The Fifteenth "Science in Japan" Forum

 

The Topic: Energy and Environment

Date: June 15, 2010

at Cosmos Club, Washington DC

 

On June 15th, the 15th "Science in Japan" Forum was held at Cosmos Club in Washington DC. The topic of this year was "Energy and Environment".

The forum opened with remarks by Prof. Motoyuki Ono, President of JSPS, and Mr. Kenji Shinoda, Minister of Embassy of Japan. After that, Dr. Hirotaka Sugawara, Director of JSPS Washington Office, explained the importance of the "Science in Japan" Forum and why "Energy and Environment" was chosen as the forum's theme.

There was four sessions at this forum. The first session in the morning was titled: "Environment" which was convened by Dr. Teruyuki Nakajima of the Atmospheric and Ocean Research Institute (AORI) at the University of Tokyo. The first speaker of the session was Dr. William Lau, Goddard Institute, NASA, who gave a very impressive presentation to open the forum. He was followed by Dr. Michael MacCracken who explained several of the current environmental issues. The session ended with an enthusiastic talk by Dr. Syukuro Manabe of Princeton University.

The second session was called "Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency", which was convened by Dr. Burton Richtor of Stanford University. The first speaker was Dr. Henry Kelly, US Department of Energy, who talked in detail about energy efficiency matters. He was followed by Dr. Yoshihiro Suda who gave a presentation on the cutting-edge science in Japan today. Lastly, Dr. Richtor gave a talk about energy efficiency and buildings.

In the afternoon, Dr. Chris Llewellyn Smith of Oxford University convened the session titled: "Advanced Energy Sources". In the session, Dr. Steve Cowley of the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy in the United Kingdom, spoke optimistically about fusion energy. Next, Dr. Yoichi Fujiie, former chairman of Japan Atomic Energy Commission, spoke about the future of nuclear energy. Lastly, Dr. Llewellyn Smith spoke in an urgent tone about the Earth's future energy supplies.

The final session was titled: "Government Policy" which was convened by Dr. Neal Lane, RICE University. The first speaker was Dr. Nina Fedoroff of the US Department of State who gave an insightful vision of US policy. She was followed by Mr. Sadayuki Tsuchiya, Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) of Japan, who presented the efforts of Japan on policies regarding energy and environment.

All of the speakers were leading experts in their respective fields. The audience listened with interest to each of the lectures which were of considerable interest to administrators for science policy as well as to specialists in those fields.

The forum assembled some 100 government administrators, university researchers and others, who listened to the presentations with eager attention and exchanged information on research in the subject fields with the speakers and one another with enthusiasm.


Agenda and Presentations

 


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