It's proved to be an invigorating, if whirlwind, few days, but the 2007 Industrial Physics Forum has now officially ended. We hope the entries posted on this blog provided readers with a sampling of the highlights, and a bit of the flavor of actually being in attendance.

My only regret is that there were so many other talks and sessions of interest that I wasn't able to write about due to the severe time constraints of trying to cover so much substance in a mere few days. For instance, NREL's John Turner gave an excellent -- and realistic! -- overview of the progress to date in achieving the much-touted "hydrogen economy," while his colleague, Mike Himmel, gave biofuels the same hard-nosed treatment. Plasmonics pioneer Nader Engheta of the University of Pennsylvania gave a fascinating presentation on progress to date building circuits with light at the nanoscale, while Bill Bottke ably closed out the entire meeting with a light, yet still substantive, look at Near-Earth Objects and the nature of asteroids.

Most glaringly, there wasn't time to cover in depth the many excellent speakers featured during Monday afternoon's session on nuclear energy (including both fission and prospects for fusion energy sources). Public perception of nuclear energy has been quite negative for decades, but attitudes may be slowly shifting as it becomes clear that some form of nuclear power must step in to sustain our energy needs until cleaner alternatives (like fusion, still a good 50 years off) become viable. One doesn't need to absolutely love the prospect of more nuclear power plants in the world (I certainly don't), to recognize that they are nonetheless going to be necessary to our long-term survival as a species -- just not as a sole energy source.

That last point, I think, underscores the most prominent recurring theme in all the sessions at this year's IPF: Diversity is going to key. There is no "silver bullet," no perfect energy source from which we can meet all our future energy needs. We're going to need everything; achieving the right balance between them all is another major challenge. (In case you're interested, right now fossil fuels account for 80% of our energy supply; the ultimate goal is to reduce that to 20%.)

I emerged from the meeting significantly sobered at the reality of the challenges we face globally concerning energy and climate change, but also heartened. There are tons of gifted, brilliant and dedicated scientists laboring in laboratories all over the world to solve our problems. They're largely under-appreciated and ignored. We definitely owe them our thanks and continued support.