Scott Pfeiffer – Versar, Inc.

This presentation explores the potential of machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) to accelerate sustainable development. It addresses the difficulty of addressing pressing problems associated with Climate Change in an economy that extensively uses fossil fuels. For example, the U.S. has less than 5% of the world’s population and consumes nearly 17% of the world’s energy. Approximately 21 million barrels of oil are consumed in the United States for petrochemical manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, plastics, and transportation, including work vehicles that run on it. Our modern economy is built on cheap, abundant energy. How do we begin to unravel this dependency and meet sustainable development goals? How do we collect, distill, and analyze the data to make sense of the impact? How can AI and ML effectively tackle mitigation and adaptation from the global impact of industrialization? How can the Federal Agencies benefit from these technologies? By leveraging ML and AI, we can better understand and address challenges related to sustainable development and the damage caused by flooding, fires, droughts, and extreme heat. If we understand these, we can begin to address better ways to generate and use energy and understand efficient buildings and transportation. We can even predict and address disaster response, electric demand load management, distributed energy systems, optimal clean energy placement, sea-level and coastal resilience, traffic optimization for electric vehicles, water resources, and efficient farm and food production. This presentation delves into the importance of balancing mitigation and adaptation strategies. It highlights the role of stakeholders and governments in maximizing the policy needed to harness the potential of these tools that can help make sense of the complex data behind climate science.The presentation will discuss how AI will impact our work, communities, science, and economies to understand the near future needs contractors can be expected to address and hopefully remediate the long-term damage of climate change.