Business and government leaders are exploring possible answers to burning energy questions at GLOBE 2004, one of the world's largest and most important international gatherings of environmental business leaders and corporate environmental managers. Shattered by blackouts in Ontario and the Eastern U.S., rising natural gas prices and reduced security of imported fossil fuel supplies, North America's energy infrastructure is in need of a major overhaul.

Many environmental organizations fear that the recent blackouts will trigger new investment in conventional, emission-intensive power generation technology. "Building more plants and transmission lines "for consumers and people uneducated about the issues, it's an argument that will seem to make sense," says Steve Clemmer, energy analyst with the Union of Concerned Scientists in Cambridge, Mass. "Those are the obvious responses, but it's more complicated than that."

Many experts do not see the solution to the energy dilemma in building more centralized power plants, but in adding smaller, decentralized installations" often based on emission-free renewable energy systems. Scott Klar, founder of The Stella Group, a strategic marketing and policy company for distributed generation in Washington D.C., writes in response to this discussion: "If the electric grid is to be able to meet the multifaceted challenges of absolute, reliable power with protection from unexpected intrusions by either natural or manmade effects, it must become more simplified, more agile - a self-healing network like the Internet - and more unlike the space shuttle."

The solution thus is not simply increasing generation capacity, but smartly scattering small generation units all over the grid - if possible, close to where the consumer needs the power. Such an interconnected power grid with multiple, independent power sources would be much less prone to failure and the probability of several units failing at the same time would decrease. At the same time, grid stability would increase because the grid can counterbalance the failure of smaller units more easily. Mentioning environmentally preferable technologies, such as wind turbines, run-of-river waterpower, photovoltaics and fuel cells, Klar concludes: "With emerged and emerging technologies, there is a solid opportunity to have a centralized network with an immense diversity of technologies seamlessly interacting and supporting each other, yet still independent."

GLOBE 2004 will gather many of the decision-makers from governments and the utility sector in order to map out strategies to improve the way electricity is generated and delivered. A session on "Homeland Energy Supply" will examine how North America can hedge against price insecurity and supply risks in the fossil fuel sector. Presenters on "Policy Drivers for Alternative Energy" will show which factors can help develop domestic energy resources. Concepts including clean coal, wind, solar, biomass and nuclear energy will be examined and their place in an overall energy strategy developed. Many corporations that have been investing in this sector will present their successes as corporate case studies to conference goers.

But GLOBE goes even further to explore the ultimate emerging energy concept: the hydrogen economy. Many forward-thinking individuals see great potential in hydrogen: British Columbia-based Fuel Cells Canada (FCC), a nonprofit, national industry association whose mission it is to accelerate Canada's world-leading fuel cell and hydrogen industry, recently proposed the development of a "hydrogen corridor". This corridor comprises a 560-mile-long section of highway between Windsor, Ontario and Montreal, Quebec that would support both hydrogen-powered internal combustion engine and fuel cell-powered vehicles. "That corridor captures a third of all Canadians," said FCC president and CEO Ron Britton, who will also be among GLOBE 2004's many experts. "If you can get that established, then you're breaking the back of all naysayers."

With important government-funded programs paving the way for intensive research into the manufacture, transport and conversion of hydrogen to energy through fuel cells in Europe and North America, a whole conference block has been dedicated to hydrogen as the fuel of the future. At the "Hydrogen Leadership Summit", international top decision-makers will describe current efforts to embark on the path to a hydrogen-based energy infrastructure, and will describe priorities for its implementation. Other sessions will explore hydrogen industry clusters, such as that in Vancouver, and will tackle impediments to the hydrogen future, as well as the approaches to remove them.

Focused on the latest developments in industry, as well as legislative tendencies, the world's top experts will come together in Vancouver to address climate change and how the above-mentioned concepts and technologies tie in with emission reduction commitments that individual companies, industries, and regional or national governments have engaged in to combat the rise of CO2 emissions. The whole spectrum of policies, including emissions trading, the Clean Development Mechanism, technology innovation and the influence of climate change exposure on business risk and stock market evaluations will be addressed in detail, in order to provide the best up-to-date business intelligence to the leaders gathering every two years at GLOBE.

Source:  GNET