Letter in Nature: ‘Energy should form its own discipline’

In a letter in the 6 October issue of Nature , Sheril R. Kirshenbaum and Michael E. Webber assert that the “international energy system needs an overhaul” and propose “that large energy departments should be set up at universities worldwide to tie seemingly disparate fields of knowledge together.”

Kirshenbaum, a marine biologist, co-authored Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens our Future (Basic Books, 2009) with Chris Mooney, who is known in part for his book The Republican War on Science (Basic Books, 2006). She’s a research associate at the Center for International Energy and Environmental Policy at the University of Texas at Austin — where Webber, an engineering professor, serves as associate director. He wrote Changing The Way America Thinks About Energy (University of Texas at Austin, 2009).

The letter coauthors write: “Even though energy is a leading international priority, it lacks definition in universities, where it is largely perceived as a professional pursuit, or as a subset of fields such as petroleum engineering. Often, students are exposed only to glimpses of the sector and do not acquire an integrated, systems-level perspective.” They emphasize the contrast between the inherent multidisciplinarity of the energy sector outside academe and the segregation of disciplines inside academe. “A more joined-up approach is needed, beginning with education,” they declare.

Steven T. Corneliussen, a media analyst for the American Institute of Physics, monitors three national newspapers, the weeklies Nature and Science, and occasionally other publications. His reports to AIP are collected each Friday for “Science and the media.” He has published op-eds in the Washington Post and other newspapers, has written for NASA’s history program, and is a science writer at a particle-accelerator laboratory.