Unlocking the Thermal Efficiency Potential
Distributed CHP and green buildings that minimize heat-loss offer opportunities to lower costs, open new revenue streams for manufacturers and building owners, and support efforts to mitigate climate change. This panel examines the lessons that can be learned from challenging thermal efficiency projects and the role that the surrounding community plays in the implementation of these projects.
Moderated by Harvey Michaels, Professor of Urban Studies & Planning, MIT.
Featured speakers include:
- Bruce Hedman, Vice President, ICF International
- Patricia Garland, CHP Program Manager, Department of Energy
- Domenic Armano, Director of Customer Solutions, FirstFuel Software
- Fiona Cousins, Principal, Arup Group Limited
Low Carbon Technologies – From Best Practice to Common Practice
Over the last decade renewable energy has experienced unprecedented growth. However, the global economic recession, high unemployment, and the lack of comprehensive climate policies have created a challenging environment for low carbon technologies. This panel will therefore examine the current state of today’s low carbon solutions, their future prospects and the challenges associated with large-scale deployment of these technologies.
Moderated by Stephen Connors, Director, AGREA, MIT Energy Initiative.
Featured speakers include:
- Philippe Paelnick, VP Portfolio & Strategic Positioning, Alstom Power
- John Pierce, Chief Bioscientist, BP
- Armando Zuluaga, CEO, Abengoa Solar USA
The Old Made New – Conventional Resource Innovation in the 21st Century
Since the industrial revolution, society has run on fossil fuels, but our reliance on these conventional resources is not without drawbacks. Fossil fuels are a finite resource and their extraction and combustion have environmental and human health impacts. This panel will discuss new ideas and innovations in the ways we tap into the earth’s conventional resources as well as how we ultimately use them.
Moderated by Randall Field, Executive Director, MIT Energy Initiative.
Featured speakers include:
- Bill Brown, CEO & Co-Founder, Net Power
- Gary Leonard, Global Technology Director, GE
- Mike Desmond, Chief Chemist, BP
- Susan F. Tierney, Managing Principal, Analysis Group
A New Way of Thinking – Innovation in the Nuclear Industry
Two years after Fukushima, the political environment for nuclear energy is challenging. Yet, innovative new technologies could help to increase safety as well as lower costs. This panel will explore some of these cutting-edge technologies, their potential for rapid deployment, and the political and economic implications of wide-scale adoption.
Moderated by Emilio Baglietto, Assistant Professor of Nuclear Science & Engineering, MIT.
Featured speakers include:
- Darren Gale, Vice President & Project Director, B&W mPower
- Tom Flaherty, Senior Partner, Booz & Company
- Frank Graves, Principal & Leader of the Utility Practice Area, The Brattle Group
- Thomas Esselman, Principal, Lucius Pitkin
Game Changers in the Energy Space
The energy sector has seen many changes in the past decades to meet global challenges such climate change. The sector needs to transform into a sustainable system that requires new technologies, business practices and economic models. This panel will be a thought-provoking panel aiming to push the audience to think about where the next big idea to revolutionize the energy sector might come from and how those they will affect the energy landscape.
Moderated by Bill Aulet, Managing Director, Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship.
Featured speakers include:
- Russ Conser, Manager, Shell GameChanger
- Cheryl Martin, Deputy Director, ARPA-E
- Craig Jarchow, Managing Director, Pine Brook Partners, LLC
- Donald Sadoway, MIT Professor, Founder & Chief Scientific Adviser, Ambri
- Doug Cameron, Co-President & Director, Firstgreen Partners
Idea Storm
Ever wonder what happens to all the great ideas that are put forth after expert opinion on a panel topic? For the first time in the MIT Energy Conference, we are bringing these ideas together and creating a space where they can be developed. Continue the after panel discussions at the Idea Storm, which promises to be one of the most interactive sessions of the Conference.
The goal of the Idea Storm is to form concrete ideas and build teams that will work to execute them even after the Conference. If you are a professional looking for new initiatives, ideas and people, or a student looking to collaborate and have your ideas be critiqued, join the Idea Storm this afternoon.
To participate, simply choose a session relating to a panel topic that most closely matches your interest and join it.
- Coal to Gas – The Emerging Reality of the Fossil Fuel Mix
- Breaking the Climate Stalemate
- A New Way of Thinking – Innovation in the Nuclear Industry
- Energy Innovation for Development
- Low Carbon Technologies – From Best Practice to Common Practice
- Unlocking the Thermal Efficiency Potential
- The Old Made New – Conventional Resource Innovation in the 21st Century
- Utility of the Future
If you have an idea, prepare a quick one minute talk about what it is and where it has room for development. Ideas will be chosen at random from the crowd and built upon in a small and focused group. Up to 4 ideas will be stormed within each session, and the groups will build on them discussing market strategy, competition, regulation, appropriate partnerships and other relevant factors. Some of the questions that could be addressed during each Idea Storm are given below:
- What is the broad energy challenge that you are trying to solve?
- What technologies have you found that will help meet this challenge?
- What needs to change in the technology or the market to make this useful today?
- What team is appropriate to deliver this?
- What partnerships are required?
- What are the policy concerns?
- What would be the “minimum viable product” to get this rolling?
The best ideas will be summarized in front of the entire Energy Conference prior to the closing panel on Game Changers of the Future.