**Title**: Energy in the North - Gwen Holdmann
**Date**: October 16, 2024
**Participants**: Amanda Byrd, Gwen Holdmann

00;00;00;15 - 00;00;03;07 [Gwen Holdmann] Getting the smartest people together to basically help Alaskans understand these technology options.

00;00;07;20 - 00;00;17;15 [Amanda Byrd] This week on Energy in the North, we speak with Gwen Holdmann, the founding director of ACEP, and now she is the UAF Vice Chancellor for Research, Innovation and Industry Partnerships. Gwen is getting ready to host a town hall meeting at the Morris Thompson Cultural and Visitor Center on Carbon Capture and Storage, and I started the conversation by asking what is carbon capture and storage.

00;00;28;15 - 00;00;31;06 [Gwen Holdmann] there's really two different vectors for collecting this carbon. One is direct capture from the atmosphere, and another is what we call point source capture, like for example, from a smokestack from a power plant. So where you're capturing that carbon and then the storage part is where you're actually finding some sort of a long term permanent geologic storage, and Alaska has some really good opportunities for that. And that's kind of why we're interested in exploring that as a technology.

00;00;54;15 - 00;01;01;23 [Amanda Byrd] ACEP's mission is to develop and disseminate practical, cost effective and innovative energy solutions for Alaska and beyond. And this sharing of information is really important to our mission.

00;01;05;05 - 00;01;15;06 [Gwen Holdmann] ACEP was founded on the idea that we as an institution, as a research program, are doing work that's benefiting the Alaska ecosystem. And so there are some areas where it's important for us to actually become the experts because there probably isn't somebody else. Like for example, with microgrids, There's nobody else that has the precise expertise that that we might need to manage and develop our systems here, you know, there's other expertise in other places. And our job is to like make sure that we're finding that expertise, for getting the smartest people together to basically help Alaskans understand these technology options. So sometimes, you know, we might bring in industry experts. So, for example, with the nuclear townhall event on one of those, we actually brought in various representatives from different vendors to speak to a Fairbanks audience, give them an idea of the status of their technology and how it works. And so one of the things that our role is to kind of moderate that conversation to make sure that we're getting all the information on the table, that we're not just subjecting the audience to some kind of a sales pitch because we want
this focus on accurate, impartial information is so key to being able to make informed decisions in this state and move us forward.

00;02;22;01 - 00;02;29;22 [Amanda Byrd] These events are not like academic lectures, they're created to be engaging for a wide audience and to answer questions that people have or didn't know they had.

00;02;29;23 - 00;02;31;18 [Gwen Holdmann] We actually recently completed poll of the public actually related to carbon capture and sequestration and, you know, kind of trying to understand how informed the public was about this particular technology, which helps inform how we actually go about organizing an event like this. 60% of the public trusts information from the university about complex topics around energy. Like what we're trying to do is be a trusted source of information for these new technologies that are coming

00;02;58;13 - 00;03;04;22 [Amanda Byrd] There will be STEM education for the kids at the event as well so they can learn about the technology in a fun and interactive way.

00;03;04;23 - 00;03;08;29 [Gwen Holdmann] We really want families to be able to come and participate. So rather than having folks have to go and find a babysitter, we want them to bring the kids along. And we think it's a fantastic opportunity working with Alaska Resources Education to both, have the students engage in something fun, but where they're learning interesting things about this technology, And then you've got the parents learning at a different level, a more sort of traditional format of like a little bit of lecture and a Q&A discussion with different subject matter experts. Our hope is that everyone can go home then and have a conversation about it.

00;03;39;28 - 00;03;45;06 [Amanda Byrd] Gwen Holdmann is the UAF vice chancellor for research, innovation and Community Partnerships. And I'm Amanda Byrd, chief storyteller for the Alaska Center for Energy and Power. Learn more about this topic at the Morris Thompson Cultural and Visitor Center on November 19 at 5:30 p.m. Find this story and more at uaf.edu/acep.