AI: Too Artificial? Too Intelligent? Too Much Energy? (Session 3)


ID : 2132   

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ClassGraphic Dan Reicher—Stanford and Dartmouth senior scholar, former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Energy, and Google’s Director of Climate and Energy—will discuss his take on AI from several perspectives: fastgrowing applications; problematic uses; political and financial considerations; and his own experience with this transformational technology. Importantly, he will examine the massive energy and water demands of the AI data centers and how to address them. At the same time, Dan will consider ways that AI might accelerate the clean energy transition—and help address climate change—by improving electric grid operations, increasing industrial energy efficiency, and managing building energy use.

Instructor: Dan Reicher
Senior Scholar, Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability; Senior Fellow, Dartmouth Irving Institute for Energy & Society

Dan Reicher is an entrepreneur, investor, policymaker, lawyer, and educator focused on clean energy and climate change. Reicher has served three U.S. presidents, testified before the U.S. Congress more than 50 times, led the launch of Google’s pathbreaking climate and clean energy work, oversaw a $1.2 billion annual clean energy R&D budget as U.S. Assistant Secretary of Energy, and co-founded the nation’s first investment firm focused exclusively on renewable energy project finance. 
Reicher served from 2011 to 2018 as founding executive director of the Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance, a joint center of the Stanford Law and Business Schools. He is currently a Stanford Doerr School senior scholar, senior fellow at Dartmouth’s Irving Institute for Energy and Society, senior advisor with the Climate Adaptive Infrastructure Fund, and policy and business advisor. Reicher came to Stanford from Google, where he served since 2007 as Director of Climate Change and Energy Initiatives. 

Reicher’s federal roles include: Assistant Secretary of Energy for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy; Department of Energy Chief of Staff and Deputy Chief of Staff; Acting Assistant Secretary of Energy for Policy; a member of the Obama and Clinton presidential transition teams; a member of the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board; a member of the National Academy of Sciences Board on Energy and Environmental Systems; a staff member of the President’s Commission on the Accident at Three Mile Island; a law clerk to a federal district court judge; and a paralegal in the U.S. Department of Justice.

Before his position at Google, Reicher was President and Co-founder of New Energy Capital, the nation’s first investment firm focused exclusively on renewable energy project finance, and Executive Vice President of Northern Power Systems, one of the nation’s oldest renewable energy companies. Earlier in his career Reicher was as an Assistant Attorney General in Massachusetts and an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council. He was also an adjunct professor at Yale University, Vermont Law School and the University of Maryland.

In 2012 Reicher received an honorary doctorate from the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry and was also named one of the five most influential figures in U.S. clean energy by Oilprice.Com. 
Reicher holds a BA in biology from Dartmouth College and a JD from Stanford Law School. He also studied at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and MIT. An avid kayaker, Reicher was a member of the first expedition on record to navigate the entire 1888-mile Rio Grande (with support from the National Geographic Society) and to kayak the Yangtze River in China.
 
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Class Details

1 Session(s)
Wed

Location
Zoom

Instructor
Dartmouth Staff 

 

Notice

Please read:  This class is a livestream presentation to ...More

Tuition: 

$20.00

Registration Closes On
Tuesday, July 21, 2026 @ 12:00 AM

Schedule Information

Date(s) Class Days Times Location Instructor(s) Instructional Method
7/22/2026 Wed 09:00 AM - 11:30 AM Virtual, Zoom  Map Dartmouth Staff  OLLI Online

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