Brief introduction:

As global warming and energy crisis are more and more visible, sustainable energy has become an important icon for solving both at the same time. However, despite its wide exposure, there still exist a lot of questions and myths about sustainable energy. What exactly is it? What can it do? How to generate it? Is it eventually a solution? This lecture aims at giving a glimpse of all these from a general public¡¦s point of view and will address several issues including a general introduction of sustainable energy, different kinds of renewable energy sources and current frontier research in Hong Kong and worldwide. How light-emitting diodes and solar cells will turn into the twin pillars of sustainable energy will also be explored.

About the Speaker:

Prof. Daniel Hock Chun Ong obtained both his B.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Northwestern University, USA. He is currently Associate Professor at the Department of Physics of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. His research interests are surface plasmonic polaritons, light-emitting diodes and solar cells.

Brief introduction:

Due to the fast economic growth in the past centuries, there has been a dramatic increase in the consumption of petroleum-based liquid fuels, such as gasoline and diesel, by vehicles and engines. The use of these fossil fuels intensifies the problems caused by global warming and climate change. Biofuels, as a low-emission renewable fuel made from biomass resources, has been considered as one of the best candidates for transport and off-road engine fuel substitution. Biofuel usage has increased tremendously in this decade and occupies an important role in the liquid fuel market. The most commonly used biofuels in the market include biodiesel, bio-ethanol and bio-methanol. In this decade, the technologies for producing biofuels have also undergone dramatic revolution, from food based feedstock to non-food, cellulose and algae based feedstock. It is anticipated that biofuels consumption will continue to increase in the next few decades and will become the dominant fuels for the transport sector in the future. In this presentation, conventional and advanced research in biofuels and its worldwide development trend will be discussed.

About the Speaker:

Prof. Dennis Y.C. Leung received his B.Sc. (Eng.) in 1982 and Ph.D. in 1988, both from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Hong Kong. He had worked at the Hong Kong Electric Co. Ltd as an environmental engineer for a few years before joining the University of Hong Kong in 1993 as a lecturer in the Mechanical Engineering Department. Professor Leung is now a full professor of the department specializing in air pollution, renewable energy and energy conservation.