tufts energy security initiative

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

jaysonuppal — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 21:03:09 +0000

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

jaysonuppal — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 20:50:30 +0000

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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 (12:05) Michael Jacobs: VP at UPC Wind Jacobs began by giving a background on the wind industry, which currently provides 10 million to 1 billion dollar investment opportunities. He explains that the wind turbine is “The largest machine ever built by people” on the electricity supply system. Over half the consumers in the US live in states that have public policies enacted for supply and sale containing renewable energy. But, being state by state regulation, there’s boundaries. There’s a low barrier for entry for companies in the Midwest, but many companies aren’t prepared to move over there. On the prime areas, there’s limited transmission capacity.

Renewable portfolio standards encouraging discussion about building new infrastructure to accommodate renewable energy. This is new discussion, over the past few years.

Short outcomes is that there tends to be a lot more interest in building in certain areas then there is need for it, until you can connect these areas to other grids. (One area is part of Maine). “Wind is the canary in the coal mine:” if the markets won’t work with wind chances are that it won’t work with whatever comes next.

(12:20) Berl Hartman: CoFounder of NE chapter of Environmental Entrepreneurs and Co-Chair of the Policy Committee for the New England Clean Energy Council (NECEC) “POLICY!” Policy makes or breaks your company from the start, deciding whether you can even get funding. “It’s up to all of us to lobby and advocate to make the right thing happen.” She predicts that we’ll see a huge jump in clean energy opportunities. Using refrigerators, she made the point that if you enact standards for emissions and energy consumption, firms will meet them and find a way to make a profit. Incentives can work too to drive adoption. So, “when the policy framework is right, good things happen.” For startups, she offered the advice to join trade associations, participate in advocacy groups, and to lobby local, state, and federal representatives.

(12: 35) Fred Zalcman: Director of Regulatory Affairs of Eastern States at Sun Edison Sun Edison is currently the nation’s largest solar energy services. Energy provider Sun Edison started the power purchase agreement, which means they build, own, and operate the solar energy system, then sell the power back to the customer. This eliminates the need for the host site to accrue upfront capital and technology risks. He’s confident Sun Edison services will be approaching grid parity (comparable to the investor owned power plants) within eight years due to increasing fossil fuel costs and decreasing solar costs. Economies of scale certainly help. In the initial years, they need policy support especially in the fields of utility rates, interconnecting the grid, net metering, and entry incentives. Utility rates in particular put the mainstream companies in opposition to clean energy, as it takes away their revenues (using energy efficient lights, even). So, policies need to be realigned. Those “four pillars” for policy support are essential.

(12:55) Joe Mead: World Energy In the field of Biodiesel, there’s a triangle of government, petroleum, and agriculture, a very volatile combination! World energy manages the three of them at their intersection. Using the chalkboard and a fantastic amorphous map he demonstrated how the global agriculture and petroleum markets interact. All the different governments work to do what’s best for their own countries, enacting taxes on their imports/exports and subsidies. The EU and Germany do well with mandates and tax effectiveness. Currently, you could use Argentinean soil, blend in US, ship to EU for use—Not effective! The policies aren’t coordinated, and World Energy faces the challenge of matching the various frameworks. A global supply chain results in a large tangled web where one national disruption has an effect nationally.

- Peter

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

jaysonuppal — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 20:02:51 +0000

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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.(10:15) Mitch Tyson – CEO of Advanced Electron Beams Electron Beams, the process of channeling electrons in a certain direction, is useful for many industrial processes such as sterilization, pollution abatement, and polymer treatment. However, size and cost make the technology relatively prohibitive. Advanced Electron Beams has created a device that is 10% of a size of traditional electron beam generators and at a much lower cost. Mitch Tyson hopes that this will open new doors for the technology.

(10:40) Bill Davis – CEO of Ze-gen The United States landfills $30 Billion a year in energy potential in landfills. In Massachusetts, we send all of our garbage to other state. Landfilling ends when advanced technologies which don’t require high tipping fees come to market. Ze-gen ,a low cost gasification of waste, provides a solution to the landfilling problem. Ze-gen produces Syngas from waste through the use of intensive heat. Syngas can be used to produce electricity, for combined heat and power systems, and to produce hydrogen for the oil refining process.

(11:00)Tim Healy – CEO of EnerNOC Demand Response is the curtailment of energy use at peak times. EnerNOC is the largest sole Demand Response Network in the country. EnerNOC monitors the grid, and at peak demand times will control certain energy uses of their clients, reducing the chances of an overload. The utilities controlling the grid will compensate EnerNOC, which will in turn compensate their clients. Tim Healy argues that demand response is as good or better than wind or solar, as “a kilowatt not used is the cleanest kilowatt possible.”

(11:15) Art Hennessey – CFO of American Capital Energy American Capital Energy are Solar Integrators. They generally work on flat roof instillations of PV solar panels. They currently have use no Angel or Venture Capital funding, meaning that they are debt free. Hennessey believes that working without vc funding is the best way to go for startups if at possible. American Capital Energy is currently moving into states with heavy rebates such as California, Connecticut, New Jersey. Hennessey explained that no one is looking at the 300 Pound Gorilla in the room – Subsidies. Oil, Gas, Coal, Nuclear all have the heaviest subsidies in the energy business, and that is where the real problem is.

- Jayson

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

jaysonuppal — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 19:55:56 +0000

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

jaysonuppal — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 19:52:35 +0000

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

jaysonuppal — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 01:28:38 +0000

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!

jesseashlin — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 16:17:45 +0000

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)

jesseashlin — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 16:00:06 +0000

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.

People we met with today (sometimes for more than an hour):

Vivianne Cox, Chief Executive, BP Alternative Energy = very cool in person, very down to earth, very optimistic about the work BP is doing in alternatives
Peter Sharrat, Divisional Managing Director, WSP Energy Ltd. = incredibly intelligent, talk revolved around international policy, the future and globalization.
Jean-Paul Jeannrenaud, Director of One Planet Living, WWF = Jean-Paul had lunch with us and was extremely realistic and is running a great campaign (One Planet Living)
Kateri Callahan, President, Alliance to Save Energy = Very optimistic about the possibilities that efficiency retrofits and education can make, and had some great discussions about student activism around the country.
And many more (not everyone meets with the same people)
Oh, and Time Magazine. (I chatted with a reporter for a while after the end of the conference, very intelligent, and very interested in my opinions)

As a whole, the conference was incredibly enlightening, and much of us wonder how best to convey our experience to our peers, advisor’s and friends. Besides asking us in person, keep an eye out in the Campus media (and maybe larger sources as well…!) and come stop by the ESI meetings, Monday nights in Eaton (check Tuftslife).

WFES day 3

alexwright — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 10:30:58 +0000

Day 2: Meeting with William McDonough

jaysonuppal — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 04:56:24 +0000

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.