CCST has released the seventh publication in its California's Energy Future project, "California's Energy Future: The Potential for Biofuels". The CEF project focuses on exploring possibilities for California's energy strategy through the coming decades, seeking ways the State could meet the mandated reductions of the state's greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.

The speaker at the June 2013 CCST Council meeting was Tai Ming Cheung, director of the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC) located at the University of California, San Diego in La Jolla. He also leads the institute's Study of Technology and Innovation (SITC) project. His responsibilities include managing the institute's track two program, the Northeast Asia Cooperation Dialogue, which brings together senior foreign ministry and defense officials as well as academics from the United States, China, Japan, South Korea, North Korea, and Russia for informed discussions on regional security issues.

The California's Energy Future projects explore what's needed meet the state's goal, answering the call of S-3-05 - the executive order from 2005 mandating the reduction of the state's emissions to 80 percent below the 1990 level by 2050.

Reports released to date include "California's Energy Future - The View to 2050" and "Possibilities, Problems And Potential Envisioned For Nuclear-Powered California in 2050". Other reports in progress will cover issues such as the transportation infrastructure. Click the link below for access to all related projects and resources.

The June CCST Council meeting focused on the impact that China's quest to become a global science, technology and innovation leader will have on California, and the global community as a whole. The dinner speaker, Tai Ming Cheung, is the director of the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC) at UC San Diego. IGCC studies a wide range of topics involving the security, environmental, and economic policies that shape our ability to prevent conflict and promote cooperation, including through nontraditional connections between and across disciplines and institutions. The Council dinner was paired with an international forum co-hosted by CCST and the California Chamber of Commerce.

"Science and Technology for California's Water Future" is a yearlong project to determine how innovations in science and technology can be used to improve California's integrated water management. Through the use of an on-line survey, focus groups comprised of subject matter experts, and the DWR Water Technology Caucus, CCST is working to identify innovative technology and/or system approaches that can be used in California within the next five to ten years to help address challenges in managing finite water resources in the face of future uncertainties.

The California Science and Technology Policy Fellowship program has placed its fourth consecutive group of fellows in the California state legislature, continuing to build on a growing legacy of making S&T expertise available to lawmakers in a way most states do not have. The CCST program is modeled on a similar one run by AAAS in Congress for decades; four years after its inception, the California S&T Policy Fellowship remains the only state-level program of its kind.