Issues in Technology and Policy Seminar Series

Many policy issues at the public and private levels involve the application, commercialization, and control of technologies. This seminar series will explore selected issues in technology and policy, including examples from areas such as the environment, telecommunications, energy, and materials.

Jan. 6:   Addressing Health, Safety and Environmental Problems through Regulation
Nicholas Ashford, Professor of Technology and Policy, School of Engineering

Health, safety and environmental problems related to the industrial state continue to remain inadequately addressed by both government and the private sector. Regulation, economic instruments, and voluntary approaches compete to be the preferred policy approaches. In this presentation, the preference of regulatory approaches for stimulating the needed technological innovation and the role of expanded stakeholder participation in ensuring an activist and effective government role are discussed.

Jan. 13:   IT & Telecom: Cases in Broadband Policy
Sharon Gillett, Research Associate, Center for Technology, Policy, and Industrial Development

The Internet's layered architecture enables separation of communications services from the networks they run on. Communications policies, on the other hand, rarely make this distinction. In this seminar, two current examples - Voice over IP and municipal broadband - that illustrate tensions between what technology makes possible, what policies implicitly assume, and what business models may be sustainable will be presented.

Jan. 20:   Electricity and Natural Gas: Issues in Regulation and Economics
Richard Tabors, Senior Lecturer, Technology and Policy Program

Both the natural gas and electricity sectors in the United States (and much of the rest of the developed economies) have undergone significant market restructuring. The resulting regulatory restructuring has created smoothly functioning and highly liquid markets in some cases and markets that appear to be highly dysfunctional in others. This seminar will look briefly at the successes and failures and provide an overview of the lessons learned from the US markets.

Jan. 27:   Sustainability of Materials Systems
Randy Kirchain, Assistant Professor, Department of Materials Science & Engineering and Engineering Systems Division

Achieving a sustainable global economy will require many changes to current patterns of consumption. One mechanism of change will be the clever selection and management of materials. Unfortunately, few tools exist to guide engineers & designers in realizing those changes. This seminar will explore the important role which materials play in influencing the effects of consumption and explore the use of systems methods to uncover possible routes to improving material use in the context of a case -- the production and use of aluminum.