EESE Collaborative Research: Energy Ethics in Science and Engineering Education

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This action funds a collaborative project of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and Arizona State University (ASU). It takes a problem-oriented approach to ethics education, focused on the international issue of energy in the 21st century. Current policy discussions in the U.S. stress the need for energy system change, even transformation, if national and global goals for justice and sustainability are to be met. This project examines energy ethics issues for the responsible conduct of science and engineering and in the intersections of science, engineering, technology, and society, emphasizing potential scenarios for the U.S., while acknowledging the critical roles other nations and international institutions play in the future of energy. It develops new research and educational activities involving graduate students in interdisciplinary research programs. Recent reports about America's Energy Future from The National Academies focus mainly on technological options for improving America's energy supply. In its first year, this project synthesizes and augments research findings and educational materials about ethical aspects of options for improving energy supply, distribution, and use in the U.S.; develops a more inclusive model that examines technological and sociological plausibility as well as ethical desirability of energy option; and develops materials and approaches that examine issues of research ethics in domains of energy research and development, so as to promote attention to these issues in graduate and post-doctoral education in these fields. In the second year, it implements and evaluates energy ethics research and education components in graduate programs at ASU. The third year includes a workshop and a National Institute on Energy, Ethics, and Society (NIEES) that engages fifteen graduate students from energy research programs around the nation in a week-long program to prepare them for leadership in the fields of energy ethics and energy ethics education. Also in the final year, the project workshop at the NAE will raise the visibility among energy science and policy audiences of the need for expanding ethics education in energy fields.