(15:00) Keynote: Nick D’Arbeloff – Executive Director of the New England Clean Energy Council

In the words of Nick D’Arbeloff, the Executive Director of the New England Clean Energy Council, energy will become the defining issue of our generation. In other words -”Its going to be a big deal.” Mr. D’Arbeloff spoke candidly about the urgent need for a transformation of the energy sector – “its been real hot lately,” – as well as about the current status and development of energy, both in New England and beyond. The Clean Energy sector is one of the largest job providers in Massachusetts, yet, if the Northeast was a country, it would be one of the biggest CO2 emitters in the world. As developing countries wish to emulate the western way of life, an energy transformation is mandated – and we are going to have to be the ones who provide it.

- Amanda

(11:45-13:15) Panel 2: Successful Manuvers Within Policy Frameworks

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(11:45) Moderator: Steve Fontana: Connecticut House of Representatives Representative Steve Fontana spoke about the interface of government and businessy. In particular he discussed how policy framework changes as industry evolves. He explained how government doesn’t do a good job of thinking long-term due to high turnover rate. Hence, the government. can’t do long-term energy too well. “Thankfully we’ve got a lot of good people in the private sector working on this”. Because the area is evolving so rapidly he believes that we need to be able to respond quickly. However, we haven’t done that yet

(10:00-11:45) Panel 1: From Your Lab to the Home – Bringing Energy Technology to the Market

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(10:00) Moderator: Vincent Manno, Professor of Mechnanical Engineering, Tufts Univeristy Bringing energy efficiency to the marketplace has been a major problem for a long time, and is just now coming to the surface. The industry has coined the term “From Bench to Bedside.”Manno believes that “Energy is the lifeblood of our society” and that this is an important topic to be continually under discussion.

(9:30) Keynote: Steve Connors, MIT Energy Labs

Steve Connors spoke about transforming the Energy Landscape from centralized to decentralized production, supply, and consumption. Conners questions high technology energy solutions with a simple question: “ Is it Physics or is it Photoshop?”. He used examples such as the Wind Dam proposed for Russia or the FutureGen Clean Coal power plant proposed for the US. Solutions he proposed are aggressive improvements in end-use efficiency, diversifying our domestic energy sources, and modernizing our transmission system.

In particular, I found his rationality for energy efficiency very interesting: “A lot of the things we are doing to de-carbonize are less efficient than current solutions. Oil essentially comes out of the ground the way we use it. No other energy solution is that efficient. We need to increase our efficiency in other sectors to offset the decreased efficiency in de-carbonization”

- Jayson

Technical Difficulties

Hi all – I apologize for not getting anything up as of yet. We have been having internet difficulties! Information will be up within the next 30 min or so. – Jayson

Tufts Energy Conference 2008

The ESI will be blogging live from the Tufts Energy Conference . Check back on Saturday, March 29th throughout the day for updates!

Presenting to the World!

So Alex and I (Jesse) had the opportunity to present at the World Future Energy Conference on the second day.  We were part of the Green Energy Showcase, a little ‘theater’ in the middle of the Expo where individuals were given 20 minutes to present.  We, along with two Swedish students, had an hour and a half!  Alex and I took the first 30 minutes and spoke to a packed audience.  Oops, I actually have to go, driving back up to Tufts, but maybe Alex will fill this out, and I’ll look into posting the video of us presenting on here, I think it can be done.-Jesse

Last Day of Conference (general chit-chat)

Disclaimer:  So I am actually sitting in Jared’s house outside of NYC because after the conference ended we went out to dinner with some of the other students attending the WFES and then got right on our plane home.  32 hours later counting time zones, and I almost passed out in my dinner plate when out to dinner in NYC.

Post:  Speechless.

No, seriously.  Jared and I stopped by the office of the organizers in the morning, and the executive director (Lynne Evans) chatted with us about how their own expectations for the conference were blown away.  

WFES day 3

Day 2: Meeting with William McDonough

We were fortunate enough to spend a few minutes speaking with William McDonough, author of Cradle to Cradle and one of Time Magazines “Heroes of the Planet”. He explained to us his theory about the necessity for products to be designed from the beginning to either be recycled into its components at their original quality or be returned back to nature with no impact. He told us about how he has worked with Nike to actually create a shoe sole that will biodegrate into nutrients that can actually feed plants as the shoe wears down. He designed the rest of the shoe so that every component can be used to make a new shoe of the same quality. This life-cycle product design is a truly sustainable process in which our finite resources can be used infinitely. He has also worked with such companies as Proctor and Gamble and has designed a number of green buildings that adhere to this product design methodology.