Catherine McKalip-Thompson, manager of sustainability for Bechtel Infrastructure, describes trends in sustainable building design, smart cities and the integration of engineering, architecture and planning.

Solar power is growing rapidly and the technology behind it is advancing steadily. Battery storage will take the field of solar into the future and help it make the next leap forward. However, standards are needed to ensure safety and reliability.

Autonomous vehicles powered by cleaner and more efficient hybrid engines will be the future of the automotive industry says hybrid propulsion expert Dr. Hai Wang of Stanford University.

Yoshinobu Shibata, president and CEO of Mitsubishi Nuclear Energy Systems, discusses the challenges of nuclear power production competing against low-cost natural gas and how it can gain greater acceptance.

The solution with the greatest potential for solving the intermittency problem is battery storage. With the technology advancing at a rapid pace, batteries have the potential to store large amounts of power to distribute where and when needed.

As solar power grows as a percentage of energy produced in the U.S., the issue of intermittency has emerged as a hurdle to integration. To overcome this hurdle, solar energy must be stored for more efficient use.