Commentator: Dr. Anne Greene, University of Pennsylvania, Department of History

Presenter and Chair: Kevin Duffield, North Carolina State University, Department of History
Paper title: “The Effect of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1977 on the Development and Research of Alternative Automobile Engine Technologies.”

This paper chronicles the development and subsequent failure of alternatives to the internal combustion engine. Diesel engines have failed to penetrate the consumer market in the United States even though they are a superior technology to the internal combustion engine; the motors last two to three times longer and achieve thirty-five to forty-five percent better fuel economy than internal combustion engines. I will investigate the limited introduction of the diesel engine to the US market during the sixties and seventies as well as its rapid decline in the eighties.  Investigating the rejection of alternative technologies from the market will facilitate our understanding of their benefit as well as reveal potential obstacles to their implementation in our contemporary society.

Presenter: Jason P. Theriot, University of Houston, Department of History
Paper title: “The Development and Demise of the Agrifuels Ethanol Plant in New Iberia, Louisiana: Private Initiative and Political Betrayal”

From Jason P. Theriot’s proposal:

The story of the development and demise of the Agrifuels Plant in New Iberia directly addresses the subject of what makes a “failed” technology. Technologies can succeed or fail for reasons outside of the actual development of the technology itself. As in this case, and in many other cases involving energy or alternative energy sources, such a nuclear power, federal and state incentives, lobbying, and energy politics can effectively initiate a successful technological development, but can also circumvent that process.