Podcast of guest lecture on 'Towards a Global Solar Fuels Project'

Prof Tom Faunce of Australian National University presents on the governance and scientific challenges facing a global solar fuels project.

You can now listen to a podcast of this Energy Futures Lab guest lecture, recorded on 30th April 2012.

Abstract

The development of an economy based on practical solar fuels (whether focusing primarily on hydrogen, methanol or even formic acid) will be a major step in shifting the biosphere from what has been termed the Anthropocene to the Sustainocene epoch. Solar Fuels, particularly those derived from nanotechnology-based artificial photosynthesis represent an 'off-grid' energy, water and climate change solution that may directly challenge substantial investments in 'old photosynthesis' fuels by the World Bank and multinational corporations in the energy sector.

This lecture examines the immediate and longterm prospects and potential mechanisms for facilitating collaboration between the major existing national and regional Solar Fuels projects. Tom critically examines the extent  to which major energy policy documents set targets for funding on solar fuels research and the positive and negative roles of intellectual property arrangements in this context. The role of international law in establishing the appropriate governance framework for a macroscience Global Solar Fuels (GSF) project is examined through evaluation of the right to enjoy the benefit of scientific progress and its applications (REBSPA) in article 15 of the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Consideration is also be given to the role of declaring natural and artificial photosynthesis 'common heritage of mankind' under a UNESCO Declaration and ultimately a United Nations Convention.

Biography

 Professor Thomas Faunce holds a joint appointment in the College of Medicine, Biology and the Environment and College of Law at the Australian National University. He is the recipient of a prestigious Australian Research Council Future Fellowship and the holder of four competitive research grants and has over a hundred refereed publications in the field of health technology regulation. In August 2011 he coordinated the first International Conference dedicated to the created of  Global Artificial Photosynthesis Project at Lord Howe island. He was an invited speaker on this theme before the United Nations in Geneva in December 2011 and at the meeting of the Solar H2 network in Uppsala in November 2011. His latest book with Edward Elgar (to be published this year) is entitled; 'Nanotechnology for a Sustainable World: Global Artificial Photosynthesis as the Moral Culmination of Nanotechnology.'