The Siebel Energy Grand Challenge is focused on the need for substantial transformation of the global energy system during the lifetimes of current Princeton undergraduates.  Through the generous support of the Thomas and Stacey Siebel Foundation, the Siebel Energy cooperative will confront climate change and other environmental impacts of the energy system with projects addressing the management of fossil-fuel carbon, the expansion of non-fossil-fuel energy sources, and the reduction of energy demand through technology and social change. The geopolitical challenge of meeting oil demand by developing regional international projects is also being addressed through a program on Oil, Energy, and the Middle East.   Through this program, the Princeton Environmental Institute and the Department of Near Eastern Studies have combined efforts to bring a variety of experts to campus, all of whom are connected to the issues of energy and Middle Eastern political strife with particular attention to political and economic dynamics in Iran.  With talks centering on Elites and Radicalism in Iran, Middle East Oil Reserves, Carbon Sequestration, U.S.-Iran Relations and Alternative Energy, the Siebel Energy Grand Challenge seeks to enhance scholarship by fostering an interrelationship between those faculty involved in technical research with those who focus on the geopolitical dynamics of the region.

The Siebel Energy Grand Challenge is committed to an innovative program of research and scholarship that will provide a transformative educational experience for undergraduate and graduate students, while developing a range of solutions for a resource-limited and carbon-challenged world. We will encourage the design of one or more Fellows programs aimed at creating intellectually stimulating groupings of faculty and students. Likewise, the Siebel Energy Grand Challenge will work to enhance the role of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) and the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) in the undergraduate curriculum and in faculty research.  In these myriad ways, the Siebel Energy Grand Challenge is looking to challenge conventional wisdom and to innovate through unique interdisciplinary initiatives.