Minutes from September 19, 2017 Open Board Meeting-Dr. Matt Barth, CE-CERT

Tuesday, September 19, 2017

 Open Board of Directors Meeting

Norton Event Center
1601 E. Third St., Suite 138
San Bernardino, CA 92408

Minutes

 

 

Present:  Mike Burrows, Ken Coate, Jennifer Cusack, Louis Goodwin, Scott Hofferber, Fran Inman, Lowell King, P.T. McEwen, John Mirau, Dan Murphy, Michael Rivera, Elizabeth Romero, Kristine Scott, and Ray Wolfe.

Guests: Arnold San Miguel

Announcements: 1) A “Washington, D.C. Report” featuring U.S. Senator Diane Feinstein will be held on Wednesday, October 11, 2017 at the Riverside Convention Center.  Detailed information about the luncheon is in the event folder distributed to the membership. 2) Members are invited to a special lunch on the historic Union Pacific Fleet on September 26, 2017.  The invitation for lunch was e-mailed to members yesterday. 3) Lowell King reported on the Inland Regional Policy Summit meeting held on September 14, 2017 hosted by the UC Riverside School of Public Policy.  The four topics discussed were housing, water, higher education and cap & trade. 4) The second announcement was made for the proposed membership of the Inland Valley Development Agency (IVDA).  The membership will vote next week.  For more information about them go to their web site: http://www.ivdajpa.org/

M/S/P:  Minutes from September 12, 2017

Jennifer Cusack introduced Dr. Matthew Barth, Director, Center for Environmental Research and Technology (CE-CERT), University California, Riverside.

The University of California Riverside is a growing institution with 900 instructional faculty and 22,900 students. Considered world leaders in climate science and clean energy research and development, they have developed products and technologies that represent global solutions.

The role of CE-CERT is to serve as an honest broker in improving our understanding of air quality, transportation, and sustainable and efficient energy supplies by conducting a broad program of interdisciplinary basic and applied research and provide educational opportunities for the next generation of engineers, scientists and policy-makers.  They have 30 full-time staff (technical & administrative) and 100 students (both graduate and undergrad) in addition to 100 plus industry partners.   Topics of study are:

  • Clean Air-Quantifying and measuring emissions such as toxic, ozone and particulate matter formation
  • Sustainable Transportation-Intelligent transportation systems, connected and automated vehicles, electric and hybrid vehicle integration, eco driving and shared vehicle systems
  • Renewable Fuels-Aqueous processing of biomass to fuel, thermochemical processing of biomass to fuels
  • Renewable Electricity & Smart Grids-Advanced solar energy production, energy storage, energy management
  • Climate Change Impacts-Impacts of our fuels, cloud formation & impacts

 

Discussions included smog testing by portable emissions measurement systems, the Atmospheric Processes Laboratory that explores the interplay between atmospheric reactivity, secondary particle formation and climate change. Also discussed was connected vehicle technology between vehicles and infrastructure and automated/autonomous vehicles that are capable of sensing its environment and navigation without human input.  Dr. Barth indicated a possibly that within the next 20-30 years our level of vehicle automation can be at 100%.

UC-Riverside launched the Sustainable Integrated Grid Initiative (SIGI), one of the largest renewable energy initiatives of its kind in the State. This initiative was developed specifically to research and implement systems that demonstrate the successful integration of intermittent renewable energy, energy storage, and all types of electric and hybrid electric vehicles.

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) is building their Southern California facilities in Riverside. The location will be on 18 acres adjacent to UCR with ground breaking scheduled for October 2017.  Immediate plans include seminar series for an exchange of information and outreach and collaborative research programs.  As early as 2020 they hope CARB labs will have internships for UCR students, UCR will have continuing education for CARB staff, and CARB scientists may have joint appointment opportunities at the University.

 

A Q & A period followed.

Meeting adjourned at 8:30 a.m.