From the Editor 1155—16th St., N.W., Washington, DC 20036 (202) 872-4600 or (800) 227-5558
SENIOR ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICER: Marvel A. Wills BUSINESS NEW YORK CITY: (212) 608-6306 Michael McCoy, Assistant Managing Editor, Rick Mullin (Senior Editor), Marc S. Reisch (Senior Correspondent), Alexander H. Tullo (Senior Correspondent), Rachel Eskenazi (Administrative Assistant). CHICAGO: (917) 710-0924 Lisa M. Jarvis (Senior Correspondent). HONG KONG: 852 9093 8445 Jean-François Tremblay (Senior Correspondent). HOUSTON: (281) 486-3900 Ann M. Thayer (Senior Correspondent). LONDON: 44 1494 564 316 Alex Scott (Senior Editor). WEST COAST: (315) 825-8566 Melody M. Bomgardner (Senior Editor) GOVERNMENT & POLICY Cheryl Hogue, Assistant Managing Editor Britt E. Erickson (Senior Editor), Jessica Morrison (Assistant Editor), Andrea L. Widener (Associate Editor) SCIENCE/TECHNOLOGY/EDUCATION WASHINGTON: Lauren K. Wolf, Assistant Managing Editor Celia Henry Arnaud (Senior Editor), Stuart A. Borman (Senior Correspondent), Matt Davenport (Associate Editor), Stephen K. Ritter (Senior Correspondent). BERLIN: 49 30 2123 3740 Sarah Everts (Senior Editor). BOSTON: (973) 922-0175 Bethany Halford (Senior Editor). CHICAGO: (847) 679-1156 Mitch Jacoby (Senior Correspondent). WEST COAST: (626) 765-6767 Michael Torrice (Deputy Assistant Managing Editor), (925) 226-8202 Jyllian Kemsley (Senior Editor), (510) 390-6180 Elizabeth K. Wilson (Senior Editor) JOURNAL NEWS & COMMUNITY: (510) 768-7657 Corinna Wu (Senior Editor) (651) 447-6226 Jessica H. Marshall (Assistant Editor) ACS NEWS & SPECIAL FEATURES Linda Wang (Senior Editor) EDITING & PRODUCTION Kimberly R. Bryson, Assistant Managing Editor Craig Bettenhausen (Associate Editor), Mitch A. Garcia (Assistant Editor), Jeff A. Huber (Associate Editor), Manny I. Fox Morone (Assistant Editor), Alexandra A. Taylor (Contributing Editor) CREATIVE Robert Bryson, Creative Director Tchad K. Blair, Deputy Creative Director Robin L. Braverman (Senior Art Director), Ty A. Finocchiaro (Senior Web Associate), Yang H. Ku (Senior Associate Designer), William A. Ludwig (Associate Designer) DIGITAL PRODUCTION Renee L. Zerby, Manager, Digital Production Luis A. Carrillo (Web Production Manager), Marielyn Cobero (Digital Production Associate), Joe Davis (Lead Digital Production Associate), Krystal King (Lead Digital Production Associate), Shelly E. Savage (Senior Digital Production Associate), Cesar Sosa (Digital Production Associate) PRODUCTS MANAGER: Pamela Rigden Snead SALES & MARKETING Stephanie Holland, Manager, Advertising Sales & Marketing Natalia Bokhari (Digital Advertising Operations Manager), Kirsten Dobson (Advertising and Marketing Associate), Sondra Hadden (Senior Digital Marketing Specialist) ADVISORY BOARD Deborah Blum, Raychelle Burks, Kendrew H. Colton, François-Xavier Coudert, Cathleen Crudden, Paula T. Hammond, Matthew Hartings, Christopher Hill, Peter Nagler, Dan Shine, Michael Sofia, Michael Tarselli, William Tolman, James C. Tung, Jill Venton, Helma Wennemers, Geofrey K. Wyatt Published by the AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY Thomas M. Connelly Jr., Executive Director & CEO Brian D. Crawford, President, Publications Division EDITORIAL BOARD: Nicole S. Sampson (Chair), ACS Board of Directors Chair: Pat N. Confalone, ACS President: Donna J. Nelson, Cynthia J. Burrows, Michael P. Doyle, Jerzy Klosin, Gary B. Schuster Copyright 2016, American Chemical Society Canadian GST Reg. No. R127571347 Volume 94, Number 12
ACS meeting musings nergy—its generation, transport, and storage—is a topic that continues to be at the top of the agenda for scientists globally. It was one of the main topics at last year’s Global Grand Challenges Summit in Beijing, and at the American Chemical Society national meeting in San Diego last week, it was the focus of many presentations and events. It was definitely center stage at the symposium organized by Immediate Past-President Diane Grob Schmidt in collaboration with Michelle Buchanan from Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Under the title “Research Opportunities for Future Energy Technologies,” the symposium explored the latest technological innovations in fields ranging as wide as nuclear energy, carbon capture and storage, and fuel cells. The first speaker was Franklin Orr, the undersecretary for science and engineering at the Department of Energy. He focused on the report “Quadrennial Technology Review: An Assessment of Energy Technologies and Research Opportunities,” published by DOE last September. This is a significant piece of work—a total of 65 individual technology assessments took place—and it is available for the public at www.energy.gov/QTR. He was followed by Donald DePaolo from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Krishan Luthra from General Electric, Jeremy Busby from Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Peter Olmsted from Georgetown University, Tom Jaramillo from Stanford University, and George Crabtree from Argonne National Laboratory. Among them, they reviewed the current status of the field. Regardless of the area of expertise discussed, there was consensus among speakers that energy continues to be the engine of the economy and future energy systems should aim to be cheap, safe, robust, and efficient. Orr celebrated that in the past few years we have seen an acceleration in the transformation of U.S. energy systems to be cleaner and more efficient: from safer nuclear energy to better building design and insulation. But even with cost reductions in renewable energy generation changing the U.S. energy mix, the symposium’s speakers all agreed that this was not happening fast enough and society should commit greater resources.
E
Another topic that received a lot of airtime during the ACS national meeting was the public perception and communication of science. At an open meeting of the ACS Board of Directors, Amy Harmon, the New York Times journalist and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, asked those assembled, “Do scientists have a duty to communicate to the public?” With a show of hands, the audience overwhelmingly responded in the affirmative to this question. Harmon advised that scientists “stop defending science” and also “avoid the data dump.” Scientists, she said, should strive to “find a story with a plot and suspense,” eschew jargon when describing their work,
and state what (to Girls participate in you/us chemists) an ACS outreach is obvious. She also event at the San argued that, rather Diego Central than concentrating Library. all our efforts on educating people and avoiding misinformation, our time would be better spent building trust and resonance with the public. As always, many outreach events and hands-on demonstrations (see photo) took place at ACS San Diego— building trust one person at a time.
Editor-in-chief @BibianaCampos
Views expressed on this page are those of the author and not necessarily those of ACS.
2
C&EN | CEN.ACS.ORG | MARCH 21, 2016
LINDA WANG/C&EN
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Bibiana Campos Seijo MANAGING EDITOR, EDITORIAL: Amanda Yarnell MANAGING EDITOR, PRODUCTION: Rachel Sheremeta Pepling BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT & PUBLISHER: Kevin A. Davies
