Mark Z. Jacobson, Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Stanford University

Mark Z. Jacobson is an Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Stanford University, where he specializes in computer modeling and analysis of atmospheric pollution.

He's also been involved recently in research to map the distribution of available wind power around the world. You can access an article he co-authored on this subject entitled "Evaluation of global wind power" by clicking here.

For a more-focused study, dealing solely with wind resources in North America, that he also co-authored with Consulting Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Environmental and Fluid Mechanics Laboratory, Stanford University Cristina Lozej Archer entitled "The Spatial and Temporal Distributions of U.S. Winds and Windpower at 80 m Derived from Measurements," click here.

Wind Power World spoke this afternoon with Professor Jacobson about where the wind comes from; how it's distributed around the earth; how it can be converted to electricity using wind turbines; how that energy can be used to power vehicles; what the trade-offs are, environmentally, in using various methods to produce hydrogen to fuel vehicles; and how power from the wind figures in the overall picture of using renewable sources of energy to provide the force required to move vehicles around on the surface of the earth.

You can listen to that conversation with Professor Mark Jacobson, in its entirety, by clicking here.

For related material dealing with the effects of converting U.S. vehicles to hydrogen fuel cell or hybrid vehicles, including an article co-authored by Professor Jacobson entitled "Cleaning the Air and Improving Health with Hydrogen Fuel-Cell Vehicles", click here.