ODU Prof Is Co-author of New Book About Renewable Energy Systems
November 16, 2012
Adrian Gheorghe, Batten Endowed Chair of System of Systems Engineering at Old Dominion University, recently published his second book in as many years about the vital area of energy security.
Gheorghe, whose research into the emergent risks to worldwide energy security has achieved worldwide attention, is one of six researchers who co-authored "Resilient Energy Systems: Renewables: Wind, Solar, Hydro (Topics in Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality)." Published by Springer, the book was released this summer.
"Renewable energy systems are playing an important role in the current discourse on energy security and sustainability," the authors write in the book's description. "Scientific, engineering and economic solutions are adopted, and there is a constant effort to understand mechanisms and options to allow a faster penetration of renewable systems in the current energy mix and energy market."
Readers of the book will have access to information, engineering design and economic solutions for harvesting local and regional energy potential through solar, wind and hydro resources, while at the same time mitigating loss from safety, risk and quality factors.
It is the second book Gheorghe has published recently about the safety of energy supply. "Energy Security: International and Local Issues, Theoretical Perspectives, and Critical Energy Infrastructures" was published in 2011 as part of the NATO Science for Peace Security Series. Gheorghe is co-editor of the collection of scholarly articles with Liviu Muresan, executive president of Eurisc Foundation in Romania.
The collection focuses on energy security in the Black Sea region of Europe, addressing in a comprehensive manner the current problems of energy security. It goes beyond pipeline politics, addressing topical questions related to sustainability and resilience of energy systems as applicable to the Black Sea region.
A Romanian by birth, Gheorghe was educated in Bucharest and London and has more than three decades of experience as a risk engineer. He joined ODU in 2006 after serving as director of the Centre of Excellence on Risk and Safety Sciences at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.
He is among the pioneers in applying system of systems engineering to risk assessment and management. He and colleagues in Europe have developed computational models for these purposes, with a focus on risks from sabotage, terrorism, cyber vandalism and natural disasters. At ODU he is working with the university's National Center for System of Systems Engineering, as well as the Virginia Modeling, Analysis and Simulation Center.