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In a whimsical
city in the West that people readily associate with frivolity and age-old distractions, there have been five serious and sober
conferences in 2008 about the future of energy in the U.S., the southern Intermountain West and, specifically, Nevada.
Las Vegas has emerged as one of the world's centers of futuristic energy thought and development.
Leading academics, top politicians, successful business people, astute consultants, think tank intellectuals and many
of Nevada's university students have all met in 2008 to talk about tomorrow's role for both conventional and renewable
energy resources. In 2008, there have been repeated gatherings at, and around, the University of Nevada,
Las Vegas, to try and make sense of future energy requirements and availability. There have been various viewpoints and predictions, but it is easy to see Las Vegas is where people are getting
together to talk about the future of energy with intelligence, knowledge and deep interest.
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| Photo by Steve Marcus, courtesy Las Vegas Sun. |
By Robert L. Candiotti, November
17, 2008 On August 18 and 19, 2008, sponsored by Nevada's U.S. Senator Harry Reid, the Center
for American Progress Action Fund and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, the National Clean Energy Summit
was held in Las Vegas. The summit was opened on the evening of the 18th by former President Bill Clinton.
Clinton said Nevada could be the leading U.S. state for renewable energy development.
The thrust of the presentations pointed toward the need to work seriously for the advancement of renewable energy. No clear
answers were found at the summit, but many issues were raised and considered. Hundreds of people attended. Pictured
at the National Clean Energy Summit, above from left, are T. Boone Pickens, entrepreneur, Senator Harry Reid, Democrat from
Nevada, John Podesta, President of the Center for American Action Fund, David Ashley, UNLV President.
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The next day, August 20, was the
2008 UNLV Renewable Energy Symposium, also on the campus of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
This was another renewable-oriented event. This one was hosted by the university's Office of Strategic Energy Programs. About
230 people came for a variety of presentations about research and development of renewable energy.
The numerous presentations were wide-ranging: scientific, theoretical, architectural, security centric, futuristic,
highly technical. Attendance at this symposium was larger than at UNLV's 2007 Inaugural Energy
Symposium. Pictured above is Dina Titus, Nevada Democrat, who was recently elected to the
House of Representatives in Washington, D.C., from Nevada's 3rd Congressional District. At last summer's 2008
UNLV Renewable Energy Symposium, she spoke about Nevada's role in promoting renewable energy development.
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| Site of Conference on Energy and the Environment. |
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| Mirage Hotel and Casino, Las Vegas, Nevada. |
Two months later, October 27 to
29, the International Conference on Energy and the Environment, presented by Global Commerce Forum, took
place at the Mirage Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. There were many speakers from the world of fossil
fuels, green energy, mining, railroads, scientific research and others. The wide array of speakers
included presenters from UNLV, such as Dr. Oliver Hemmers, Director of the Office of Strategic Energy Programs, and Dr. Kristina
E. Lipinska-Kalita, Assistant Research Professor. In the program were top executives from energy and transportation corporations,
as well as consultants. Dan Johnson, Manager of Government and Public Affairs, Chevron Corporation - along
with several other presenters who made similar statements - said, "We believe that fossil fuels are a
finite resource, but will continue to meet the vast majority of global energy for the next 30 years. He added, though,
"Renewable resources will contribute a growing role in the overall energy mix." Like many
other speakers at the conference, Johnson said, "We are going to need all the energy that we can get our hands on."
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| October 28, 2008, Brookings Institution and UNLV presented "Megapolitan Las Vegas." |
At the same time on the calendar,
October 28, in the Foundation Building of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, the Brookings Institution and UNLV presented
a program titled "Megapolitan Las Vegas: One of America's Newest Metropolitan Places and a Federal Partnership
to Help It Prosper." The program covered Nevada's evolving relationship with the other states of the southern
Intermountain West - Utah, Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico - regarding the areas of energy, water and transportation.
The first two paragraphs of the "Mountain Megas" booklet from Brookings' Blueprint for American
Prosperity state: "States in the southern Intermountain West - Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah - are
experiencing some of the fastest population growth and economic and demographic transition anywhere in the country.
"The region is growing up, flexing its muscles, and distancing itself from California, which historically has had an
outsized impact on the West's development." Las Vegas is one of the five important Megapolitan
West regions as defined by the Brookings Institution. However, the Las Vegas area has an underdeveloped surface
transportation network and an inadequate rail system. Also, water will be a huge issue. Brookings says
the Intermountain West has an abundance of oil shale (in Utah and Colorado) if the future requires its mining and production,
but "renewable energy development can only help to meet future energy demand if there is sufficient transmission capacity
to carry the power." (See the "Transmission Lines" page of this website). Energy
management, development and transmission must surely be an integral part of the future of the southern Intermountain
West. Just a few weeks later, on November 14, UNLV's Institute for Security Studies, together with
the university's Office of Strategic Energy Programs, presented a roundtable titled, "Reducing U.S. Dependence
On Foreign Oil." The energy security roundtable was moderated by Major General (Ret.)
Scott B. Smith, Executive Director of the Institute for Security Studies. The panelists all made interesting and thought provoking
statements about the past, present and future of energy, and how the U.S. has a tendency to forget about sustainable
energy development when prices (as they are doing now) fall back again. One of the panelists, Dr.
Dennis Pirages, Dean's Professor of Government at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, cautioned, "We don't engage
in foresight in this country. We need to engage in paradigm shift." Dr. Pirages talked about
a time 15 years ago when a large group of senior auto executives said we had "better start thinking green." They
did not take their own advice, said Pirages, and now look at the present condition of General Motors.
The ISS program had a top-notch group sitting on the dais, including Professor Tatsuo Masuda, professor at Tokyo Institute
of Technology. He talked about how, in 1973, out of necessity, Japan nimbly was able to shift to being an energy conserving
nation in response to the oil embargo of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC).
Again, a highly intelligent presentation about energy was put together by UNLV. IN
SUMMARY All of the programs listed above took
place in the second half of 2008 in Las Vegas. Four of the five were fully or partially sponsored by the University of Nevada,
Las Vegas. Three of the five events took place on the UNLV campus. Unquestionably,
Las Vegas is one of the world's centers for research and discussion of energy. The review of these events shows UNLV
is one of the nation's academic leaders in the renewable energy realm.
| Renaissance Las Vegas Hotel on Paradise Road. |
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| Venue for UNLV's energy security roundtable "Reducing U.S. Dependence On Foreign Oil." |
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