ASPEN Clean Energy Forum

Last week I attended the Aspen Institute’s annual Clean Energy Economy Roundtable, from July 21–24, 2011 in Colorado to participate in conference discussions that focused on policy tools needed to further accelerate the clean energy economy while highlighting innovations in clean-tech policy, renewable energy and financing already underway.

Applied Materials Board member, Andy Karsner, co-chaired the roundtable along with Jack Hidary, chairman of Samba Energy. More than 60 individuals from across the clean energy spectrum attended the four-day event including government officials, venture capitalists, industry analysts and company representatives, among others.

This year’s roundtable took a macro-level approach, and we, as the participants, focused on finding new and innovative ways to address the important market and government policy challenges to the advancement of a more robust U.S. renewable energy industry.

Daily sessions included discussions on how to address the structural realities of rising oil prices, the onset of natural gas as a cheap and abundant energy source and continuing global demand for coal, and how renewables continue to fit into the energy mix. The roundtable also looked at global fuel markets and the transportation transformation, along with effective U.S. government policy frameworks and what barriers need to be removed to achieve a U.S. clean energy economy.

With little moving in Washington and federal efforts to advance renewable policy drivers -- such as a Renewable Energy Standard (RES) and a price on carbon -- currently stalled in a divided Congress, the group spent substantial time discussing how to drive renewable energy and energy efficiency adoption by effectively marketing renewables to the U.S. consumer. In a time when advancing a comprehensive energy policy in Washington looks grim, much of our discussion centered on how to drive more information and awareness of the overall value to the consumer. The group also discussed in depth the need for domestic manufacturing incentives that would help the U.S. better compete with China and other countries currently leading the renewable energy manufacturing race.

The group intends to use this highly productive forum to produce a series of policy recommendations to the administration and Congress. I look forward to sharing those recommendations with you at that time.

If you have ideas or suggestions of your own, I encourage you to share them below.