ESTP students attend distinguished lecture featuring Sally Benson

The Wilton E. Scott Institute for Energy Innovation organized a distinguished lecture on Tuesday, September 20th, featuring Dr. Sally Benson. Dr. Benson is an internationally recognized energy expert, and currently serves as Deputy Director for Energy & Chief Strategist for the Energy Transition at the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). She joined OSTP from Stanford University, where she is the Precourt Family Professor of Energy Resources Engineering in the School of Earth, Energy, and Environmental Sciences.

She gave a brief lecture about her work at OSTP on climate actions in the upcoming decade. During her speech, Dr. Benson discussed the landscape of technology advancements and policy support for clean energy innovation. Sally touched upon her work with the historic legislation and executive actions taken over the past year. She detailed many of the provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act and how the investments in it could accelerate the energy transition.

Specifically, various emerging technologies, their commercialization, and potential bottlenecks in their deployment at the national level were discussed. She also discussed futuristic technologies, such as nuclear energy via fusion, which is a highly anticipated technology that could accelerate net-zero targets. Dr. Benson discussed the scale of these actions, which will launch a transformational decade of climate action that will make these targets a reality.

Post lecture, she spoke with Energy Science, Technology and Policy (ESTP) students about her work and their interests in the energy field. She gave valuable insights to students on various aspects of the energy field, the geopolitical aspects of globally emerging energy trends and markets, and her role at OSTP in energy transition processes. She expressed optimism about the development of many new technologies for decarbonization, including renewable energy and carbon capture and storage.