Innovation and New Technology Development:

• There is a tension between taking the “big picture” view and championing particular issues/technologies/solutions.  There is also a role for the interested sceptic
• One role of the CEF would be as a forum where problems and solutions could meet
• There was a discussion about the chain from innovation to use, what were the steps and what blocks progress
• View that up to pilot scale was normally OK but there was then a gap to roll out.  One blockage is a lack of trust in the surrounding infrastructure e.g. maintenance capability
• In the utilities regulation makes them risk averse
• Energy prices have been too low to drive innovation
• One of the skills that Cambridge could be is in econometrics
• This could lead to innovation in non-technical areas
• Discussed early adopters
• In large scale initiatives there are few players
• In small scale there are lots of players
• Where does Cambridge have skill?  What issues does this raise?
• How do you encourage interest in Energy?
• Lower energy ways of life might be more important than technology

What should the Forum actually do about technologies?

• Regional link with UEA?
• CRed?
• One day Symposium in about a year?
• Should it be an advocating body or would it be better presenting reasoned multi-sided views with areas of agreement highlighted
• Royal Society Model?
• Needs “products”
• Avoid replication of effort and also do not get “captured”
• Discussed language barriers if CEF is to have a global appeal/impact
• CEF while Cambridge based should be international/outward facing

Issues raised at the CEF workshop to discuss economics, physics and behavioural change

• Initial discussion about electricity production
• What markets are we talking about? Wholesale, retail
• What drives? Regulation, popular view is regulation driven by popular view
• Moved on to End use
• Disperse
• More difficult to get at so “ignored”
• Sustainability could become a “must do” issue where costs etc become less important than progress
• Discussion about price as a driver
• Most industries price of energy isn’t significant (or is it taken as a whole for the economy)
• Even more so for individuals especially those that use the most
•  Multilateralism?
• How do we move thought to Actions
• Set agenda (analogy to the Gates foundation list of issues)
• Innovate
• Disruptive technologies
• Technologies that are better than existing (i.e. win:win products and behaviours))
• How do we get there?
• Can we link changing attitudes and economic argument?
• Where should we influence?
• Policy i.e. HMG or the public or both
• Encouraging “good” behaviour is an easier sell than punishing “bad”
• What is the “sell”
• “Eco” jobs
• Security of supply
• Environment (comes third)
• Routes to influence – tap into existing networks i.e. churches and/or schools
• View that Cambridge good at influencing policy but maximum impact if influence both HMG and the public

What should CEF actually do about behavioural change?

• The value of CEF to members and external bodies will be the network of people
• What will we do to sustain and build the network?
• There should be products of value to the participants
• Need to plan for future success and learn from other networks what the endgame might be and move there more quickly.
• Meetings will be important but must be more than just a talking shop
• Charging acceptable if there is value
• There is a lot of initial goodwill

Our Value Proposition: is that we can bring an audience: a critical, informed audience.

A regular slot on “my problem” could have organisations queuing up to put their issues in front of this Cambridge audience: a critical, excellent audience, comprising people who would be very expensive to hire commercially. Propose a series of such seminars: invite problems.

1. Energy, climate change, environmental goods and services, renewable energy are all being positioned as strengths of the region by different sponsoring organisations
2. We have EEEGR, the environmental cluster around Peterborough, climate change expertise at UEA, other academic specialisms, and so on
3. To me they are ‘eco-special interest elements’ of a larger strength in the region and beyond the region, indeed a number of UK regions would argue that some of these elements are present
4. If part of the purpose of these ‘special interest elements’ is to stimulate research and commercial activity, then in a European or world competitive context there would be advantages in finding a ‘structure’ which embraced and supported them all
5. Such an ‘eco-alliance’ would play more strongly and have more appeal to public sector policy makers and funders and also begin to show a lead towards a UK profile in an important policy, technology and commercial context.
6. Cambridge Energy Forum is a tremendously valuable entity but with a relatively narrow remit and on the basis of some opinions that I have heard, likely to be a blend of the academic and a business network, good as far as that goes
7. It is a concern that the Cambridge Energy Forum might become so technology focused that other massively important players with a social, political, economic perspective may be left out of what could very beneficially be a unique multi-disciplinary approach to the question, ‘what is to be done about climate change / the environment?’
8. Lessons learned from other sector / cluster activity (e.g. ERBI, Medilink, etc) suggest that these groups follow a relatively common path from forum (i.e. discussion group formed by people with a common interest to promote), to a network, to a membership organisation demanding services of itself. The consequence of this is that their work cannot be sustained beyond the simplest of activities without proper resources. In each case that has lead to the need to prepare a business case to secure seed funding, quickly followed by introduction of membership and the services spoken of earlier.
9. The dual opportunity for Cambridge may develop an energy forum for the locality and also to offer a coordination role to draw together the currently separate ‘eco-special interest elements’ gain critical mass and avoid the need for each ‘eco-special interest group’ to duplicate organisational, promotional and funding effort
10. This approach should lead to greater accessibility to a complex field for investors
11. In a UK context the lead taken by Cambridge in a non threatening cooperation with other like minded parts of the UK might be a very attractive proposition, for example to the DTI as well as constituent RDAs and Universities
12. In principle it seems to me that the Cambridge Energy Forum could concurrently perform the two roles of satisfying a local appetite for a Cambridge centred (but geographically open) forum and network (membership organisation) and also satisfy the need for a UK-wide multi-disciplinary ‘eco-alliance’ with national and international ambitions.
13. This latter dual offering, with a supporting business plan, would be worth presenting to selected audiences, for example other ‘eco-special interest elements’, selected RDAs, the DTI, GO-East, the regional sustainable development community, selected designated growth areas and probably others
14. Clearly, the whole proposition would need to be presented as an ambitious and unique model able to accommodate the activities of existing ‘eco-special interest elements’ in a collaborative manner without any thoughts of taking over or rendering redundant existing initiatives. It is about building on what exists.  – David Cudby

Organisational issues: think of a pyramid: we have informal discussions with 3-5 people, workshops of 10-15 people, up to a speaker meeting with 150, possible a 300 person conference, then up to hundreds of people reached through newsletters and websites, to a local Cambridge public of 100,000.

Conflict dates: one thing we should certainly do is to put in place some mechanism to reduce the number of conflicts in energy related meetings and events in Cambridge. This is particularly important for full-day events in a year or so.

Even 20% renewables for electricity production still leaves 80% hydrocarbons – so we should be devoting approaching 80% of our effort to hydrocarbon process and technologis for the next 20 years?

Security of supply is an orthogonal requirement.

Carbon Trust, Energy Saving Trust.

Cambridge Energy Forum needs a business plan, with our value proposition, what we want to do, and how we are going to get the resources to do it. We should spend the next month doing this. Then we should send out to proiivate individuals, companies, government.

Power Factor Conversion – an interesting business model – can we get them to come and give a talk? With someone else to give context?

Grant availability: we should have a consolidated list of grants available for energy issues locally.

Provide regular articles for syndication to East Anglian business journals, Cambridge Evening News etc.

The University Horizons environmental initiative is one we must avoid date clashes with; also Greater Cambridge Partnership, City Council – sustainable city.

Too much discussion on “how to” do various things, but what do we want the Cambridge Energy Forum to be for ? One answer is that it is to be a forum: its purpose is to exist so that people can meet and discuss issues of mutual interest about energy.

What about the international reputation of the CEF? We should aim for coordinated leadership across the UK: look at the top 5 issues, not just 0.1% of the issues in great depth. But if we are a forum have we any control in what issues we cover to what depth?

Consultancies: the great strength of cambridge is the technology consultancies: AD Little, Cambridge Consultants, Generics, TTP, PA, Sentec, MottMcDonald. They compete fiercely, so don’t ask them for sponsorship, but do ask them to join as members and pay a membership fee.

World arena – Cambridge location.

All meetings and reports to be at the New Scientist level.

Every meeting we have should produce a press release, and a write-up. Every meeting should increase our profile.

Make contacts with the BBC business team, not the BBC technology team.

Bimonthly meetings + annual symposium and a Christmas Dinner.

We could start preparing a large symposium now: we have enough material for a 2 page flyer to use to start gathering support. Use Shell’s phrase “Energy, Poverty & Deprivation” for a 300 person conference in about 14 months?? + bursaries for poor country attendees from sponsorship? Look at www.shell.com/scenarios Jan. 2005.

Any chance of a follow-on grant from the DTI New & Renewables people who gave us our pump-priming grant? No, probably not: all the DTI grants have been consolidated and revised.

Go for a Big project: Cambridge + Beijing + Stanford (or MIT) as a triple energy forum consortium/triangle; plus Hydrabad (?)

If we only consider ERBI as a model, are we guilty of thinking too small? They started by getting membership underwritten for the first couple of years by sponsorship (EEDA). This avenue is no longer open. It is a bad idea to give something away and only charge for it much later – the value is not appreciated.

The London Hydrogen Partnership is another example we could look at? They have a technology development roadmap, and targets for 2010. Go for the thought leadership. The London Futures (regeneration agency) has a network of all the CEOs of all the regeneration agencies.

Carbon exports: has the UK CO2 drop occurred because we have exported out manufacturing industry? (As well as converted to gas for electricity production). How big is this CO2 export effect?

Beacon statements: people need something to identify with.

A think tank – is this our value proposition? We are the Cambridge Energy think tank?? Consultancies might beg to differ.

What pitch to potential sponsors will push buttons?

We need to write down: what we will do, sell that action plan to people, find structure and resource to do it.

Use CMI links to get USA speakers in Cambridge by video link ?

We want to produce lots of written white papers, position papers – but which of us will write them? Running a paper series is a lot of work in editing and quality control too. It is not clear we have the manpower to do this.

Our papers should be provocative rather than authorititative?

Can we produce a book? Yes we can. Approach CUP. Build from a seminar series and workshops. Use this idea to draft a sales pitch to The Carbon Trust?

ITI Energy in Scotland has one-third of  £450m and is a membership organisation and has to make decisions as to how to spend their money – could they use some help?

The Rocky Mountain Institute (Avery Lovins) could be an exemplar for us? That is a commercial organisation, but n terms of what it does and how it goes about it; we could copy many of those things? Our concept of structure: argumentation element, our delivery framework.

Is the event at Hinxton Hall on 17^th may appropriate for us to take a shared stand?

Approach people who put on events, and ask them to offer discount to CEF members in return for us to promote the meeting to our contacts and members. This gets some value form the hard work we have already done on our address lists; and provides something valuable which will encourage people to join up with us because they get a meeting fee discount. This gives people a real reason to join us.

Is the event at Hinxton Hall on 17^th may appropriate for us to take a shared stand?

Focus on UK/global meeting subjects: we need critical mass to attract attendees; smaller number so people come to more specialist meetings

A Lighting event? 30% of UK electricity goes to lighting, LED technologies, compact fluorescents, Philips? Ely LED stage lighting company?

A webpage of technologies: area summaries: a centre of relevant knowledge? But this has already been done on multitudinous websites worldwide, e.g. for renewables see http://europa.eu.int/comm/energy_transport/atlas/htmlu/renewables.html 

“Critical Excellence” should be our watchword – everything else should subordinate to that.

There are major opportunities for our businesses to become world leaders
(Energy White Paper)

We could try to be a “big government intellectual space”. Would we ever want to be coherent enough to become that? Are we not better aiming at great diversity?

The UK needed to strengthen its energy RD&D strategy…we needed a much better evidence base on which we could determine our strengths…we needed to look harder at the lab-to-venture capital interface.  (Minutes of the SEPAB dinner June 2004)

The Japanese policy announcement on 11^th January 2005:

"..oil consumption in all areas except for transportation will be almost zero by 2050"

“..CO2 emissions … by 2100 to .., one-twentieth of 2002 levels”

"To achieve these goals, the government proposes that the nation engage in research and development of new technologies in three areas--nuclear power, including establishing reprocessing of nuclear fuel and total control over the nuclear fuel cycle; carbon sequestration technology to place CO2 underground, and developing renewable energy sources such as hydrogen or solar power as well as energy-saving technology"

Section 2.17 of the Energy White Paper Feb.2003 says "If the UK economy were to grow at an average of 2.25% a year between now and 2050 … would require an improvement in [energy intensity of the economy] of around seven-fold. We will achieve this by raising the resource productivity of our economy" Between 2003 and 2050 is 47 years, so that means we need an improvement of 4.06% pa which is 2.4x the historical trend, and ignores issues such as the retiring of our nuclear generation.

Make it clear that energy policy is increasingly international, with Europe a primary theatre.

Support: a new energy research centre of excellence; increased R&D spend; and greater international collaboration to help achieve carbon reductions through technology.

Encourage more regional and local interest in energy policy, including new regional energy strategies.

Encourage the establishment of a new energy and utility Sector Skills Council.

Make clear its role in engendering the cultural and behavioural change necessary to move towards a low carbon economy.

These objectives across the balanced and diverse range of energy production and management provide a helpful focus upon which to set the initial goals for Cambridge Energy Forum.

It will achieve this by harnessing the skills within Cambridge through clear communication, and share this in a complimentary way with other organisations who are already providing these type of activities on a regional basis, in particular EEEGR and Renewables East. Together we will profile global excellence in a global market.

UK Energy Research Centre. Those universities and organisations that submitted proposals for the centre, including Imperial College London, University of Oxford, and members of the Kelvin consortium led by the New & Renewable Energy Centre (NAREC) based in Blyth, Northumberland. (Research Councils UK press release 31 March 2004 re UK Energy Research Centre quotes Sir David King)

There is a good opportunity to promote our interests at the Global Oil and Gas Opportunities: China 2005 exhibition in Beijing on 24/25 May. A high-level Chinese government delegation and several hundred key industry delegates are attending the event.

Re White Paper:  What solutions are available if conventional nuclear can't deliver if renewables fail to meet the 20% target leading up to the introduction of ITER?
What if the ITER project either doesn't work or is significantly delayed, or the technology cannot make sufficiently cheap power?

other obvious options such as to invest $1 billion to drill >5km deep experimental wells in Iceland to test Sandia National Laboratories' proposal to extract high enthalpy (i.e. superheated >500 deg C) steam for hydrogen production from crustal magma bodies?

...as metal hydrides (Oxford U. project) displace 800 bar hydrogen gas cylinders (the limits of corporate imagination?). If petrol becomes too expensive or we can't build lighter weight fuel cell engines, are we more likely to return to the horse than move to a hydrogen economy? Based on Ken Livingston's hydrogen bus model and BP's heavily subsidised hydrogen gas station in central London for which they have done no explosion damage limitation assessment (EIC meeting in London a few months back)?

What shall we do in Cambridge on Feb.16^th to celebrate and consider the coming into force of the Kyoto Protocol?

Oxford Energy Forum – Magazine of the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies

Operational issues: how will the Forum interwork with The Cambridge Network? What lessons can we learn from similarly placed but technically distinct networking groups such as ERBI and Cambridge 3G ?

The Power Academy has been established to form an engineering scholarship fund for that would like to study electrical engineering at Strathclyde, Manchester or Southampton University (Power Academy website)

A new building…should be energy efficient in terms of its construction and running costs…provision is made for an increase of 12,500 dwellings (net) over the period 1999-2016 (redeposit local plan)

Cambridge sub-region…new homes…47,500 are needed for the remainder of the Structure Plan Period (1999-2016) (Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Structure Plan 2003)

Security of energy supply and of energy industry personnel.
Novel means of unlocking undeveloped North Sea oil reserves.
Safer disposal of nuclear waste.
Reducing cost of low CO2 coal gasification plants.
Energy related policies for encouraging demographic change.
Exploitation of deep seated geothermal resources (e.g. Iceland).
Methane gas hydrates, fact or fiction? What to do?.
Ultra rapid urban transport systems linked to hydrogen marketability.
Space mining, what is the vision for the future? Where are we heading?

New materials, innovation deployment.

How do we roll out proven technology in the area of small and super-scale solar heating systems?
How do we get industry and specifically, developers, to buy in to renewables rather than forcing the issue with grants etc?
What else can we use hot water for as an energy source? - Generating electricity?
Politicians have 'hijacked' the phrase sustainable development.  How can this be reclaimed and used to best effect?

Anything on Licensing of Technology by small companies to larger ones. Particularly covering the pitfalls, and also likely licence fees charges.

In our view there is still a battle to be fought to get the ethos driven into design & construction professionals.

In the interest of our own practice we would like to meet developers, construction companies and government officers involved in the development of our community.

Education of government, construction professionals and all those who are in a position to make a difference.

A review of the government funding made available to industry for energy conservation, and the conditions of eligibility. Can Cambridgeshire local authorities manage this for the Cambridgeshire areas?

A review of the local planning policies to soften the restriction on the installation of renewable energy sources.

Interested in passive architecture, distributed power generation and energy conservation.

Our particular interest in renewables relates to bio-energy.  As plant breeders we have had an active willow breeding programme specifically targeting the importance in biomass yield for the generation of heat and power.  Through our parent company in Sweden we are active in the promotion and application of willow on farms.  We would  particularly like to see a more targeted approach especially where new housing and building projects are being initiated.

Solar hot water systems

Electricity market design and regulation

Climate change mitigation and the world energy system

Bio fuels;
sustainability of current business practices;
integrated energy policy (or lack therof!).

Power generation, nuclear energy, renewable energy

Improving access to finance for technology and solutions companies involved in energy activities

Nuclear Power (Fission), Nuclear Fuel Cycle, Nuclear Fusion, Electricity Industry, Hydrogen Economy, Partitioning and Transmutation of Radioactive Wastes

Thermoelectrics
superconductors
nanotechnology

Renewable energy, especially photovoltaics

Use of software to promote energy conservation.

I am particularly interested in new innovative technologies and renewables that could be used by the business.

Obsolescence, sustainability and IT innovation

Sustainable buildings

I'd like to see some more quality thinking and debate on where all the energy goes, for example how much energy does it take to make a car/house/fridge vs. How much to run it ?

Trying to install small-scale renewables is such hard work! The small wind generators which appear from publicity to be available are always "not on the market for another few months" when you ask about them, the domestic-size gas-boiler CHP systems (I think we may be on the way to one of these) are v difficult to get hold of and when you finally find a pv supplier who works in your area they are extremely expensive ( I think we'll go for it anyway, even though the financial gain is less than leaving the money in a deposit account). Whole thing needs kick-starting from somewhere.

Solar energy: direct conversion of solar energy to chemical fuels or electric power

Not sufficient emphasis on energy conservation at local or national level.
What can be done to "encourage" developers to take energy conservation more seriously?
What technical innovations are available/ appropriate aids to energy conservation in local development projects?
What examples are there of such developments?
Other RSLs should be interested in these topics have you contacted them?             

Sustainable Energy in practice

We are a sustainable energy company (primarily biomass heating / CHP / community heating) and I am based in Cambridge. Have a particular interest in sustainable energy in new developments

Energy supply and use; building energy management and low energy buildings

Fuel cells

Whom would I like to meet: people who can make a difference in energy usage and CO2 emissions in the cambridge area: i.e. Developers, representatives of Utilities, Housing associations etc.

Regulatory Impact Assessment – integrating techniques for a rigorous analysis of options to inform policy developers and public consultation about regulation.
Regime design – developing mechanics, procedures and frameworks for regulatory, commercial or supervisory relationships to align business/management strategies and optimise outcomes.
Policy and strategy modelling – high-quality modelling to inform policy thinking and decision making, from small single-issue spreadsheets to comprehensive sector-scale regulatory financial models.
Policy analysis and design – analysing the working of policy in the commercial and public environment, the structure of the problems and the required shape of the solutions, designing policy options and analysing their potential impacts

- The future of Hydrogen based energy.
- The social implications of new energy sources.
- How energy can be used in the context of trade negotiations and foreign policy.
- What is the latest emerging energy technologies and how do they compare to previous technologies?

Opportunities for SMEs, presentations of new breakthrough technologies, and perhaps an independent view about the presence/existence of 'global warming due to man-made causes', how to get new EU regulations on IT goods recycling implemented..

Energy management: the energy issue is not just about science, technology and innovation but major gains can still be made by organisational means.

Studies have recently led to interesting observations of CO2 incorporation into "amorphous" clay dehydroxylates: an observation with potential implications for carbon sequestration into such phases.
The programme underway here right now includes the understanding of the role of radiation damage on chemical transport in natural and synthetic actinide hosts, relevant to nuclear waste disposal.

Flow problems relating to challenges of energy supply and consumption and relating to the environment.

Tax credits
carbon trust
dti awards

The Zinc economy
The methanol economy
The methane economy

Generation, efficiency and demand reduction

The future of energy supply, especially renewable energy and fusion. Reducing aircraft environmental impact.

Best practice from around the world
What are companies doing?
Is this a burden or an opportunity?
Sustainable communities in every sense?
How to raise awareness among the general public?
Where are the quick wins - e.g. Adaptation versus mitigation ?                 

New ideas that can be shown to be practicable

Energy efficiency
energy supply
energy services

How the Forum will link into the Anglia SEC to bring about partnership working and joint sign up and commitment to sustainable energy targets in the region.  How partnership activities that raise awareness and provide supporting action on sustainable energy will help consumers make sustainable energy a natural choice.

Renewable energy technologies and systems

Energy efficiency policy
Energy efficiency in buildings
Energy services policy
Demand management role in delivering energy security
Abolishing fuel poverty

How do we maximise the energy efficiency of the new communities being planned around Cambridge?  How can we best promote good practice and innovation in design and construction?

Waste reduction
Resources from waste
Energy efficiency
Urban Heat Island effect

We want to promote the need for government to demand Carbon neutral buildings and we are about to start pushing for professional institutes to drive this from its members.
----
How to get the late adopters to speed up
Balancing thermal mass and lightweight construction (how much Thermal mass do you need)

Improving connections between Cambridge companies and the investors into low carbon technologies (esp. Renewables) such as energy majors, utilities, VCs and others.

Turbulent combustion, pollution from flames, hydrogen production, hydrogen combustion. Environmental flows with chemical reactions.

Renewable and energy efficiency technologies

Renewable energy, why is tidal power so neglected

Renewables
climate change
sustainable communities

Generally carbon reduction but particularly energy efficiency measures and renewables.  Question how do we ensure that future building reg's include renewable technologies in all new builds?

I hope that the Forum will first want to look at what is already in place and then decide on gaps to be filled, and/or to promote step changes in technology, methodology, delivery.

I have worked on Power station/desalination plant operating and maintenance instructions for a system using waste CO2 and heat. I'd like to see something on ways of re-using heat in processes, as I feel it is an undervalued technology in many businesses and an ideal opportunity to contribute to energy efficiency.

Development of new technologies with the potential to lower carbon emissions.

Powering the Future – the Supergen Initiative was created by EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council in the UK) to encourage the development of sustainable power generation and supply.  Four consortia have been established in the fields of Marine, Hydrogen, Biomass and Biofuels and Future Network Technologies.

The future of nuclear power.
The outlook for photovoltaics: when will solar power be cost-effective?
Energy efficiency.
Transport options.

Changing mind sets and engaging people to generate new ways of thinking.  Doing more of what we're doing now won't do.

Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation measures and techniques.

Sustainable energy in general, particularly energy conservation, biomass energy crops and biofuels.

Focused efforts to profile the East of England through the single driver of "Energy", and in doing so to provide a more robust platform for its many areas of global strength, from business, through academia to natural resources and assets. In harmony all of these can be beneficially exploited to achieve sustainable prosperity.

It seems to me that current discussions focus too much on low-level topics such as the cosmetic disadvantages of wind farms.  The real focus, which I should like to hear debated, should be on the worldwide energy shortage.  If we think that the Kyoto aims are correct then it seems that none of the "renewable" sources will be adequate to bridge the gap whereas nuclear power has the potential for continuous reliable supply.

Practical advice for homeowners to make more rational decisions about energy use. Rather than just do the easy thing, how can they be led through the choices?

The use of waste derived materials as a source of renewable energy. Particular interest in bio-ethanol production.

Wind energy, general societal energy and environmental challenges

Energy storage and conservation; also power generation.
Additional interest in environmental matters as Environment Councillor (i.e. member of the Environment Council)
Also political studies.

I'm wondering about the use of fusion power for submarines. We could draw the fuel directly from seawater!

Bio-energy such as Methane and Ethanol from organic waste.

Renewable technologies such as:
Fuel Cell.
Micro electrical generators.
Wave Tide Power Converters.
Domestic energy management systems.

Energy efficient lighting
Coherent systems approaches to energy use

Petroleum supply vs. Demand in the coming years and its effect on society. Security of energy supplies in the UK.

Energy consultancy, e.g. CITYPLEX

Wind turbines and simplification of planning and connection.

Carbon Intensity of Energy Resources, Biomimetic Technologies, Energy Efficiency Technologies, Renewables, High Growth High Return Investment Opportunities in the Energy Space.

Carbon reduction, renewable energy, energy efficiency and approaches/ solutions to all of the above, which are low cost and have widespread applicability/ appeal.

Renewable Energy for Buildings

Non fossil fuel energy, other than wind power

I am interested in the development of technologies for the improved energy efficiency of power sources, and in the implications of the "hydrogen economy"

Effecting step by step guidelines and procedures from conception to power-up for individual wind turbines.

Oil and gas depletion, and planning for societal change when the full impact of world wide oil shortages take hold - how to maintain a UK population of c60m when oil, gas, transport, plastics, fertilisers are all in irreversible decline and agriculture is forced to become increasingly organic, and UK electricity supply becomes difficult to maintain.   I am seriously concerned that world oil supply will begin to decrease far sooner and faster than most people realise.

Mathematical optimisation and intelligent agents for signal processing and resource optimisation. Oil and gas resource optimisation, hydrocarbon alternatives and pollution control.

Mission: To provide business leadership as a catalyst for change toward sustainable development, and to promote the role of eco-efficiency, innovation and corporate social responsibility.

I would like to see a comprehensive list of alternative energy technologies, rather than the limited list that seems to be in the frame at present. I came across an Indian site that included, eg, straw and animal dung. There is also geothermal as a primary energy source, and heat pumps as a means of improving our efficiency in providing heat to our homes.
Will any of these or similar techniques be raised?
With the recent high winds, it struck me that a really efficient energy storage system could take advantage of nature's freak events, instead of all that terrifying power going to waste.

Low carbon economy Promoting low-carbon technologies to reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere
Biotechnology, Chemicals & materials, Energy, Software and computer services

Micro hydro and wind generation, measurement and collection of consumption. Demand reduction.

Traffic, bus, rail, transport.

The dynamics of energy demands, renewable resources, and energy markets to identify well crafted long-term infrastructure evolution pathways.

Corporate responsibility and the oil and gas industry

electricity and gas in general r&d and innovation in these sectors
demand management tools
would like to meet others active in this area, both academics, industry and policy makers

International action is required urgently to control world pollution
practices to life-sustaining levels.

Small scale CHP

Particular interests are renewables, and the need to seek objective data on which to base choices

I am always on the lookout for new low carbon technology and initiatives.

Aerodynamics of wind turbines, built environment

I like to meet professionals who are in the energy field, and explore potential speakers for a conference in Zurich that I may be involved in the logistics.

Alternative energy, Investing within the Energy sector, creating new derivative instruments

I'm interested in all aspects of the intersection of IT and energy.

Alternative energy generation - MNT interface. Nuclear power, fission and fusion. Technology commercialisation of these technologies.

Development of an Energy Yomp to promote training and understanding of issues involved by Entrepreneurs

Renewable Energy design into new houses

My interest is in climate change strategy and societal engagement. Does prediction of impacts and setting of targets really offer the greatest support for fast progress? What is the role of positive visions of the future and positively-expressed strategy based on increasing our ability to stabilise climate? Should climate be managed separately or would it be better considered within a framework of achieving all aspects of a sustainable society?

Why do people hate wind turbines?
How can we get people to reduced their household energy consumption?
How can we persuade people that climate change is a reality but they can do something about it?

Local events/action, computer modelling

The Impax ET50 Index (ET50) is a performance-tracking index dedicated solely to publicly quoted companies that have core businesses in the development and operation of environmental technologies.
The ET50 constituents are the fifty largest by market capitalisation (MC) from the global universe of over 2000 pure-play ET companies identified by Impax Asset Management Ltd.

A number of us from Cambridge are investors in Vairex Corp of Boulder, Colo. USA, an early stage company, who make special, dry compressors ( 3 types for different pressure ranges)for gas supplies to fuel cells, and gas management systems. Mainly for PEM cells to c 200kw. Therefore we're interested in R & D on PEM membranes and fuel cells to 200kw.