Bent Sørensen

Research

Short Curriculum Vitae for Bent Erik Sørensen, born 13. October 1941 in Copenhagen, citizen of Denmark.

Education and degrees:

1965: Cand. scient. (M.Sc.), physics and mathematics

1974: Lic. scient. (Ph.D.) degree in physics from the Niels Bohr Institute.

1991: Diploma in Advanced Management, INSEAD, Fontainebleau, France.

Employment and business:

1965-1980: Research Associate and Associate professor at NORDITA & Niels Bohr Institute.

1988-1991: Technical Director, COWIconsult, Consulting Engineers and Planners.

1972-: Independent consultant at NOVATOR Advanced Technology Consulting.

1980-: Professor of physics at Institute of Mathematics and Physics, Roskilde University.

Sabbatical appointments:

1967-1993: Yukawa Research Institute for Fundamental Research, Kyoto, Japan, Lawrence Radiation Laboratory, University of California at Berkeley, Wright Nuclear Structure Laboratory, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique, Institut des Sciences Nucléaires, Grenoble, France, Université 1 de Grenoble, Solar Energy Research Institute, Golden, Colorado, Australian Commonwealth Department of Education, Canberra, University of New South Wales, School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Photovoltaic Centre, Sydney, Australia.

Miscellaneous:

Guest of Honour, City of San Salvador, Australian-European Award for Eminent Overseas Scholars. Member: New York Academy of Science. American Association for the Advancement of Science. Received Danish Solar Energy Prize and European Solar Energy Prize (2002).

Knighted by Her Majesty Queen Margrete of Denmark (1989, Order of Dannebrog)

Board Member, Energy Information Programme of the Danish Ministry of Energy (1974-5), the journals "Renewable Sources of Energy", "Philosophy and Social Action" & "International Journal of Green Energy", Roskilde University Institute 2, Board of Directors, COWIconsult Inc.(1989-1991); Chairman, Danish Energy Agency Solar Energy Committee (1999); Hydrogen Energy Committee (1998-2002). Hydrogen Strategy Committee on Hydrogen Economy and Perspectives (2004). Research evaluation of Gothenborg University, Human Ecology, and Centre of Excellence in Energy Research, Australia.

Member of the Danish Technical Academy's "Circle of Development Managers", Photovoltaic Energy project group & Initiative Group, Renewable Energy Systems Group of the Danish Department of Energy, the International Energy Agency Task Force 1 of the Implementing Agreement on Photovoltaics, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Second Assessment Report Working Group II on Mitigating Measures (lead author), UNDP World Energy Assessment team, Danish Solar Energy Centre and Danish Climate Centre.

Consultant to Danish Academy for Technical Sciences, United Nations Institute of Training and Research, United Nation Environmental Programme, United Nations Department of International Economic and Social Affairs, Energy Authority and Electricity Commission of New South Wales, Sydney, Australian Department of Arts, Sports, the Environment, Tourism and Territories, International Atomic Energy Agency, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Japanese Ministry for Trade and Industry/NHK, Mitsubishi and New Energy Development Organisation, Japan, International Energy Agency Scoping Study.

Expert witness on energy and the greenhouse effect, Australian Senate.

Projects:

Tanzanian Village Energy Study funded by Nordic Africa Inst., Danish Technology Council projects, overall manager of Cowiconsult R&D projects totalling 40 man-years per year. Manager of leadership training and educational programmes, advanced problem solving techniques, knowledge dissemination and quality control. Danish Government Energy Research Programme (Life-cycle analysis of present Danish energy system and scenarios for the future. Global energy scenarios), Danish Energy Agency (International Photovoltaic Cooperation, Life-cycle analysis of present and future Danish energy systems, Import/export policy and renewable energy, Global greenhouse warming mitigation scenarios, Hydrogen as future energy carrier in the Danish energy system, Photo electrochemical cell development). Commission of the European Communities' projects on Externalities in Fuel Cycles (Joule II), Long-term integration of Renewable Energy sources into the European Energy System - and its potential economic and environmental impacts (RENA), Integration of Wind Energy into the National Energy Systems of Denmark, Wales and Germany as Illustrations of Success Stories for Renewable Energy (RENA), Environmental risks (ENV). Danish Electric Utilities' Public Service Obligation (Second generation photoelectro-chemical cells), Nordic Research (Biohydrogen).

Presentations:

Over 500 presentations at international conferences, technical and scientific seminars and symposia.

Publications:

More than 500 monographies, articles in scientific journals, technical reports and conference contributions. The journal articles have appeared in Nuclear Physics, Physics Letters, Physical Review, Physical Review Letters, Science, Wind Engineering, Solar Energy, Ambio, Energy Policy, Energy, American Scientist, Ecodecision, Natural Resources Forum, Annual Review of Energy & Environment, Int. Journal of Global Energy Issues, Int. Journal of Sustainable Development, Water, Air and Soil Pollution, Sekai, Journal of Peace Research, Cooperation and Conflict, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Philosophy and Social Action, Science and Public Policy, New Scientist, Nature, Nuclear Safety, Renewable Energy, Int. Journal of Hydrogen. Popular writing includes monographs on energy policy, alternative defence planning, superstring research, computer science, development issues and philosophy of science, and articles in newspapers and magazines. A full publication list can be downloaded from the website http://mmf.ruc.dk/energy/EEpeop.htm, see Bent Sørensen publications. Some key publications are:

• Computer simulation of Iodine-131 Pathway from Fallout to Man, Water, Air and Soil Pollution, vol. 4, 65-87, 1975
• Energikilder, energipolitik (190 pp), Energioplysningsudvalgets grundbog nr. 6 (Geertsen et al., eds.). København 1975.
• Energy and Resources, Science, vol. 189, pp. 255-260, 1975
• A simple model of Economic Growth or Decline under the influence of Resource Depletion, Journal of Applied Mathematical Modelling, vol. 1, 24-28, 1976.
• Dependability of wind generators with short-term energy storage, Science, vol. 194, 935-937, 1976.
• Renewable Energy (928 pp), Academic Press, 1st ed. 1979; 2nd ed. London 2000; 3rd edition Elsevier Academic Press, Boston 2004, second printing 2005.
• Nuclear power, the answer that became a question: Assessment of accident risks, Ambio, vol. 8, 10-17, 1979.
• Ridefinire la Difesa, in Scienza e Guerra (Drago and Salio, eds.), Abelo Publ., Torino, 1983.
• A rural study in Tanzania: The case of Bundiliya Village (with S. Nkonoki), Natural Resources Forum, vol. 8, 51-63, 1984.
• How do societies change? Philosophy and Social Action, vol. 12, 5-9, 1986.
• Superstrenge: en teori om alt og intet (186 pp), Munksgaard, Copenhagen, 1987.
• A machine translation concept, pp. 315-317 in Expert systems applications (Gouarderes, Liebowitz and White, eds.), IITT Publishers, Gournay, 1990.
• The effect of low-level air pollution and weather on asthma and chronic bronchitis patients, studied by neural network methods (with Enevoldsen, Gheorghe and Moseholm), pp. 701-704 in Artificial Neural Networks (Kohonen et al., eds.), North Holland, Amsterdam, 1991.
• What is Life-cycle Analysis? (33 pp), in Life-cycle Analysis of Energy Systems (Sørensen, ed.), OECD/IEA, Paris, 1993.
• Neural network model optimisation of photovoltaic cells, Solar energy materials and solar cells, vol. 34, 133-140, 1994.
• Strategy for a rich, fulfilling and sustainable society, pp. 83-101 in Expanding Environmental Perspectives (Lundgren, Nilsson and Schlyter, eds.), Lund University Press, 1995.
• History of and recent progress in wind-energy utilization, in Annual Review of Energy & Environment, vol. 20, pp. 387-424, 1995.
• Life-cycle approach to assessing environmental and social externality costs, pp. 297-331 in Comparing energy technologies, OECD/IEA Paris, 1996.
• Energy supply mitigation options (with Ishitani, Johansson i.a.), pp. 587-647 in Climate Change 1995, IPCC (Working group II), Cambridge Univ. Press, 1996.
• Impacts of energy use, pp. 243-266 in Human ecology - human economy (Diesendorf and Hamilton, eds.), Allen & Unwin, Sydney 1996.
• A high-technology rural development model, pp. 1157-1164 in Power development strategies for the 21^st century, Oxford & IBH Publ., New Delhi, 1996.
• Life-cycle analysis of energy systems (with Kuemmel and Nielsen) (211 pp). Roskilde University Press, 1997.
• Energy Scenarios (with N. Nakicenovic, T. Kram, A. Makarov, K. Yokoboro and Z. Fengqi), pp. 333-366 in World Energy Assessment; United Nations Development Programme, 2000.
• Biomass for energy: how much is sustainable? pp. 1394-1397 in 12. European Biomass Conference, ETA-WIP, Florence and Munich, 2002.
• Progress in nanostructured photoelectrochemical solar cells, in 3^rd World Conference on Photovoltaic Energy Conversion, Osaka, 2003.
• Scenarios for future use of hydrogen and fuel cells, in Towards a greener world - hydrogen and fuel cell conference, Vancouver 2003.
• Surface reactions in photoelectrochemical cells, in 19^th European Photovoltaic Energy Conference, Paris 2004
• Quantum chemical exploration of PEM fuel cell processes. In 15^th World Energy Conference, Yokohama, 28K-02, Japanese Hydrogen Energy System Society, 2004
• Hydrogen as an energy carrier: scenarios for future use of hydrogen in the Danish energy system (with Petersen et al.,), International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, vol. 29, 23-32.
• Hydrogen and Fuel Cells. (450 pp) Elsevier Academic Press, Boston 2005, second printing 2005.

Languages:

English (fluent in writing, reading and speaking), French and German (fair in writing, good in reading and speaking), Italian and Swedish (fair in writing and speaking, good in reading), Spanish (modest writing and speaking capability, fair in reading), Danish (mother tongue).