Translator: Khrystyna Skira Reviewer: Cristina Bufi-Pöcksteiner
As a young person with hopefully a long future lifetime ahead,
the picture painted by climate change was really concerning to me.
I wanted to do something about it.
Now, you might be wondering:
What can a high-schooler do to help address climate change?
And to be completely honest with you,
I had absolutely no idea either.
But fortunately for me,
I had signed up for the Intro to Science and Engineering research class
in my freshman year of high school.
In this class, each student selects a topic of research that interests them
and spends a year doing background research,
planning and running experiments
and presenting their research in written and oral forms.
For me, I felt the most dire and urgent need
was to do research relating to energy,
specifically, renewable energy.
My work was of the concept called "energy independence."
Often, when we hear this term,
it's in relation to the oil crisis in the Middle East,
coal and oil plants in the USA and protectionist trade ideologies.
Well, I'm here to show you that there's another definition of energy independence:
specifically, communities and cities can come together
and harness renewable energy within their regions,
allowing them to become self-sustaining.
This way, the motivation for independence isn't political
but instead environmental and economic.
Moreover, the costs to both our wallets and the environment
that arise from the production, transportation and usage of fossil fuels
can be reduced.
Technologies such as solar panels, wind, and hydro-electric,
are considered to be the future of energy
because we don't have to deplete any physical resources
to take advantage of them,
and they don't emit nearly as much carbon into the atmosphere.
When we think about these next-generation energy sources,
people often like to pit them against each other,
in a competition of sorts,
to see which will be the one that saves us all.
But really, after working with a variety of these energy technologies,
over the past few years
I've learned that there is no one that is effective in every situation.
Instead, each has potential to be used in some location and at some scale.
For my research project, I worked with biomass,
which is basically plant matter that can be processed into usable fuels.
Currently, most of the biomass energy we use today comes from corn or soy beans
planted specifically for the purpose of being converted to energy.
But it's also possible to use plant matter that we are already producing,
such as agricultural waste.
I started by looking into these different agricultural waste products
and what options we have to recycle them.
It turns out that the waste of the wine production process,
which is basically the stems, skins and seeds of grapes,
doesn't have any specific use.
So I decided to put it to use by making it into a plant-based fuel called biodiesel
which can be used in any diesel engine.
If wine makers used their waste to create this fuel,
it can be used in the equipment and machinery for the next batch.
Then the whole process can repeat.
This is called a closed loop.
It's a concept that really drew me in.
I was fascinated by how the waste of some process
could eventually become the fuel for that same process.
I learned from this
that, on a small scale, energy can be individualized,
so that one doesn't have to be reliant on the grid and fossil fuels
to come up with their energy.
This applies in a variety of situations,
from the wine makers I was working with
to other farm owners who have waste plant matter,
to everyday individuals who harness renewable energy from their homes.
The following year, I decided that I wanted to do research again.
I was still really interested in off-grid energy storage
but I wanted to explore
how this would work on a larger scale than just a farm or home,
into something like a village or small town.
I was satisfied with the progress I had made on the wine-waste biodiesel,
so I decided to switch gears to study this cooperative energy system.
To put this in perspective,
say if we could implement an isolated energy system in communities
where energy is harvested in energy farms
and then stored within the community or nearby.
There would be very little transportation cost,
and the community could share the cost
associated with maintaining and operating the systems.
This is especially interesting in developing countries
where there are many villages that are not yet connected to the grid.
If they had a system
where they could collectively utilize solar and other renewable forms of energy
and store it within their village,
they could essentially leapfrog
all the developmental steps that come with the electrical grid.
Moving from a big-picture vision to a doable research project,
I wanted to study how energy storage
could be combined with another problem faced by many around the world:
access to clean water.
To do this,
I incorporated a hydrogen fuel cell into a solar water purification device.
This runs using the principle of photocatalysis,
which is when a special material, called a catalyst, is submerged in water,
and when exposed to a light source like the sun,
it's able to split water
into its component hydrogen and oxygen gases.
This hydrogen gas can then then be routed through a hydrogen fuel cell
which generates electricity that the village can use.
Then, after this, the hydrogen is recombined with the oxygen
to form pure water.
At the same time,
the photocatalysis reactions also work on breaking apart other molecules
in the initial water sample,
which means that toxic compounds can be degraded
and bacteria can be killed.
This sounds great in theory,
but, unfortunately, I wasn't able to get very conclusive results experimentally.
But still, from the background research I read,
in conversations I had with professionals working with similar technologies,
I learned that this concept
of a whole community having its own collective renewable energy system
is actually quite feasible.
Some even exist today.
For example,
the Kurnool Ultra Mega Solar Park is a solar farm in India
that encompasses over ten square miles.
The solar energy harnessed here
is enough to meet the electricity demands of over four million people
across six thousand square miles of mostly rural land.
These people don't have to rely on coal
transported from far away and burned with carbon emissions
to generate their electricity.
You don't have to be on your own
to achieve the dream of energy independence.
You can actually still be environmentally friendly and low cost
by producing energy centrally within your region.
So, taking a step back,
at this point we've covered
that, on scales ranging from individuals to whole communities,
energy can be captured, stored and used communally.
But the United Nations reports
that over 54% of the world's population lives in urban areas.
And a whopping 81% of Americans do, according to the census.
In these big cities,
there simply isn't enough space to build large-scale energy farms.
So what can all of these people do to be energy independent?
Well, just because there isn't one continuous expanse of space,
doesn't mean that there isn't space at all.
Instead of having one place where energy can be harnessed,
households and firms can use their own means to generate electricity,
and then share it with their neighbors.
The problem here is that, unlike coal and oil,
which have natural physical forms that they can be stored in,
renewable energy needs to be stored in something like a battery.
One proposed solution is by using large-scale batteries in power plants
to store renewable energy.
These are called "redox flow batteries."
They're very efficient and offer great modularity.
The main obstacle preventing their implementation is currently cost.
The main problem component is the membrane
that separates the positive and negative sides of the battery.
Because I had gained a working understanding of electrochemistry
from my work with the hydrogen fuel cells,
it was a natural transition for me to begin studying these batteries.
This last year,
I have been working with researchers at the University of Washington
to develop a low-cost membrane from readily available materials.
The initial results are very promising.
The hope is that, once the science behind the batteries is worked out,
it can be implemented in cities,
and renewable energy produced by households and firms
can be stored in these batteries until it is distributed back to customers.
So, thinking about the three systems I've described,
the waste-to-energy or closed-loop system,
the central renewable energy production,
and the shared energy storage,
what they all have in common
is that they help us achieve energy independence.
This would greatly reduce our dependency on fossil fuels,
and the environmental and economic costs associated with them.
There would be no need for building long pipelines,
or cleaning up oil spills, or fighting wars over oil reserves.
But, before any of this can become a reality,
the government and corporations need to see
that this future is what the citizens actually want.
By using our voice as consumers
and investing in technologies like solar panels,
we can incentivize corporations
to put more money into developing the necessary infrastructure.
I think that if you look around with this perspective,
you can find surprising ways to contribute to this energy plan in your daily lives.
It might be investing in technology such as solar panels yourself.
There are a variety of free online tools that can help you gauge
if your house and roof orientation are optimized for solar,
and how much it would cost you to switch.
Even in western Washington,
where we can go weeks without a single sunny day,
the technology has advanced to the point
where we can still use solar panels efficiently here.
I encourage all of you to explore these options
as you could really be surprised at how affordable they truly can be.
Another option is to use your voice as citizens
to talk to policy makers
about incentivizing closed-loop energy systems like solar
to both corporations and consumers.
This can be the financial boost we need
to get even more people excited about trying out renewables.
A third option, which is my personal favorite,
is to engage in research projects of your own.
You don't need any special qualifications or equipment to get into it.
Some of the most important discoveries
have been made in just everyday people's garages.
And, plus, it can be a lot of fun.
I'm living proof that even without a formal scientific education
and huge amounts of funding and backing,
you can make real contributions to research
just by taking the initiative to look around and ask questions.
An energy independent future,
where people at every scale can sustainably harness renewable energy,
is just within reach.
I invite you all to join me in grasping it.
Thank you very much.
(Applause)