Long Bui AST 104 11/03/10

ASTRONOMY COLLOQUIUM

I attended the colloquium on November 02, 2010. The speaker was

Tadeusz Patzek, Chairman of Petroleum & Geosystems Engineering

Department. It was my first Astronomy Colloquium and I was very excited. I

felt a little intimidated surrounded by professors and graduate students. It

was surprising to know that the topic our speaker was covering wasn’t very

astronomical. Regardless, his presentation affects all of us. I had no idea that

our American lifestyle might undergo some dramatic changes. Prof. Patzek

touched on the topic of oil production and energy demand of our country. He

gave us some statistics about the oil produced and the demand. We are

obviously using way more energy than we need and we have already

reached our peak of oil production in 2004. With the world population

growing at this rate there won’t be enough energy sources for us to sustain

our current lifestyle. From his talk it doesn’t look like ethanol, solar, or coal

will be to accommodate for the lack of oil in the near future. However, in my

opinion I think we have the potential to utilize solar energy to become one

the dominate energy source. When one of the professors brought up the

question about solar energy Prof. Patzek said it will require more energy to

power such technology than it can receive from the sun. I would have

disagreed with him because I have faith in our technological advances.

Throughout history there have been many breakthrough and I think it’s

about time for another. If we can make robots I’m sure we can make

machines that collect solar power. In order for such achievement I think our
Long Bui AST 104 11/03/10

space program needs to be enhanced. Perhaps then we can launch some

machine that can collect massive amount of solar energy above the

atmosphere and transport them back down to Earth. It may sound impossible

now but in fifty years I think it’s very possible.