Prof. Leszek S. Czarnecki
IEEE Life Fellow, Distinguished Professor at Louisiana State University, USA

Biography: Dr. Leszek S. Czarnecki is Distinguished Professor in ECE Dept., LSU, IEEE Life Fellow and a Foreign Member of the Polish Society of Theoretical and Applied Electrical Engineering.
On November 14, 2006, Dr. Czarnecki is awarded "Titled Professor of Technological Sciences" granted by the President of the Republic of Poland. In 2015, Dr.Czarnecki is nominated for the IEEE Charles Proteus Steinmetz Award, which is one of the most prestigious honors in electrical engineering. Dr. Czarnecki solved one of the most difficult and controversial problems of electrical engineering in XX century, formulated by Steinmetz at the end of XIX century, namely, how to explain and describe the energy flow in electrical systems? Hundreds of scientists attempted to solve it and failed and hundreds of papers on it were published. Dr. Czarnecki developed the Currents’ Physical Components (CPC) – based Power Theory which explains and describes all power phenomena in electrical systems and provides solid, physical fundamentals for understanding energy flow in electrical systems of any complexity. The CPC creates also fundamentals for improving power properties of electrical systems. The CPC Power Theory is now the most advanced, not challenged concept, which starts to be taught at universities in various countries.
Dr. Czarnecki has been highly recognized for his exceptional contributions to electrical and electronics engineering. He published 138 journal papers and obtained 29 patents.

Speech Title: On Some Controversies on Future Sources of the Electric Energy

Abstract: The Key Note for this Conference is prepared by the author of the Currents’ Physical Components (CPC) -based power theory of electrical systems. This theory explains all physical phenomena that affect the transfer of electric energy in power systems. The study on this theory development has provided an observation point on the adjacent research area – on the future sources of the electric energy as well on the future power systems.

The subjects of studies on the energy flow and on the sources of energy are not very distant. Both are founded on physics, technology and economic aspects of electrotechnology. These fundamentals are relatively well settled now so that one might expect relatively clear conclusions from such research. It seems to be true with respect to studies on the energy flow, but not with respect to the future sources of energy and power systems. In fact, the number of conflicting opinions on sources of energy and future power systems could be very disturbing. Unfortunately, an allocation of huge amounts of human and financial resources of global dimensions follows such conflicting opinions. There is a potential for a huge waste of these resources. Maybe, tougher scrutiny of fundamentals on which some conclusions on future sources of energy and future energy systems are drawn could reduce such a waste of resources and benefit in more reliable research results.

The sources of the electric energy can differ dramatically as to the cost of the energy “harvesting”, foot-print, impact upon the natural environment, impact upon foods crop production, continuity of supply, safety of the production, immunity for terroristic attacks, local availability and a number of other factors. It is probably not possible to develop a unique measure for evaluating various sources of electric energy, a measure that would be able to take all these factors into account. This, unfortunately, provides a space for a factor that may have nothing in common with a science, technology or economy: - these are media and the Internet. They affect the scientific and engineering communities and, which is even more important, the decision-making bodies. Unfortunately, it is almost impossible to separate the reliable data from politics, national interests, or simply, ignorance originated data on the future of the future energy sources and energy systems from the information provided by the media and Internet.

This Key Note recommends enhancing the scrutiny in studies on future energy sources and systems to eliminate or at least reduce the not science-originated factors of these studies.