Energy News

Green Energy News Comments on SOTU

Great speech, Barack. You mentioned “clean energy” about a zillion times.

Great delivery, as expected. At one point you got a smile out of perpetually-tanned House Minority Leader John Boehner. Usually frightened-looking Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner looked more teary-eyed than scared. (Though the tears may be about his job prospects. He could be cleaning out his desk soon.)

You gave the nation, and more so Congress, plenty to chew on. You certainly made some conservatives happy, but annoyed some liberals. (And likely really upset most environmentalists.)

On energy you got a rousing response from the crowd in asking for more nuclear power. Yet you didn’t mention that new nukes, in reality, if and when built, could be few and far between. You see, utility companies aren’t as excited about actually building large scale power generation projects as they were, say, 30 years ago. Now they’d rather just buy power when they can, do a few energy efficiency and smart grid projects to lessen demand, and yes, even build incremental renewable energy projects. It’s far easier to wire in a few solar panels to meet growing demand than to go through all the hassles of building and operating a new nuke, or any other large power plant.

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China Leading Global Race to Make Clean Energy – New York Times

TIANJIN, China — China vaulted past competitors in Denmark, Germany, Spain and the United States last year to become the world’s largest maker of wind turbines, and is poised to expand even further this year.

China has also leapfrogged the West in the last two years to emerge as the world’s largest manufacturer of solar panels. And the country is pushing equally hard to build nuclear reactors and the most efficient types of coal power plants.

These efforts to dominate renewable energy technologies raise the prospect that the West may someday trade its dependence on oil from the Mideast for a reliance on solar panels, wind turbines and other gear manufactured in China.

“Most of the energy equipment will carry a brass plate, ‘Made in China,’ ” said K. K. Chan, the chief executive of Nature Elements Capital, a private equity fund in Beijing that focuses on renewable energy.

President Obama, in his State of the Union speech last week, sounded an alarm that the United States was falling behind other countries, especially China, on energy. “I do not accept a future where the jobs and industries of tomorrow take root beyond our borders — and I know you don’t either,” he told Congress.

The United States and other countries are offering incentives to develop their own renewable energy industries, and Mr. Obama called for redoubling American efforts. Yet many Western and Chinese executives expect China to prevail in the energy-technology race.

Multinational corporations are responding to the rapid growth of China’s market by building big, state-of-the-art factories in China. Vestas of Denmark has just erected the world’s biggest wind turbine manufacturing complex here in northeastern China, and transferred the technology to build the latest electronic controls and generators.

“You have to move fast with the market,” said Jens Tommerup, the president of Vestas China. “Nobody has ever seen such fast development in a wind market.”

Renewable energy industries here are adding jobs rapidly, reaching 1.12 million in 2008 and climbing by 100,000 a year, according to the government-backed Chinese Renewable Energy Industries Association.

Yet renewable energy may be doing more for China’s economy than for the environment. Total power generation in China is on track to pass the United States in 2012 — and most of the added capacity will still be from coal.

China intends for wind, solar and biomass energy to represent 8 percent of its electricity generation capacity by 2020. That compares with less than 4 percent now in China and the United States. Coal will still represent two-thirds of China’s capacity in 2020, and nuclear and hydropower most of the rest.

As China seeks to dominate energy-equipment exports, it has the advantage of being the world’s largest market for power equipment. The government spends heavily to upgrade the electricity grid, committing $45 billion in 2009 alone. State-owned banks provide generous financing.

China’s top leaders are intensely focused on energy policy: on Wednesday, the government announced the creation of a National Energy Commission composed of cabinet ministers as a “superministry” led by Prime Minister Wen Jiabao himself.

Regulators have set mandates for power generation companies to use more renewable energy. Generous subsidies for consumers to install their own solar panels or solar water heaters have produced flurries of activity on rooftops across China.

China’s biggest advantage may be its domestic demand for electricity, rising 15 percent a year. To meet demand in the coming decade, according to statistics from the International Energy Agency, China will need to add nearly nine times as much electricity generation capacity as the United States will.

So while Americans are used to thinking of themselves as having the world’s largest market in many industries, China’s market for power equipment dwarfs that of the United States, even though the American market is more mature. That means Chinese producers enjoy enormous efficiencies from large-scale production.

In the United States, power companies frequently face a choice between buying renewable energy equipment or continuing to operate fossil-fuel-fired power plants that have already been built and paid for. In China, power companies have to buy lots of new equipment anyway, and alternative energy, particularly wind and nuclear, is increasingly priced competitively.

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Forget Wind. Pickens Turns Focus to Gas.

DALLAS — Arabic script is about to appear on television sets across the country, with the Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens helpfully reading an English translation.

“Go back to sleep, America; the oil crisis is over,” Mr. Pickens intones, deadpan, in the new video. Seductive Middle Eastern music plays in the background.

But suddenly, the picture switches to American troops on a desert battlefield as flames leap skyward, and Mr. Pickens declares, “I don’t think so!”

What, exactly, is he up to now?

The Texas billionaire spent much of the last two years, and $62 million of his fortune, on an advertising and public relations offensive in which he tried to persuade Americans to embrace his Pickens plan. It called for a vast expansion of wind energy to displace natural gas, freeing the natural gas for use in vehicles, thus displacing foreign oil.

No American with a television set could escape Mr. Pickens’s argument last year. But somehow, a mass conversion to natural gas cars failed to ensue.

So now Mr. Pickens is turning up the volume, and changing his pitch with some extra alarm bells. He is opening his wallet to spend millions more on a new campaign, with the first advertisements scheduled to be broadcast Thursday on cable stations across the country.

His aides hope that a stronger message, focused on national security, will be effective after the attempted Christmas Day airliner bombing and other terrorist actions. They say they discussed whether using the Arabic lettering might be viewed as incendiary or offensive, but concluded that any added attention would be good for the cause.

“We’re infidels with most of these people and they have no use for us,” the 81-year-old oilman said in an interview on the way to a speech here recently. “We’re getting more and more dependent on the wrong people.”

The Pickens campaign has been suspended since October, when Mr. Pickens decided that health care was drowning out the energy debate. But he says he thinks the energy policy will soon move back to the top of Washington’s agenda.

This time, he has tweaked the Pickens plan in a way that just happens to conform with his changing business interests.

The man who made much of his fortune on oil, then in recent years turned to wind power, is now underplaying wind as a possible solution, while continuing to promote natural gas. Some of his stakes in companies would be more valuable if natural gas consumption were to rise.

Natural gas is the cleanest fossil fuel, emitting fewer greenhouse gases than coal or oil. Many experts say they think it is underused as a power and transportation fuel, especially after new technologies recently unlocked huge reserves in shale gas fields across the country.

Proponents of natural gas took a back seat when the House of Representatives passed a climate bill last year, as lawmakers from coal-producing states dug in to keep coal as the nation’s principal fuel for electricity production. Natural gas may get a warmer hearing in the Senate, but its prospects there are also in doubt.

Skeptics say putting in the infrastructure for natural gas vehicles would be too expensive, and battery-powered electric cars and hybrids are a better alternative. And worries are growing that the techniques used to blast through shale rock to release gas could pollute drinking water.

“It’s very hard to move mountains on energy policy, and Pickens has not yet even moved a hill,” said Amy Myers Jaffe, an energy expert at Rice University in Houston. “The problem that Pickens faces is that in this country if you are from the oil industry, people are naturally suspicious of what you say on energy policy.”

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Red River Radio’s Alexandyr Kent Interviews Gregory Kallenberg

Alexandyr Kent’s Big Picture interviews our director Gregory Kallenberg.  In the interview he explores the lives we covered in the film as well as a glimpse of his vision that’s captured in “Haynesville.”

Check it out:

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The Real Story of Cap and Trade – Stephen Lacey, Renewable Energy World

In the wake of the Copenhagen talks and the passage of a climate bill in the U.S. House last year, the debate over cap and trade will likely intensify as we move 2010. Unfortunately, the debate in the halls of Congress, on the blogosphere and on the television talk shows is often tainted by bad information and oversimplified characterizations of the policy. So, in the midst of this ever-growing (and sometimes deafening conversation), we decided to dig into the real story of cap and trade ourselves.

Seth Kaplan, vice president for climate advocacy at the Conservation Law Foundation, describes the history of cap and trade as it rapidly evolved from an academic proposal to an international policy for limiting greenhouse gas emissions.

Phil Adams, president and chief operating officer of World Energy Solutions, talks about the differences between the primary and secondary carbon trading markets. He’ll also talk about how his company’s carbon exchange, the World Green Exchange, works as a driver for those markets.

Tim Healy, CEO and chairman of EnerNOC, tells us how he’s built a business around using less energy, not more. He’ll also talk about the company’s new CarbonTrak software and how it can help businesses realize the financial value in reducing emissions.

Milo Sjardin, head of U.S. carbon markets for New Energy Finance, compares the size and scope of the EU and U.S. carbon trading programs.

Erin Craig, CEO of TerraPass, describes the make-up of the “pure” voluntary market in the U.S. and how it may blend together with a compliance market in the future.

Michelle Chan, senior policy analyst with Friends of the Earth, warns about the potential downside risk in creating new derivative markets based on carbon. She talks about how investors could be creating “subprime carbon,” as they devise new financial products based upon bad offset projects.

And Peter Fusaro, chairman and founder of Global Change Associates, talks about how carbon markets will be regulated in the U.S. He’ll also discuss how Americans can learn from the European experience with cap and trade.

Listen to the entire podcast…

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Tom Fowler catches us up on Exxon/XTO deal

Exxon Mobil’s planned $40 billion, all-stock purchase of XTO Energy is all about unconventional natural gas, say analysts (over and over again), and represents a classic Exxon strategy: watch and wait while others make early moves on a prospect then make a bold, decisive move to get a key piece of the pie. Oh yeah, and pay in cash.

Was this expected? Not exaclty. “WOW! Didn’t see this coming,” say the folks at Tudor Pickering & Holt.

How serious is Exxon about making stuff like shale gas a bigger part of its future? According to their release:

Following the transaction closing, ExxonMobil intends to establish a new upstream organization to manage global development and production of unconventional resources, enabling the rapid development and deployment of technologies and operating practices to increase production and maximize resource value. The new organization will be located in Fort Worth, Texas, in XTO’s current offices.

What does it mean for other E&P companies? Simmons & Co. asks:

“This transaction will likely set a bid under the E&P group today as the best capitalized and historically most conservative company moves decisively further into unconventional NAM natural gas. The transaction can’t help but imply a vote of confidence in both the potential resource size in shale gas and in the majors outlook for North American natural gas prices (XOM holding more exposure to swing Qatari LNG of any major). Companies that will likely garner immediate attention as take out candidates are CHK, EOG, SWN, RRC, APC, DVN, etc.”

What does it mean for services firms (drillers etc.)? they also ask:

“Negative, particularly if today’s transaction becomes a trend. Unlike JV’s, where the majors bring capital to continue development, an outright company-level acquisition of this magnitude is typically followed by slowed development in the midst of portfolio high grading; a negative for NAM drilling and service companies.”

Simmons also observes that XTO has hedged 53 percent of its 2010 production at $9.62/mcf. Exxon generally doesn’t use such hedges, so it will be interesting to see if they stick or are liquidated.

CreditSights notes the deal “removes one of the five largest independent North American E&Ps, leaving only four independents remaining who have the scale that would likely be attractive to the Integrateds/Super Majors – Anadarko (APC), Devon (DVN), EnCana (ECA), and Chesapeake (CHK).”

Tudor Pickering & Holt says the deal will “probably” kick off a major consolidation trend because “majors tend to be lemmings around trends like jvs/consolidation“. Their list of likely targets includes EOG, SWN, HK, ECA, DVN, CHK, APC.

But as always, TPH notes, it’s rare a big oil and gas merger goes smoothly:

“When was last “really good” merger between major and independent E&P? Can’t really remember..maybe BP-Vastar? Keeping people critical. COP bought Burlington and everyone left. XTO is top-tier, acquisition-capable, blocking-and-tackling organization that grinds out good returns. Not exploration gurus..good executors. Will XOM keep buying?

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Gas Supplies Running Out as Britain Shivers – UK’s Daily Express

The National Grid yesterday issued only its second-ever warning that demand for energy is threatening to outstrip available supplies unless industry quickly slashes its consumption and more gas is rushed in from abroad.

The alert prompted the wholesale cost of gas to rocket by 70 per cent and raised fears that businesses and households could soon be hit by power cuts if the freezing weather persists as forecast for the rest of the month.

Shadow Energy Secretary Greg Clark warned: “For 12 years the Government has had its head in the sand about Britain’s precarious energy security.

“Today’s alert is a taste of what is to come as a result of Labour’s negligence – gas supply shortages and regular power cuts. I have repeatedly warned that Britain lacks the back-up plans that France and Germany have for these situations.” National Grid issued its warning – known as a gas balancing alert – because an unexpected shortfall meant Britain’s demand was at risk.

Gas was flowing out of the UK’s main storage facility at Rough, 18 miles off the Yorkshire coast, at a record rate yesterday as energy needed for homes and businesses came very close to the previous record high.

Analysts said the freeze combined with the post-New Year return to work created a surge which put intense pressure on supplies and added to the need for expensive additional gas to be pumped in from mainland Europe.Experts have estimated that Britain only has enough gas storage for 15 days so in times of high demand we have to rely on imports.

Ian Parrett, of energy analysts Inenco, warned that the country was in danger of being held to ransom over gas prices and blamed a lack of investment in storage plants.

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Underused Drilling Practices Could Avoid Pollution – Propublica

As environmental concerns threaten to derail natural gas drilling projects across the country, the energy industry has developed innovative ways to make it easier to exploit the nation’s reserves without polluting air and drinking water.

Energy companies have figured out how to drill wells with fewer toxic chemicals, enclose wastewater so it can’t contaminate streams and groundwater, and sharply curb emissions from everything from truck traffic to leaky gas well valves. Some of their techniques also make good business sense because they boost productivity and ultimately save the industry money — $10,000 per well in some cases.

Yet these environmental safeguards are used only intermittently in the 32 states where natural gas is drilled. The energy industry is exempted from many federal environmental laws, so regulation of this growing industry is left almost entirely to the states, which often recommend, but seldom mandate the use of these techniques. In one Wyoming gas field, for instance, drillers have taken steps to curb emissions, while 100 miles away in the same state, they have not.

The debate over the safety of natural gas drilling has intensified in the past year, even as the nation increasingly turns to cleaner-burning natural gas as an alternative to oil and coal. In Congress, one group of politicians is writing a climate bill that would encourage the use of more natural gas, while another group is pushing a bill that would put a key part of the process under federal regulation and force the disclosure of chemicals used in the drilling process. Neither bill addresses the question of how to encourage energy companies to use existing techniques that lower the risks of environmental damage.

Interviews with state officials and industry executives in states across the country show the industry tends to use these environmental safeguards only when political, regulatory, cost or social pressures force it to do so.

When states have tried to toughen regulations aimed at protecting the environment or institutionalizing these practices, energy companies have fought hard to defend the status quo. They argue that current laws are sufficient, that mandating practices imposes specific solutions on regions where they may not work best, and that the cost of complying with additional laws and safeguards would bankrupt them.

“Sometimes environmental considerations aren’t the same as the public considerations, and many times the economic considerations don’t fit,” said David Burnett, an associate research scientist at Texas A&M University’s Global Petroleum Research Institute and a founder of Environmentally Friendly Drilling, a government and industry-funded program that identifies best practices and encourages their use. “There could be better management practices used. We have to find a balance.”

Michael Freeman, an attorney at the environmental group Earthjustice, says there is no escaping some damage from drilling. But if the best available precautions were routinely followed, environmental harm could be minimized and the industry may face less resistance from the public as it taps the vast new gas deposits that have been discovered in recent years.

“It would certainly address a lot of people’s concerns,” Freeman said. “But the government agencies that regulate the oil and gas industry need to be aggressive about making them clean up their act.”

Good Chemistry

Few notions have sparked more hope among environmentalists than the possibility of replacing toxic chemicals used in drilling with what are being called “green” or non-toxic drilling fluids.

A review of scientific documents and interviews with drilling companies and the chemists who supply them shows that the transition is more than theoretical. It’s starting to happen.

EnCana, a Canadian company that operates on both sides of the border, recently said it stopped using 2-Butoxyethanol, a solvent that has caused reproductive problems in animals. BJ Services, one of the largest fracturing service providers in the world, has discontinued the use of fluorocarbons, a family of compounds that are persistent environmental pollutants.

Neither company would say what it is using to replace these chemicals. But a presentation made by Denver-based Antero Resources and obtained by ProPublica says that plant-based oils are occasionally replacing mineral oil and that soy can replace some toxic polymers. David Holcomb, director of research for the Texas-based drilling chemistry company Frac Tech, offered more specifics: He uses orange citrus to replace some solvents, and palm oil in place of a common slicking agent that has been prohibited in Europe but is still allowed in the United States.

The “single biggest move” the industry has made to reduce the toxicity of its fluids, according to David Dunlap, chief operating officer for BJ Services, is phasing out diesel fuel, a solvent that contains the potent carcinogen benzene.

Diesel was once a common solvent used in hydraulic fracturing, the process where water, sand and chemical additives are pumped underground at high pressure to break apart rock and release gas. In some fracturing jobs — like those in the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania and New York — more than 40,000 gallons of fracturing chemicals can be used at a single well.

Today, many companies have replaced diesel with mineral oil, a less toxic hydrocarbon solvent, in most of their fracturing solutions. The shift began in 2003, after the EPA pressed the nation’s dominant fracturing companies to voluntarily eliminate diesel from some of their fluids.

“It sounds like a simple thing, but it’s the largest single volume other than water that is used in a frack job,” said Dunlap, whose company is being acquired by Baker Hughes, the international drilling company. BJ no longer uses diesel in its fracturing fluids, Dunlap said, though it may still be used in other applications.

Despite these improvements, it is still difficult to say how safe the drilling and fracturing fluids are for people, and for the environment. The EPA says “green” chemistry should not be dangerously toxic and should not build up in plants or organisms. But because there are no laws that dictate what chemicals can be used for drilling on U.S. soil — and because most companies still keep the exact makeup of their fluids a secret from state and federal regulators — the definition of “green” remains subjective. “Green” is often shades of gray.

New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation raised the “green” issue in its new environmental review for drilling in the Marcellus Shale. The report said that while non-toxic fracturing fluids would be preferable, “it may not be feasible to require the use of ‘green’ chemicals because presently there is no metric or chemicals approvals process in place in the U.S.”

Actually, such standards do exist, but only for the fracturing fluids used in offshore drilling. Both European law and the regulations of the U.S. Minerals and Management Services dictate that chemicals used in the North Sea and the Gulf of Mexico must be safe enough that they won’t kill fish and other organisms if they are dumped overboard.

“You can always do it,” said BJ Services’ Dunlap, whose company has been a leader in innovating sustainable materials. But, Dunlap said, the chemistry costs more, and is justifiable to his shareholders only because the regulations for offshore drilling left no choice.

“There are places around the world where the type of adherence is not required,” he said, “and where the cost of using those chemicals is something operators are not required to pay for.”

A Breath of Air

The natural gas industry has also found ways to reduce the greenhouses gases and volatile organic compounds it contributes to ozone pollution and climate change.

Although natural gas burns cleaner than other fossil fuels, the drilling and production of oil and gas is responsible for some 18 percent of the world’s human-caused emissions of methane, a greenhouse gas that is the main component of natural gas, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. More methane is produced in the U.S. than anywhere else in the world except Russia.

Under the guidance of an EPA program, EnCana, the Canadian oil and gas giant, is curbing those methane emissions — and might save money doing it. Using infrared cameras, the company finds and seals methane leaks on wells and pipelines that would otherwise be invisible, sharply curtailing levels of some the most dangerous heat-trapping atmospheric gases. According to Richard Haut, project director for the Houston Advanced Research Center, a partner on the Environmentally Friendly Drilling Project, such programs could pay for themselves within two years, and then turn a profit as the extra gas captured goes to market.

The industry has also found ways to reduce another set of dangerous emissions that has been blamed for air quality problems in Texas, Wyoming and Colorado, among other places: CO2 from trucks and processing plants and the ozone-causing volatile organic compounds. Last winter, when tests showed that high ozone levels had put sparsely populated Sublette County, Wyo., out of compliance with federal air quality laws normally applied to the nation’s big cities, the industry took a number of straightforward steps to curb the pollution.

Questar Exploration and Production, a prominent Rocky Mountain drilling company, eliminated 62,000 truck delivery trips and the diesel exhaust that came with them by building a network of pipes to transport its fluids.

EnCana began using natural gas instead of diesel fuel to power its 150-foot-tall drilling rigs, a seemingly small change that resulted in 85 percent less volatile organic compounds being spewed into the air. EnCana also installed other, less polluting new equipment, including refinery-grade combustors.

Doug Hock, a spokesman for EnCana, said the company has spent some $25 million on such efforts since 2005.

“Technology is the key driver in all of this,” Hock said. “It is important for policymakers to first understand the technology being used and secondly, allow operators the flexibility for further innovation to occur. This, rather than blanket mandates, will ensure continued reductions in impacts.”

But the industry’s efforts in Sublette County were triggered by an aggressive push by the federal government.

Before the U.S. Bureau of Land Management allowed more drilling in the Jonah Field, one of the gas development areas on public land in Sublette County, the companies had to agree to reduce their emissions there. Companies understood that if they did not agree to the BLM’s conditions in the Jonah Field they might not get more permits to drill in other parts of Sublette County. “There is kind of a big hammer hanging over their heads,” said Chuck Otto, the BLM field manager there.

Dirty Water

One of the most challenging environmental problems associated with drilling is disposing of its wastewater, which is typically laced with heavy metals, chemicals and hydrocarbons. Usually the waste is collected in open, dirt-brimmed waste pits where it sits until it’s hauled off to treatment facilities or injection wells. In the meantime, the fluids can evaporate or seep into the earth, or overflow if rain or snow overfills the pit.

A 1992 congressional report found that one of “the greatest opportunities” to prevent this type of pollution is something called a closed loop system, a series of pipes that gathers the waste as it comes out of a gas well, separates some of the water for reuse, and confines the concentrated leftovers in a steel tank. According to EPA findings quoted in the report, closed loop systems can reduce the volume of drilling fluids — and the chemicals used — by more than 90 percent. Because the waste is enclosed, chemicals can’t evaporate, fluids are less likely to spill and permanent pits aren’t needed.

Closed loop systems are rarely required in state regulations, but they are increasingly used, in part because they can save money for the companies that use them.

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ExxonMobil’s Grand Entry to North America Shale Gas

Leave it to ExxonMobil to make a splash. It was officially announced a few days ago that ExxonMobil had acquired Fort Worth-based XTO in a $31 billion deal. This is a major announcement, as XTO is a top-10 producer in the U.S. natural gas market. It also has a strong track record of finding and developing resources at a reasonable cost, and has built a portfolio of desirable acreage positions. But most importantly, it is one of a handful of companies that comes to mind when the topic turns to domestic development of shale gas resources. The latter point is, of course, the punch line. Specifically, ExxonMobil — along with its balance sheet — is stepping into the domestic shale gas market in a major way.

In addition to what it means for ExxonMobil, this acquisition is a signal that more major oil and gas producers may begin to enter the fray in more pronounced way in the North American gas market when it comes to shale. While BP already has a strong position in North American gas, companies such a Shell and Chevron could very well seek to establish a stronger upstream onshore presence through merger and acquisition (M&A) activity. In an era where concerns about reserve replacement have dominated discussions, expansion through acquisition could be a very good strategy. Not only because it enhances the current reserves portfolio, but because it also provides a growth opportunity, which makes investors happy. This latter point, coupled with current low natural gas prices, is why we could see more M&A activity in the next few months. When the economy recovers, demand will increase, meaning prices should rebound a bit, and buying low and selling high is a pretty sound long-term strategy. In a larger sense, as the major energy companies step into the domestic gas market in a more pronounced manner, we should see supply growth and cost reduction. There are tremendous economies of scale in the upstream business, and these companies bring tremendous scale. The major energy companies will more than likely keep the experienced personnel of the acquired company, but add a level of capital depth not yet realized.

An additional point that strengthens the motivation to move into gas concerns carbon dioxide. Specifically, as regulation of carbon dioxide emissions loom, natural gas stands to play a major role going forward. So, one has to ask, “What better position is there for traditional upstream oil and gas producers to take?” The opportunity that shale gas presents in the North American gas market leverages what these companies already know how to do very well, and capitalizes on what portends to be very real growth potential.

Kenneth B. Medlock III is the James A. Baker, III, and Susan G. Baker Fellow in Energy and Resource Economics at the Baker Institute and adjunct professor in the Rice University Department of Economics. Medlock has served as an adviser to the Department of Energy in its energy modeling efforts and is a regular participant in Stanford University’s Energy Modeling Forum.

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