Exchange Magazine | 6 June 2011
Waterloo – In 2030, when you plug in your toaster, car or smart phone, where will the electricity come from? Or, will the electrons be there at all?
In the midst of Japan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster and as summer peak electricity demand looms in the northern hemisphere, world-leading energy scientists, future leaders and a group of experienced advisors are meeting in a unique think-tank experiment to envision how we can best prepare for a sustainable and safe global electricity future.
Launch is from June 5th (to 9th) at 1:00pm with an Address from the Governor General of Canada
Over four days of private working sessions, a panel consisting of a dozen scientific experts will share and debate their visions and technological expertise for the generation, distribution and storage of electricity looking towards the year 2030, overseen by seasoned mentors and a forum of next-generation leaders charting a course for implementation.
After half-a-century of promise, will fusion power finally deliver its first electricity? Can we safely rely on recycling and re-using nuclear fuel? Does our electricity future include paint-on photovoltaic panels that will split water to produce hydrogen gas for electricity production?
"Our goal is to tackle the energy challenges of this century from a scientific perspective first - and then factor in the economic, social and environmental implications, leaving politics until last,” says Wilson da Silva, moderator for the Equinox Summit: Energy 2030.
In tandem to the working sessions, the Equinox Summit aims to renew the energy dialogue in homes across the globe through a series of plenary sessions, topical lectures, and live panel debates on TVO’s The Agenda with Steve Paikin - all streamed live online and on-demand.
The Equinox Summit is the inaugural event of the Waterloo Global Science Initiative and is taking place at Perimeter Institute – a world-leading centre for theoretical physics.
“It’s a perfect venue for a future-looking energy summit,” says da Silva.
“Science has been the greatest single factor contributing to the health, prosperity and the advancement of our civilization. It is transformative, and that's the kind of power we need to tap in order to solve some of these really gargantuan challenges."