Profile of a Patriot

Through the Lugar Energy Patriot, Senator Lugar profiles a student, professional, scholar, or member of the business community who has demonstrated leadership and initiative in taking concrete action to improve America's energy security. In addition to the profile posted here, individuals will receive a certificate designating them Lugar Energy Patriots, and a letter of congratulations.

Dr. Thomas Brady
Purdue University North Central
Westville, Indiana

Energy at the Crossroads

Dr. Tom Brady at Purdue University North Central is tackling the problems facing the United States’ energy grid head on. “My job deals with how we do more with less, or much more with more,” Brady said.

In his efforts to find workable solutions in providing affordable, clean and sufficient energy to every American, Brady defines integrating the technology we have into everyday life as the next step. 

“Technology is not the problem,” Brady said. “It’s scaling things up so you can use it.  We need to get green things into the hands of every Hoosier. That is the big challenge.”

However, Brady doesn’t see green living as a lifestyle conversion, but rather as a mission for engineering and economics.

 “As a lifelong Hoosier I want to see Indiana take the lead on this critical issue,” Brady said. “With our resources and great universities there is no reason we can’t be the solution…Indiana can contribute to the world as a whole.”

Bringing power to Indiana’s energy needs

Dr. Brady’s research focus helps Indiana wind and coal be used more productively.

“As consumer demand for electricity increases and society demands for greener electricity production intensify, wind power is emerging as a popular alternative,” Brady said.

Indiana is one of the fastest growing states for wind power generation. Yet even as growth continues, the current inability to store energy from the time it is generated to when it is most needed, and sometimes undependable wind patterns, creates challenges to fully benefiting from Indiana’s wind potential.

“I am looking at how ‘efficient’ wind generated electricity really is and what are the operational issues involved with a producer adding wind power to its electricity-generating assets,” Brady said. 

Brady and his team of fellow energy enthusiasts work to develop various methods of coping with strained energy demand including using more mini wind turbines, leveling energy demand through usage monitoring, and mass marketing energy efficient alternatives of household products and materials.

Brady also works to maximize efficiency in the use of Indiana’s coal resources. “A lot of power in the United States is generated by coal, in Indiana particularly,” Brady said. 

Indiana’s coal resources became even more important in meeting power demands when China announced last year that they would not be exporting coal anymore, as Brady explains. This global alteration left Brady and his colleagues asking “can we get coal out of southern Indiana into the Chicago area where all the exchange of coal takes place?”

Transporting coal to international ports on the Great Lakes would be a desirable exchange but it is more expensive to ship the coal on railways than to buy the coal itself. For Brady, this fact alone made coal transportation worth researching.

“You have to think about what kind of loading facilities you need and if you put extra coal traffic on those major rail lines, what kind of impact does that have,” Brady said. “It would impact everybody.”

Brady’s experience with optimization and computer simulation has allowed him and his colleagues to simulate the response of our energy infrastructure to such expanded energy usage.

“We have always been conditioned that energy is always going to be there…but the system is showing signs of stress,” Brady said.

With more than 304 million United States residents all in some way dependent on our electricity systems, mitigating the energy crisis requires coordinated efforts, sustained priority, and applied problem-solving. Brady has contributed all three to solving this regional and national predicament.

Even our advancements in technology can easily be described as double-edged. While electric cars may promise to eliminate the strain of high gas prices, they would redirect that pressure to demand for electricity. The same holds true for all the other high tech devices that fill electronic stores across the nation.

“We don’t realize how dependent we are. We just assume it is going to be there and assume it is going to be cheap,” Brady said.

The result of all this technological advancement is the necessity of an inventive solution to lessen our dependence on energy, both foreign and domestic.

“Generally people with our engineering skill sets haven’t been involved in that,” Brady said, in contrast to the countless chemists, physicists and technicians whose efforts are more commonly applied to solving such large-scale problems.

“You can have the greatest technology but if they’re not matched with the needs of the market, that’s a hurdle you’re going to have to solve,” Brady said.

The key, Brady believes, is to make the energy efficient light bulbs, solar roofing panels, and other alternatives available and affordable to every Hoosier. At that point, it no longer becomes simply an environmentally conscious choice, but also the logical choice.

With Brady and his colleagues on the case, they are finding that enhanced energy efficiency and lessened dependence on foreign oil is not the only reward for their valued efforts.

“When somebody comes up and asks you about it and people say ‘wow, I’ve never thought of that’ -- that’s the reward I get out of this,” Brady said. “As a professor, that’s part of our duty…to have people take notice of what you’re doing and put that into perspective. They really have no idea what resources Indiana has….that’s when you know you’re working on something important.”

Senator Lugar agrees. That is why we congratulate Dr. Tom Brady on being a Lugar Energy Patriot.