There is nothing like flying in space to make one focus on energy efficiency.  Ron Sega, who grew up in Northfield, was also in charge of reducing energy use by the Air Force, which was spending $2.5 billion a year just for jet fuel. His job at Ohio State and Colorado State is to save energy, both for financial and environmental reasons.  With 400 energy researchers at Ohio State, Sega told the Akron Roundtable the state’s largest university is can test various methods.

"On a working da,y Ohio State has about 100,000 people in it. (So it works) as a test bed, to try new things, not only in terms of hardware and software but perhaps behavioral kinds of things (such as) how people would react if they had feedback in terms of how the buildings and their actions were affecting energy.”

Sega says that research could be expanded to statewide efforts.

This week, the Columbus Dispatch reported that the chairman of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio has been tweeting comments dismissive of both renewable energy and global warming. Sega says academic research may help bring shed light on the subject

“We are doing the analysis not only technically but the economic folks on campus are doing the analytics. So you have facts and analysis to help inform not only policies but people’s opinions. “

Sega himself flew on the Air Force’s first test of synthetic jet fuel, research that was done at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton.