2012-13 Moonlight on the Marsh Lecture sponsored by Everglades Wetland Research Park Florida Gulf Coast University

Thursday, February 7, 2013 7 PM, Location: Academic Building 7 Room 114, FGCU campus, 10501 FGCU Blvd. S., Fort Myers, Florida

Sams A Danish island based on renewable energy

Sven Erik Jrgensen, Ph.D.,

Professor Emeritus, Copenhagen University, Copenhagen, Denmark

Summary
Oil and natural gas resources will be depleted within the next 50-75 years. This will present an enormous challenge to industrialized countries where we will have to change our societies in a sustainable direction and convert and adapt our lives into a fossil free existence. In addition, the carbon dioxide emissions resulting from the present use of fossil fuels as energy source will change the climate significantly. Therefore, it is globally discussed and acknowledged that we are (will be) forced to shift from fossil fuel to renewable energy. Even though this is a very important step towards a more sustainable development, it will not be sufficient, because: 1) whenever, we use energy to do work, we inevitably loose part of the energy as heat to the environment. Energy in the form of heat at the temperature of the environment cannot provide work. It is therefore the work energy that has to be our focus and not the total energy that encompasses both work energy and heat energy at the temperature of the environment. This also implies that the efficiency of the work energy use becomes crucial, 2) it is important that the work energy of nature is also maintained, because we are dependent on the ecosystem services, which to a high extent is the basis for many of our activities (drinking water, food, cycling of important elements, recreations, purification of water and air, etc.). Ecosystem services may be expressed through work energy. A sustainable development includes a protection of the functional aspects of nature and therefore we must include considerations on the work energy of nature, 3) the carbon compounds assumed to cause an increase in the greenhouse effect are not only coming from the use of fossil fuels but are adsorbed and emitted from soil, wetlands, agricultural land and the entire nature. The carbon compounds include carbon dioxide and methane and other possible carbon green-house compounds. So, control of the climate change requires that we consider the entire carbon cycle. We are lacking parameters that can tell us how efficient our society is, and where the major bottlenecks are in our attempts to achieve a sustainable society. At the same time we need some easy to use tools for environmental and societal management that will help us to direct development of society in a sustainable direction. The presentation will review the application of renewable energy on the Danish island Sams and proposes to use the work energy as measure for the sustainability and a carbon model to assess the carbon dioxide emission.

Biography

Sven Erik Jrgensen is professor emeritus in environmental chemistry at the University of Copenhagen. He has received a doctor of environmental engineering (Karlsruhe University) and a doctor of science in ecological modelling (Copenhagen University). He is honourable doctor at Coima University )Portugal) and at Dar es Salaam University (Tanzania). He has received the Einstein Professor of the Chinese Academy of Science. He has in 1975 founded the journal Ecological Modelling and in 1978 ISEM (International Society of Ecological Modelling). He has received several awards, The Prigogine Prize, The Pascal Medal and the prestigious Stockholm Water Prize. He has published more than 360 papers of which 270 were published in peer-reviewed international journals and he has edited or authored 75 books. He was editor in chief of the Encyclopedia of Ecology, that was published in 2008. He has taught courses in ecological modelling in 32 different countries. He is the president of ISEM and he has been elected member of the European Academy of Sciences, for which he is the chairman of the Section for Environmental Sciences.