Dr. Bezdek has over 30 years experience in consulting and management in the energy, utility, environmental, and regulatory areas, serving in private industry, academia, and the Federal government, and is the founder and president of Management Information Services, Inc. – a Washington, D.C.-based economic, environmental, and energy research firm.  His consulting background includes energy technology and market forecasting, oil, coal, natural gas, renewable, and nuclear energy analyses, assessment of DOE energy R&D programs, estimation of the costs and benefits of energy systems, assessment of the economic effects of environmental and energy technologies, energy industry forecasting, environmental impact assessments, and creation and management of Federal energy programs.  

Dr. Bezdek has served as Corporate Director, Corporate President and CEO, University Professor, Research Director in ERDA/DOE, Senior Advisor in the Office of the Secretary of the Treasury, U.S. energy and environmental delegate to the European Community and to NATO, and as a participant in the U.S. State Department AMPART program.  He has served as a consultant to the White House, the Office of Al Gore, Federal and state government agencies, and various corporations and research organizations, including the National Science Foundation, NASA, DOE, DOD, EPA, IBM, Ceres, Goldman Sachs, Raytheon, Peabody Energy, Lockheed Martin, J. P. Morgan Chase, Greenpeace, Ontario Power Generation, British Aerospace, American Solar Energy Society, the Rockefeller Foundations, UN Environmental Program, Pew Charitable Trusts, National Energy Technology Laboratory, Electric Power Research Institute, Edison Electric Institute, Georgetown Climate Center, and Nuclear Energy Institute.  During 2003/04, he served on the Federal Task Force charged with rebuilding the economy of Iraq.  He is active with the National Research Council of the U.S. National Academies of Science (NAS), and served as a member of the joint NAS/Chinese Academy of Sciences Committee on U.S.-Chinese Energy Cooperation and on the NAS Committee on Fuel Economy of Medium and Heavy Duty Vehicles.  During 2008, he presented energy briefings to the staffs of Senators Barack Obama, John McCain, and Hillary Clinton.

Dr. Bezdek received his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Illinois (Urbana), is an internationally recognized expert in environmental and energy analysis and forecasting, and testifies frequently before the Federal, state, and city governments.  He is the author of six books and over 300 articles in scientific and technical journals and serves as an editorial board member and peer-reviewer for various professional publications.  He is the recipient of numerous honors and awards (including awards from the White House, the Energy Department, the Treasury Department -- Secretary’s Honor Award, ASPO – M. King Hubbert Award, the National Science Foundation, the Wall Street Journal, the Association for Computing Machinery, and the USSR Academy of Sciences), has served as a U.S. representative to international organizations on energy and environmental issues, and lectures frequently on economic and energy issues, economic forecasting, and environmental topics.  He is the Washington editor of World Oil magazine.  His most recent book is The Impending World Energy Mess.

Steve’s research focuses on long-run modeling of energy systems and climate change drivers, mitigation, and potential risks, as well as the economics of land-use, agriculture and forestry abatement, and bioenergy as they relate to domestic and international climate change and energy policy.

Some current research interests and areas of publication include energy-water-land linkages, climate change risks and responses, the role of bioenergy in long-run climate management, mitigation institutions, offset mitigation investment risks and incentives, bioelectricity emissions, the economics of REDD+ and agricultural productivity, trade-offs between mitigation and temperature, and the marginal costs of climate change.

Steve was a lead author for the IPCC’s Fifth and Fourth Assessment Reports, and the U.S. National Climate Assessment, as well as for the IPCC’s report on the development of new climate scenarios. In addition, Steve co-chairs the bioenergy modeling subgroup of Stanford University’s Energy Modeling Forum (EMF), serves on the federal government’s U.S. Carbon Cycle Science Program Carbon Cycle Scientific Steering Group, and sat on EPA’s Science Advisory Board panel on Carbon Dioxide Emissions from Biogenic Sources.

Steve received his Bachelor of Arts degree in economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and his doctorate in economics from Cornell University.

Andrew Bunger is an Assistant Professor in the University of Pittsburgh's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. He joined the University of Pittsburgh last year after spending 10 years in Melbourne, Australia working in the Geomechanics Group within the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). His research interests include the mechanics of hydraulic fractures, coupled fluid-shale interaction, and the emplacement dynamics of magma-driven dykes and sills. His experience includes research for the oil and gas industry, geothermal industry, mining industries, and carbon sequestration. He holds a PhD in Geological Engineering from the University of Minnesota.

His presentation, Wellbore Integrity Research Priorities for Nuclear Waste Disposal in Deep Boreholes, is summarized below:

Disposal of both high level nuclear waste and spent nuclear fuel in deep boreholes completed in low permeability formations has been proposed and periodically considered since the 1950s. The current reference design entails drilling a 17” borehole to ~5 km depth, completing the final ~2 km of cased and cemented wellbore in crystalline basement rock. After placement of waste canisters, the currently-proposed design entails removal of the casing from the upper ~3 km after which this section will be filled with layers of cement, clay, and/or asphalt. This talk will outline research areas in wellbore integrity that will be priorities for nuclear waste disposal in deep boreholes, highlighting wellbore integrity topics that appear in issues papers on deep borehole disposal as well as experiences from the petroleum and deep geothermal industries.

Dr. Bunger's colleague, Dr. Daniel G. Cole, Director of the Nuclear Engineering Program, will present some portions of the PowerPoint.