Download Robert H. Socolow, Professor, Co-Director, The Carbon Mitigation

Robert H. Socolow,
Professor, Co-Director, The Carbon Mitigation Initiative
Ph.D. Harvard University (1964)
National Associate of the National Academy of Engineering, Fellow of
the American Physical Society, Fellow of the American Association for
the Advancement of Science
Profile
Robert Socolow is a Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Princeton University. His current
research focuses on global carbon management and fossil-carbon sequestration. He is the co-principal investigator
(with ecologist, Stephen Pacala) of Princeton University's Carbon Mitigation Initiative (CMI), www.princeton.edu/~cmi/,
a fifteen-year (2000-2015) research project supported by BP and Ford. Under CMI, Princeton has launched new,
coordinated research in environmental science, energy technology, geological engineering, and public policy.
Pacala and Socolow are the authors of “Stabilization wedges: Solving the climate problem for the next 50 years with
current technologies” (Science, August 13, 2004). Socolow is on two current committees of the National Academies:
“America's Energy Future” and “America's Climate Choices” and was a member of the Grand Challenges for
Engineering Committee of the National Academy of Engineering. He was the editor of Annual Review of Energy and
the Environment, 1992-2002.
Socolow received a Ph.D. in theoretical high energy physics in l964 from Harvard University. He was an assistant
professor of physics at Yale University from l966 to l97l. He was awarded the 2003 Leo Szilard Lectureship Award by
the American Physical Society: “For leadership in establishing energy and environmental problems as legitimate
research fields for physicists, and for demonstrating that these broadly defined problems can be addressed with the
highest scientific standards.”
1.
Thoughts about Asilomar 2.2. Presentation at the Asilomar International Conference on Climate Intervention
Technologies, March 25, 2010.
2.
"A Focus on Individuals can Guide Nations towards a Low Carbon World," Chakravarty, Shoibal, Socolow,
Tavoni, Massimo. Climate Science and Policy," November 13, 2009.
3.
"Balancing Risks: Nuclear Energy & Climate Change," with Alexander Glaser. Daedalus, Cambridge, MA, MIT
Press for the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, September 2009 138 (4), doi:
10.1162/daed.2009.138.4.31 31-44.
4.
"Beneficial Biofuels - The Food, Energy, and Environment Trilemma," Tilman, D., Robert H. Socolow, J. A.
Foley, J. Hill, Eric Larson, L. R. Lynd, Stephen W. Pacala, Timothy Searchinger, C. Sommerville, and Robert
H. Williams. Science, Vol. 325. no. 5938, pp. 270-271, July 17, 2009.
"Response to Letters to the Editor," Robert H. Socolow, J. A. Foley, J. Hill, Eric Larson, L. R. Lynd, Stephen W.
Pacala, J. Reilly, Timothy Searchinger, C. Sommerville, and Robert H. Williams. Science, Vol. 326: 1344
(2009).
5.
"Sharing Global CO2 Emission Reductions Among One Billion High Emitters," Chakravarty, Shoibal, A.
Chikkatur, H. de Coninck, Stephen W. Pacala, Robert H. Socolow and M. Tavoni. Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2009: 106(29), doi: 10.1073/pnas.0905232106 1188411888.
6.
Executive Summary, America’s Energy Future: Technology and Transformation: Summary Edition, 2009.
Reprinted with permission from “America’s Energy Future: Technology and Transformation,” 2009, by the
National Academy of Sciences, Courtesy of the National Academies Press, Washington, D.C.
7.
J. J. Blackstock, D. S. Battisti, K. Caldeira, D. M. Eardley, J. I. Katz, D. W. Keith, A. A. N. Patrinos, D. P.
Schrag, R. H. Socolow and S. E. Koonin, Climate Engineering Responses to Climate Emergencies (Novim,
2009), archived online at: http://arxiv.org/pdf/0907.5140.
8.
"Low-Carbon Energy," by Robert Socolow. Presented to National Academy, Summit on America's Climate
Choices: Developing the Framework for a National Response to Climate Change. Keynote Perspectives on
Climate Change. Washington, D.C. March 30, 2009.
9.
"The Challenge of Climate Stabilization," by Robert Socolow. Presented to Fall 2008 Honors Colloquium
People and Planet: Global Environmental Change, University of Rhode Island, December 2, 2008.
10. "Place-based Mitigation of Climate Change," by Robert Socolow. Presented to Re-Imagining Cities: Urban
Design After the Age of Oil, at the Penn Institute for Urban Research, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia,
PA, November 6, 2008.
11. "Prospicience and Geoengineering: What if we can Dial our Future?" by Robert Socolow. Presented for the
Ethics and Climate Change Lecture Series, a series co-sponsored by The Princeton Environmental Institute
and the University Center for Human Values, Princeton University, October 14, 2008.
12. "Setting the Stage," by Robert Socolow. Presented to A Conference on The Future of Nuclear Energy, Chicago,
IL, September 25, 2008.
13. "The Critical Role of Energy Efficiency in Mitigating Global Warming," written by R. H. Socolow, reprinted with
permission from Government Law & Policy Journal, Summer 2008, Vol. 10, No. 1, published by the New York
State Bar Association, One Elk Street, Albany, NY 12207.
14. "Living Ethically in a Greenhouse," by Robert Socolow. Presented to Energy and Responsibility: A Conference
on Ethics and the Environment," The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, April 10-12, 2008.
15. "Good Enough Tools for Global Warming Policy Making," R. H. Socolow & S. H. Lam, Philosophical
Transactions of the Royal Society, February 2007.
16. "A Plan to Keep Carbon in Check," Robert H. Socolow & Stephen W. Pacala, Scientific American, September
2006.
17. "Can We Bury Global Warming?," Robert H. Socolow, Scientific American, July 2005, pp. 33-40.
18. "Solving the Climate Problem: Technologies Available to Curb CO 2 Emissions," Robert Socolow, Roberta
Hotinski, Jeffery B. Greenblatt, and Stephen Pacala, Environment, Vol. 46, No. 10, pp. 8-19. December 2004.
19. " Stabilization Wedges: Solving the Climate Problem for the Next 50 Years with Current Technologies ," S.
Pacala and R. Socolow, Science, Vol. 305, Issue 5686, pp. 968-972, August 13, 2004.
20. The Hydrogen Economy: Opportunities, Costs, Barriers, and R&D Needs (contributor) , National Research
Council, Board on Energy and Environmental Systems, Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 2004.
21. Review of DOE's Vision 21 Research and Development Program, Phase I (contributor), National Research
Council, Board on Energy and Environmental Systems, Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 2003.
22. " The Century-Long Challenge of Fossil-Carbon Sequestration ," U.S. Policy on Climate Change: What Next?,
John A. Riggs, editor. Washington, DC: The Aspen Institute, 2002, pp. 97-107.
23. "Production of Hydrogen and Electricity of Coal with CO2 Capture ," (with T.G. Kreutz, R. Williams, P. Chiesa,
and G. Lozza) Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Greenhouse Gas Control Technologies,
(GHGT-6), September 30-October 4, 2002, Kyoto, Japan.
24. Industrial Ecology and Global Change , co-editor, with Clinton Andrews, Frans Berkhout, and Valerie Thomas.
Cambridge University Press, 1994.
25. " Nitrogen management and the future of food: Lessons from the management of energy and carbon ," Proc.
Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, Vol. 96, pp. 6001-6008, May 1999.
26. " The Industrial Ecology of Lead Batteries for Electric Vehicles ," with Valerie M. Thomas, Journal of Industrial
Ecology, M.I.T. Press, Cambridge, MA, Volume 1, No. 1, Winter 1997, pp. 13-36; see also Volume 1 No. 2,
Spring 1997, pp. 33-40.