Special Section: Memorial Festschrift for the Late Professor Frank Kreith Sunrise Delayed but the Sun Shines Brightly: The Energy-Sustainability Quandary and Legacy of Professor Frank Kreith

Abstract

The imperative of conserving energy resources, acerbated by the ever-rising global demand and consumption, has been acutely underscored by many global events in the last two decades. The cause of energy security that has engendered worldwide conflicts has been recognized and debated ever since the oil embargo of early 1970s (Merrill, K. R., 2007, The Oil Crisis of 1973-1974: A Brief History With Documents, Bedford/St. Martin's, Boston, MA; Jacobs, M., 2016, Panic at the Pump: The Energy Crisis and the Transformation of American Politics in the 1970s, Hill and Wang, New York). This has been further interlaced with multifaceted issues relating to climate change, including environmental degradation and the inherent energy-water nexus that pose additional entanglements in our insatiably energy-centric world. This has enormous economic, social, and political implications, and there is a compelling need to organize our resource consumption in a sustainable manner. Sustainable development warrants novel solutions and strategies for mitigation and abatement of all interconnected issues.