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Oil, Security, Environment, Technology

Ernest J. Moniz

The Segway Alternative

Dean Kamen: June 5, 2004; Running Time: 1:48:15

About the Lecture

About the Lecture

Oil, Security, Environment, Technology

As an energy source, oil is hard to beat. In spite of reports to the contrary, there’s still lots of it available—1 trillion barrels—and the cost of extracting and harnessing it for use in transportation and industry is cheap. But, Ernest Moniz reminds us, the energy equation needs to include some important new factors: insecurity of supply and environmental stewardship. The price and convenience of fossil fuels decreases quickly when you take into account the costs of global warming and ensuring stability in the Middle East. If the U.S. ever develops a serious energy policy, says Moniz, here are some key objectives: Reduce oil demand by producing higher efficiency vehicles; target “unconventional reservoirs of oil” in places like Canada and Venezuela; and develop alternative liquid fuels from such ubiquitous sources as cellulose. Hydrogen power is hugely uneconomical, with viable technology decades away, so we “can’t afford to have a focus on this direction impede serious approaches regarding security and the environment,” concludes Moniz.

The Segway Alternative

Whether you live in Bangkok or London, don’t count on motoring along at more than 8 miles per hour -- the pace of 19th century horse carriages. Half the world’s people -- around 3 billion -- will have moved to a city by 2020, says Dean Kamen, so “cities will need cars like a fish needs a bicycle.” Even if you make cars clean and efficient, he points out, “we don’t need a 3-thousand pound pile of steel to move our 159 pound butt around town, and there are still the issues of congestion and parking.” What if you could have a machine “that’s non-polluting, fun to use, requires no change in infrastructure – just a change in thinking?” Voila, the Segway, Kamen’s invention: a self-balancing personal transportation device. If you live in a city, and don’t need to travel more than two miles, try the Segway. For a block-long trip, pull on the sneakers, counsels Kamen. He has pedaled and peddled the Segway around the U.S. (as he does on Kresge’s stage) to argue for its inclusion on sidewalks. Forty-five states have given the nod to Segway travel, with some hazing from the city of San Francisco and the bicycle lobby.

Lecture Details

Location: Kresge Auditorium

“We are not running out of oil. There are one trillion barrels of conventional reserves in the world, many decades' worth at around 100 million barrels a day. The Stone Age didn't end for lack of stones and this is likely to be true of oil for quite some time”

Ernest J. Moniz

About the Speakers

Ernest J. Moniz

Director, MIT Energy Initiative
Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physics and Engineering Systems

Co-director of the Laboratory for Energy and the Environment

Ernest J. Moniz has served on the MIT faculty since 1973. He was Under Secretary of the Department of Energy from October 1997 until January 2001. He also served from 1995 to 1997 as Associate Director for Science in the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Executive Office of the President.

At MIT, Moniz was Head of the Department of Physics and Director of the Bates Linear Accelerator Center. His principal research contributions have been in theoretical nuclear physics, particularly in advancing nuclear reaction theory at high energy.

Moniz received a B.S. degree in physics from Boston College, a Ph.D. in theoretical physics from Stanford University, and honorary doctorates from the University of Athens and the University of Erlangen-Nurenburg. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Humboldt Foundation, and the American Physical Society and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Moniz received the 1998 Seymour Cray HPCC Industry Recognition Award for vision and leadership in advancing scientific simulation.

Dean Kamen

Chairman of Segway, LLC
Founder of For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST)

Dean Kamen holds more than 150 U.S. and foreign patents, many of them for innovative medical devices. In 1976 he founded his first medical device company, AutoSyringe, Inc., to manufacture and market pumps. At age 30, he sold that company to Baxter International Corporation. He then founded DEKA Research & Development Corporation. Recent projects have included the HomeChoice™ dialysis machine, developed for Baxter (Design News’ 1993 Medical Product of the Year), and the INDEPENDENCE™ IBOT™ Mobility System, also developed for Johnson & Johnson. A decade ago Kamen founded FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), which uses marketing and media techniques to motivate the next generation to learn about science and technology. Among the honors received by Kamen: The Kilby Award, which celebrates those who make extraordinary contributions to society; the Heinz Award in Technology, the Economy and Employment; and the National Medal of Technology, awarded by President Clinton in 2000 for inventions that have advanced medical care worldwide, and for innovative and imaginative leadership in awakening America to the excitement of science and technology.

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