inadequate” and risk worsening societal inequities, experts wrote in a policy perspective in a special issue of Science on climate-induced relocation on June 18. One such expert was Richard Moss, a non-resident fellow at the Andlinger Center, a former Gerhard R. Andlinger Visiting Fellow, and a senior scientist at the Joint Global Change Research Institute, a partnership between Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the University of Maryland.
According to Moss, whose work during his fellowship focused on helping cities and states adapt to climate change, policymakers and scientists need to rethink how they work together to develop, communicate, and carry out relocation plans to effectively move people away from risk into entirely new settings. Moss said facilitating relocation efforts requires new skill sets and requires that people working in science and governance increasingly manage trade-offs across interests, knowledge uncertainties, and institutional ambiguity created by overlapping jurisdictions. According to the research, past policy failures and deep structural inequalities in society have contributed to many of the displaced people being vulnerable in the first place and have frequently excluded them from planning processes, which makes successful relocation even more difficult. The authors laid out what it means to take a “pluralistic and integrated approach to action-oriented knowledge,” which they say would help make relocation more ethical and successful.
Moss is chair of the Science for Climate Action Network and has participated in national and international assessment bodies such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The other authors include Patrick Michael Reed, a professor of civil and environmental engineering, and Antonia Hadjimichael, a postdoctoral researcher, both at Cornell University. Co-author Julie Rozenberg is a senior economist at the World Bank.
Energy System Decarbonization and Supply Chain Sustainability
Anthony Ku*, in his work as a non-resident fellow at the Andlinger Center, addressed some of the practical bottlenecks to energy system decarbonization. Ku, who is director of advanced technologies at the
National Institute of
Clean and Low-Carbon Energy (NICE) and chief technology officer of NICE America Research, identified two issues that limit the pace of global energy transitions: capital “lock-in,” referring to infrastructure that is capital-intensive and cannot be easily replaced, and uncertainty and instability in supply chains for critical materials. Ku collaborated with researchers in the Energy Systems Analysis Group, including Jesse Jenkins and Chris Greig, the Theodora D. ’78 and William H. Walton III ’74 Senior Research Scientist at the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment. The researchers highlighted the need for utilities to make decisions on plant retirements and investments that exploit natural windows for capital replacement, using anticipated coal plant retirements in China as an example. Ku also explored platforms for secure data sharing that would allow businesses to increase investment efficiencies and reduce the risks of supply chain disruptions that might hamper net-zero goals.
Enabling Renewable Energy Production by Using Carbon Dioxide
As a non-resident fellow at the Andlinger Center, Jeffrey Bielicki* studied how geologic CO2 storage could be coupled with geothermal energy production to simultaneously move atmospheric carbon dioxide underground and produce renewable energy. He collaborated with Forrest Meggers, who has advised on and conducted research related to the geothermal system that Princeton University is implementing on campus as part of its net-zero plans. Bielicki focuses on the technical aspects related to heat and fluid flows when using supercritical CO2, or CO2 captured from point sources or from the atmosphere, as a geothermal heat exchange fluid. He also studies the government policies and market factors that play a role in determining which novel technological solutions for climate change gain prominence among policymakers. Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage and direct air capture were used as case studies of technologies that gained attention after having initially been viewed as far-fetched. Bielicki is an associate professor at The Ohio State University where he holds a joint appointment in the Department of Civil, Environmental, and Geodetic Engineering and in the John Glenn College of Public Affairs.
* Ku and Bielicki, were named “non-resident fellows” due to mobility barriers related to the global COVID-19 pandemic.
inform
Preparing the next generation of climate and energy leaders requires a multidisciplinary educational approach and program that draws from the sciences, humanities, engineering, psychology, architecture, and many other fields. At the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment at Princeton University, we strive to infuse a sense of urgency and a belief that people can effectively tackle problems and manage crises, big and small, with a diverse toolkit for action and a wealth of knowledge. Our educational program is based on the understanding that energy and the environment intersect with every other discipline and that, in order to successfully remedy related problems, students must consider various perspectives and break down silos. With two certificate programs, a public seminar series, graduate fellowships, and training for executives, the center provides diverse opportunities for learning about the complexity of energy and related environmental problems. This approach not only provides a well-rounded education but creates innovators that can deliver a more secure and better managed energy and environmental future.
Elke Weber (Photo by David Kelly Crow)
–Elke Weber, associate director for education at the Andlinger Center for
Energy and the Environment, the Gerhard R. Andlinger Professor in Energy and the Environment, and professor of psychology and the School of
Public and International Affairs
Graduate student and Maeder Fellow Tianran Liu measures the photovoltaic performance of his transparent perovskite solar cells in the Organic and Polymer Electronics Laboratory. (Photo by Bumper DeJesus)
19% 40% 19% 10% 7% 1%
14% 32% 19% 17% 16% 2%
21% 31% 9% 9% 18% 12%
14 Maeder Fellows by research area (2012-2021)
18% 18% 39% 4% 21%
Junnan Hu, graduate student in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (Photo by Frank Wojciechowski)
Key to Andlinger Center Research Areas
Built environment, transportation, and infrastructure
Electricity production, transmission, and storage
Fuels and chemicals
Environmental sensing and remediation
Decision and behavioral science, policy, and economics
Environmental and climate science
