Served as the Under Secretary for Science and Energy from December 17, 2014 to January 20, 2017. As the Under Secretary, Dr. Orr was the principal advisor to the Secretary and Deputy Secretary on clean energy technologies and science and energy research initiatives. Dr. Orr was the inaugural Under Secretary for the office, which was created by Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz to closely integrate DOE’s basic science, applied research, technology development, and deployment efforts. As Under Secretary, he oversaw DOE’s offices of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability, Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Fossil Energy, Indian Energy Policy and Programs, Nuclear Energy, and Science. In total, these programs steward the majority of DOE’s National Laboratories (13 of 17).
Prior to joining the Department of Energy, Dr. Orr was the Keleen and Carlton Beal Professor Emeritus in the Department of Energy Resources Engineering at Stanford University. He joined Stanford in 1985. He served as the founding director of the Precourt Institute for Energy at Stanford University from 2009 to 2013. He was the founding director of the Stanford Global Climate and Energy Project from 2002 to 2008, and he served as Dean of the School of Earth Sciences at Stanford from 1994 to 2002. He was head of the miscible flooding section at the New Mexico Petroleum Recovery Research Center, New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology from 1978 to 1985, a research engineer at the Shell Development Company Bellaire Research Center from 1976 to 1978, and assistant to the director, Office of Federal Activities, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from 1970 to 1972. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota and a B.S. from Stanford University, both in Chemical Engineering.
Dr. Orr is also a member of the National Academy of Engineering. He served as a member of the Board of Directors of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute from 1987 to 2014, and was a member of the Board of Trustees of the David and Lucile Packard Foundation from 1999 to 2008, for which he has also chaired the Science Advisory Panel for the Packard Fellowships in Science and Engineering from 1988 to 2014. He served as a member of the 2008/09 National Research Council Committee on America’s Energy Future.
Bellaire Research Center from 1976 to 1978, and assistant to the director, Office of Federal Activities, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from 1970 to 1972. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota and a B.S. from Stanford University, both in Chemical Engineering.
Dr. Orr is also a member of the National Academy of Engineering. He served as a member of the Board of Directors of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute from 1987 to 2014, and was a member of the Board of Trustees of the David and Lucile Packard Foundation from 1999 to 2008, for which he has also chaired the Science Advisory Panel for the Packard Fellowships in Science and Engineering from 1988 to 2014. He served as a member of the 2008/09 National Research Council Committee on America’s Energy Future.
Robert S. Schechter Lecture, University of Texas at Austin, August 23, 2018, Dr. Lynn Orr, Stanford University
Abstract
The Global Energy Transition
Energy is the lifeblood of modern societies. Energy services are woven throughout the fabric of modern life, rural or urban, in the developed world. Inhabitants of developing countries who do not yet have full access to abundant, clean, and low cost energy have every reason to expect and will benefit dramatically from full access to energy services that the developed world takes for granted. A successful nation’s future energy system will provide energy security, economic security, and health and environmental security. Economies based on diversified, secure, efficient, abundant, cost-effective, and clean energy supplies will lead international economic competition. The key challenge is to meet those broad goals with energy technologies that are clean, deployable at large scale, and fully cost competitive.
Technology improvements in production of oil and gas, and a resulting transition away from coal as the primary fuel for electric power generation, deep reductions in the cost of technologies like solar and wind, increasing energy efficiency, and efforts to modernize the transmission and distribution of electric power, including deployment of energy storage, are reshaping the energy landscape for the United States and the world. Recent progress has been impressive, but there is much more to be done. This presentation reviews examines options for meeting those challenges, outlines the need for additional energy innovation, and explores research and development pathways that offer important opportunities for continued progress toward those goals. The important roles of engineers and scientists who understand the opportunities and complexities of the Earth’s subsurface and it’s contributions to clean energy systems will be highlighted.
