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Energy 2004 Comes to Rochester by Bob Siegel This year the US Department of Energy held their annual conference at the Rochester Convention Center. Close to 1400 people attended this three-day event. Most of them were government employees or energy related businesses with a strong emphasis on renewable energy solutions. After Senator Clinton's visit this past winter, there seems to be a lot happening to establish the Rochester area as a leader in the renewable, or as she called it, smart energy field. In addition to a substantial display booth area, there were a number of seminars that were organized along eight specialized learning tracks including acquisition, alternative financing, operations and maintenance, energy, security, new technologies for vehicles and buildings, policy, planning, renewable, and sustainability. Many of the speakers were from the armed services, which might be surprising at first, but when you consider that the military is the largest consumer of energy in the country, it makes sense that they would be interested in trying to find ways to do more with less. (The DOD has set a goal of reducing their energy use by 35% by the year 2010.) Some of the sessions I attended included Integrated Sustainability Planning and Design, Solar Energy: A Sunny Future, and Biomass to Energy: Don't Waste the Opportunity. The overall message of the conference was that there are a lot of people working on this, and great progress is being made despite the lack of support from the current administration. Of course, a lot more needs to be done, especially given the recent climate data, and hopefully with new leadership at the top next year, much more will be done.
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