Energy Innovation 2010

UPDATE:  Due to overwhelming interest and space limitations, registration has been closed for this event. Please contact Kathryn Angstadt at kangstadt (at) ITIF (dot) org to be added to the wait list.

After two years of often-tumultuous debate in Congress, the national debate over energy and climate change policy has now been altered. Cap and trade efforts have run aground in Congress, and fiscal problems loom large. Meanwhile, with economic recovery the top priority for the public and policymakers alike, America’s clean tech competitors are surging ahead, raising the stakes for energy policy.

Against this backdrop, support is growing on both right and left for new national investments in energy innovation that can help address some of the most urgent imperatives of our time – renewing the economy, improving energy security and public health, and overcoming key environmental challenges. A growing chorus of voices thus counsels a renewed national commitment to develop and deploy advanced, low carbon energy technologies – and to the reform of America’s energy innovation system itself.

In recent months, energy experts have advised policymakers to: take a page from the nation’s long history of successful military research and procurement; build on the success of agricultural research stations and the National Institutes of Health by establishing new innovation institutes and clusters nationwide; promote the right mix of both competition and collaboration to spur innovation and productive knowledge spillover; reform energy subsidies to reward innovation; and restructure business taxes to promote investment in the building blocks of an innovation economy.

On December 15^th, a group of America’s leading policy think tanks will host a day-long conference in Washington D.C. to rethink energy innovation.

Energy Innovation 2010, held at the National Press Club, will bring together leading experts from government, think tanks, academia, and business to ask hard questions about how energy innovation efforts can be brought to scale, how the innovation system must be restructured and reformed, and how to renew the kind of active partnerships between the public and private sectors that were responsible for so much of America’s prior technological innovation and economic strength.

The free, day-long conference is sponsored by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation and the Breakthrough Institute, with the American Enterprise Institute, Third Way, Clean Air Task Force, Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes, Securing America’s Future Energy, and the Brookings Institution. Registration is required in advance as space is limited, so register today!

The event organizers thank our partner media sponsors, The Energy Collective and Yale Environment 360.

ITIF thanks the Nathan Cummings Foundation for its support in the quest for green innovation.

Agenda (subject to change) 

8:30-9:00      Continental Breakfast

9:00-9:10      Welcome Remarks

• Rob Atkinson, President, Information Technology and Innovation Foundation

9:15-10:15     The Innovation Imperative: Economy, Security, Environment

• Roger Pielke, Jr., Professor of Environmental Studies, University of Colorado at Boulder; Author of The Climate Fix
• Robbie Diamond, President and CEO, the Electrification Coalition and Securing America's Future Energy (SAFE)
• Devon Swezey, Project Director, Breakthrough Institute; Co-author of Rising Tigers, Sleeping Giant
• Rob Atkinson, President, Information Technology and Innovation Foundation
• Moderator: Richard Harris, Science Correspondent, NPR News

10:20-10:35     Learning from the Past: America's History of Limited but Energetic Public Investment

• Daniel Sarewitz, Director, Consortium for Science, Policy & Outcomes, Arizona State University
• Jesse Jenkins, Director of Energy and Climate Policy, Breakthrough Institute

10:40                 Where We Are Now: Introducing a New Tool for Using Federal Data

• David Douglas, Co-Founder, Energy Innovation Tracker; Senior Fellow, Breakthrough Institute
  

10:45-11:55     Looking to the Future: Federal Energy Innovation Strategies

• Cathy Zoi, Acting Under Secretary for Energy and Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy
• Arun Majumdar, Director, Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy
• Jeffrey Marqusee, Executive Director, Strategic Environmental R&D Program and Environmental Security Technology Certification Program, Department of Defense
  
• Moderator: Alexis Madrigal, Senior Editor, Atlantic Monthly

12:00-1:05      Lunchtime / Keynote Presentation: Energy in Three Dimensions - Economy, Security, Environment / Panel with Energy Technology Experts: Bridging the Cleantech Gap

• Dr. Burton Richter, Nobel Laureate and Director Emeritus, Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC), Keynote
• Introduction by Michael Shellenberger, President, Breakthrough Institute
  
• Dr. Martin Hoffert, Professor Emeritus of Physics, New York University
• Dr. Nathan Lewis, George L. Argyros Professor of Chemistry, California Institute of Technology
  
• Moderator: Andrew Revkin, Dot Earth Blogger, The New York Times and Senior Fellow, Pace University

1:10-2:10     Catalyzing the Private Sector: What Firms and Entrepreneurs Need to Innovate

• Will Coleman, Partner, Mohr Davidow Ventures
• Brian Sager, Co-founder and Vice President for Corporate Development, Nanosolar
• Lincoln Hoewing, Vice President for Internet and Technology Policy, Verizon
• Bill Tyndall, Senior Vice President for Federal Government and Regulatory Affairs, Duke Energy
  
• Moderator: Amanda Little, Journalist and Author, Power Trip
  

2:10-2:30     Afternoon Break

2:30-3:40     Clean Innovation Policy: How Do We Drive It?

• Mark Muro, Fellow and Policy Director, Metropolitan Policy Program, Brookings Institution
• Armond Cohen, Executive Director, Clean Air Task Force
• Sasha Mackler, Research Director, Bipartisan Policy Center/National Commission on Energy Policy
• Tom Kerr, Senior Energy Analyst, International Energy Agency
• William Bonvillian, Director, MIT Washington Office; Co-author of Structuring an Energy Technology Revolution
• Moderator: Bryan Walsh, Environmental Columnist, TIME Magazine

3:50-5:00     A New Centrism: Making Clean Innovation Policy Bipartisan

• Jonathan Epstein, Office of Senator Jeff Bingaman / Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources
• Neil Brown, Office of Senator Richard Lugar / Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
• Ted Nordhaus, Chairman, Breakthrough Institute
• Steve Hayward, F.K. Weyerhaeuser Fellow, American Enterprise Institute
• Josh Freed, Director of Clean Energy Program, Third Way
• Moderator: Jim Tankersley, Economics Correspondent, National Journal

Reception at the National Press Club to follow.

Please note that while registration is free, registration will be required to attend the event.

This is a widely attended event in accord with Congressional ethics rules.

Register Now!