2009年邵逸夫天文獎得主
中央研究院院士
美國國家科學院院士

Climate change is here and may become catastrophic before the end of the century if we do not transition away from the burning fossil fuels as the primary source of our energy. In this talk we focus on the work of our research team in the thermal-chemical manufacture of high-throughput biochar, biodiesel, and syngas from renewable biomass processed by supertorrefaction with benign molten salts that remain liquids at atmospheric pressure and many hundreds of degrees Celsius. The proposed technology takes advantage of the extensive infrastructure and distribution system established for fossil fuels. If the biochar is buried as a soil amendment to repair lands damaged by past unsustainable practices, the entire process can be carbon negative. Carbon capture and sequestration technology makes even burning it as a fuel carbon negative.

Its employment on feedstock residues can also improve the carbon footprint of biofuel processes that do not make use of the whole plant. Thus, biochar production by supertorrefaction can rollback the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere to below the levels that are on course to melt the polar ice caps completely. We have built a tabletop model that shows automation of the process of supertorrefaction is possible, and we are now planning a demonstration plant in Taiwan to prove that supertorrefaction can produce energy products cheaper than mined coal, petroleum, or natural gas. We are looking for academic and industrial partners that can help us with this overall mission, and we charge the students in college today with the task of leading civilization to a brighter achievable vision for its long-term future.

Physics, chemistry, and biology are taught in high school and college as if they were separate disciplines. However, the separation is more an accident of human history than a part of the natural world. The division was not so important when we humans were just learning to understand and control the seemingly chaotic elemental forces all around us, but as we have gained more and more power over the natural world, the failure to see the systems aspects of nature rather than just its component parts is proving ever more restrictive and dangerous.

Teaching the history of human thought on the elemental building blocks of the universe and the forces that exist among them, from their beginnings in mystical thought to our current understanding of their context in fundamental laws, may be a palatable vehicle to promote the training of the needed generalists of science alongside the specialists. An appreciation of the role played by the marvelous processes that created the Earth and the life forms that exist on it can hopefully help to provide the perspective needed for long-range planning beyond the brief lives of individual humans.