Dr. Johnson is pictured with Dr. Larry Skogen, president of Bismarck State College

by Deb Seminary

Dr. Johnson was in Bismarck June 14th as a speaker for the Renewable Energy Action Summit at Bismarck State College.

IW What do you like most about your job?

KJ I love my job because it is so diverse and so important. I had set a goal that by the time I was 50, I wanted to work another 20 years in something I could be passionate about.
A lot of people don’t have access to energy, both in our country and globally. We are starting to look at projects that will bring electricity to those communities. That is very exciting to me.
Seeing an 80% reduction in greenhouse gases by 2050, reducing our dependence on imported oil, creating a clean energy economy – it is heavenly to be able to work on those things.

IW What drew you to electrical engineering, I’m assuming you liked Math and Science?

KJ Yes, I really enjoyed Math and Science. And, my dad was an engineer. That happens a lot – when I would ask the kids in school why they were going into engineering, they would usually have a relation of some sort in the field. With the growth of energy and the energy economy, we’re going to need so many more engineers that we can’t just rely on engineers having kids to have more engineers!
This is particularly true for women – there was a National Science Foundation study that said women would go into fields where they can align their work with a social cause. We are working with groups in Nigeria right now that are setting up small solar packs. We are trying to bring solar LEDs and lighting to hospitals and communities that may only have electricity for two hours a day.

IW Do you feel there are some sources of energy that deserve more investment than others?

KJ I think the different sources of energy require different resources. I think, right now, if I were to focus on a particular need, it would be for wind and solar, along with hydro, to come up to capacity. Each area of energy has a role. In particular, we have the end uses – we use energy for transportation, in buildings and industry. The electrical sector will be straightforward to de-carb. It is going to be a harder to do with transportation, because we use a lot of oil. That is where I think a lot of the focus we’re placing on biofuels, on more efficient combustion engines, and also on electric vehicles is useful.

IW Senator Dorgan talked about the day we will all be driving electric vehicles. How long will that transition be?

KJ It will take a while because a fleet turns over about every ten to fifteen years. That is a challenge. What we need to do is make what we have now more efficient – make the internal combustion engine more efficient. We have biofuels (ethanol) and then augmenting that with the hybrid so we get further on the gasoline by re-using the energy within the car. All of those are great strategies.
We also need to drive less. If each of us were to drive 10 miles less per week, that would take almost ½ ton of C02 out of the atmosphere.

IW You have several patents. Is there one you can tell me about that we may use in everyday life?

KJ One of our inventions, if you went to see the movie Avatar, is the glasses. That, along with the projection optics that gave the high quality 3D in Avatar, Chicken Little and Meet the Robinsons.
My PhD thesis was on three-dimensional imaging. I’m really proud of the small company I started that we sold to RealD. It is the engineering arm of RealD you will see on movie credits.

IW What or who inspires you?

KJ Definitely my parents. My mom had a passion for education and helping others and my dad had a passion for helping communities through electrification working for Westinghouse.

Dr Johnson offered more energy saving tips during her talk at the summit.
– Replace standard, incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs).
– Put computer on sleep when you are not using it.
– Wash clothes in cold water.
– Get an energy audit.