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  • 14 Nov 2017 9:06 PM | Anonymous member

    Affiliation and years of experience

    I have more than 25 years of experience working on energy and environmental issues.  My engineering background has enabled me to work in a number of areas including HVAC design, R&D, business development, government relations, and now consulting.  Former employers include an integrated natural gas company, two not-for-profit energy research organizations and two multi-national power generation equipment manufacturers.

    Any particular achievement/interest in energy/environment you would like to mention?

    I have a keen interest in seeing solar photovoltaic cells become more efficient as it would allow for less surface area to generate the same power.  This in turn would save on raw materials and lower the overall cost, making it possible to install solar photovoltaic systems on more homes, especially in developing countries where access to electricity is limited.

    In your opinion, what are important issues facing the energy industry nowadays?

    Energy storage is one of the most important issues facing the energy industry today.  Large scale, efficient and inexpensive energy storage will allow more widespread use of renewable energy resources such as wind and solar.  Smaller, more efficient batteries for vehicles will allow for a greater range between charges and lower vehicle weights.

    How long have you been a member of NCAC? Any particular NCAC memory you would like to share with us?

    After attending a number of excellent NCAC events over the years, I finally decided to become a member this year.  

  • 6 Oct 2017 2:49 AM | Anonymous member

    Please note your affiliation and years of experience in the energy and/or environmental field: 

    Company -- Argus Media
    Title – Head of Natural Gas and Power Services, North America
    Experience -- 27 years in energy publishing

    Any particular achievement/interest in energy/environment you would like to mention?

    Energy and commodity prices have become universally more transparent, but that is not to say they are understandable. That’s where we come in. Argus Media has expanded rapidly worldwide, in the western hemisphere and in the U.S. But not a day goes by when a source does not tell me how competitive that the energy information space has become.

    In your opinion, what are important issues facing the energy industry nowadays?

    Lower energy intensity and higher energy efficiency have become prevalent at a time when technology is able to explore and produce hydrocarbons in North America at lower prices than ever anticipated. 

    How long have you been a member of NCAC? Any particular NCAC memory you would like to share with us?

    I have been a member for more than a dozen years. I recall how the late Mark Lively would usually get into a Socratic discourse with most of our speakers after lunches and the annual dinner. Mark also made every member, new and old, feel very welcome. It’s incumbent on the rest of us to do the same.
  • 1 Jun 2017 10:48 PM | Anonymous member

    Vice President, Policy, American Gas Association

    Please note your affiliation and years of experience in the energy and/or environmental field, and any particular achievement/interest in energy/environment you would like to mention.

    I’m the Vice President for Policy with the American Gas Association, and in my spare time I also serve as the Executive Director of our associated research arm, the American Gas Foundation. I came to Washington twenty years ago right out of graduate school (I’m a physicist by training, with a Ph.D. from U of M Ann Arbor). I initially came for a one-year science policy fellowship as an energy and environmental policy advisor to Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. I had the privilege of serving for wonderful, smart Congressional bosses, with my longest service being on the Senate Energy Committee for Senator Pete Domenici. I’ve followed that with a decade of work on energy related issues at trade associations. I’m definitely someone who came to D.C. supposedly for a short stint, and then never left.  

    Any particular achievement/interest in energy/environment you would like to mention?

    I’m the Vice President for Policy with the American Gas Association, and in my spare time I also serve as the Executive Director of our associated research arm, the American Gas Foundation. I came to Washington twenty years ago right out of graduate school (I’m a physicist by training, with a Ph.D. from U of M Ann Arbor). I initially came for a one-year science policy fellowship as an energy and environmental policy advisor to Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. I had the privilege of serving for wonderful, smart Congressional bosses, with my longest service being on the Senate Energy Committee for Senator Pete Domenici. I’ve followed that with a decade of work on energy related issues at trade associations. I’m definitely someone who came to D.C. supposedly for a short stint, and then never left. 

    I’m grateful for the opportunities I had to craft legislation, especially the original America COMPETES Act. On behalf of Senator Domenici, I was one of the primary authors of the provisions that created ARPA-E at the Department of Energy. Creating that legislation was a tough three-year effort – we got to the finish line because all the lead offices took a bipartisan approach, and believed what mattered was ensuring the United States remained a global leader in technology innovation.

    In your opinion, what are important economic/policy issues facing the energy industry nowadays?

    The country needs more natural gas infrastructure. The shale gas revolution has transformed our energy landscape. Going forward, natural gas is going to be even more important to power generation, manufacturing, and the residential and commercial sectors. Our abundance of natural gas is a national strength, but we will have to make the right choices to capture the benefits it can offer us.

    How long have you been a member of NCAC? Any particular NCAC memory you would like to share with us?

    I’m a pretty new member of NCAC, and I’m looking forward to becoming more involved. I thought the recent annual meeting was a highly successful event.

  • 1 Apr 2017 12:00 PM | Anonymous member
    Student, Master's in Environmental Management, Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies

    Please note your affiliation and years of experience in the energy and/or environmental field, and any particular achievement/interest in energy/environment you would like to mention.

    My experience in the energy sector began in 2007 when I decided to study energy and environmental policy at Johns Hopkins SAIS. I quickly grasped the intertwined nature of the fields, and after that, I was hooked. I have worked with non-profit and private sectors on a wide range of energy issues in the DC area, and for more than 5 years, I consulted at International Technology and Trade Associates (ITTA) on electricity, clean energy, and air emissions policies. In 2016, I began pursuing my second masters - this time in Environmental Management at Yale's School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and will graduate this May.

    Any particular achievement/interest in energy/environment you would like to mention?

    The interest that drove me to return to school was the intersection of business and the environment. As all NCAC members know, the energy sector is one of the most complex and highly regulated sectors, and I wanted to examine how private sector investments are made in light of sometimes conflicting federal and state requirements and how private capital can be mobilized to support new technologies.

    In your opinion, what are important economic/policy issues facing the energy industry nowadays?

    The decarbonization of the energy sector is the most important issue facing the industry. In the US electricity sector, we need to invest wisely to upgrade our aging infrastructure as well as to achieve the clean energy targets that many states have set while maintaining reliability. However, the issue of decarbonization is a global challenge - how to allow for universal access to electricity and economic growth while avoiding the development of a path dependencies linked to high carbon sources. A wide range of policy and financing tools will be necessary as well as thoughtful and innovative solutions to tackle these challenges.

    How long have you been a member of NCAC? Any particular NCAC memory you would like to share with us?

    I have been a member of NCAC since 2011 and have always greatly enjoyed the lunches and professional skills classes. My favorite event was the 2013 field trip. We traveled to a coal power plant (with 1 GW of capacity), a wind farm, and an open pit coal mine. It was a fascinating experience to visit those facilities, and I still recall being overwhelmed by the sheer size of the plants. Most memorably, I made lasting connections with other NCAC members from that trip and always look forward to seeing them at the lunches. Can't wait for the next NCAC field trip!

  • 1 Mar 2017 10:00 AM | Anonymous member

    President, The Rapidan Group

    Please note your affiliation and years of experience in the energy and/or environmental field, and any particular achievement/interest in energy/environment you would like to mention.

    I have 26 years’ experience in energy markets, policy, and geopolitics. My career began as a starving returned Peace Corps Volunteer who needed a job to defray grad school expenses and was hired during grad school by Energy Security Analysis (thank you Sarah Emerson) as a part-time research assistant and later full time analyst. This coincided with the aftermath of the First Gulf War, publication of Daniel Yergin’s masterful book The Prize, and implementation of Clean Air Act fuel regulations. I realized energy and oil were tremendously interesting and dropped plans to become a history teacher to pursue a career in energy. Thereafter, I worked for Tudor Investment Corporation, in the George W. Bush White House serving both as Special Assistant to the President on the National Economic Council and Senior Director on the National Security Council, and nine years ago founded The Rapidan Group, a growing market, policy, and geopolitical consulting firm with a great team of whom I couldn’t be prouder. Over the years I have been extremely fortunate to have been mentored, assisted and befriended by many energy titans, a number of whom are NCAC members, including Adam Sieminski, Larry Goldstein, Sarah Emerson, Daniel Yergin, Guy Caruso, Neelesh Nerurkar, James Koehler, and Mark Finley to name a few.

    Any particular achievement/interest in energy/environment you would like to mention?

    I am proud to have authored a recently published book titled Crude Volatility: The History and the Future of Boom-Bust Oil Prices (Columbia University Press, 2017). The book examines the entire history of the oil market through the prism of price volatility and efforts to suppress it via supply control. It concludes we entered a third boom-bust period about ten years ago and cautions this will pose challenges to industry and government alike. This project allowed me to delve into my passions for history and energy markets. As part of the book project my able assistant Fernando Ferreira and I developed the first monthly continuous oil price series extending back to 1859, which I made freely available in the interest of making notoriously opaque energy data a little less murky.

    In your opinion, what are important economic/policy issues facing the energy industry nowadays?

    The most important issue in my mind will be coping wisely with a new era of boom-bust oil price cycles. We have barely any living memory of the last time oil markets were ungoverned and prices oscillated in wild boom-bust fashion between World War One and the early 1930s, an experience so traumatizing the states of Texas and Oklahoma were impelled to dispatch troops into the fields to control supply. Since 1932 officials have attempted with varying degrees of success to stabilize notoriously volatile oil prices with supply control, the first being US oil states and Seven Sisters and then OPEC. But OPEC’s era of control ebbed and vanished ten years ago and notwithstanding recently production restraint pledges I am skeptical it will reclaim effective, sustained supply management. While many will cheer OPEC’s demise, we will find managing the negative oil industry, broader economic, and geopolitical implications of persistent proneness of oil prices toward the wild oscillations seen in the past ten years to be quite challenging. As usual with energy, there is no magic wand to usher solutions. Hopefully policymakers will avoid incorrect diagnoses and prescriptions: My experience taught me at least half of achieving good energy policy is avoiding bad energy policy. Finally, improving energy data and broader energy literacy are essential and enduring priorities.

    How long have you been a member of NCAC? Any particular NCAC memory you would like to share with us?

    I’ve been a member since 2009 and always found the lunches, dinners, and events to be very helpful and informative. My favorite memories – one in the past and one I hope to make this month – have to do with my energy colleagues and friends letting our hair down. That is, I tremendously enjoyed when my bipartisan energy band Sound Policy entertained at an NCAC happy hour social under the direction of former president Neelesh Nerurkar several years ago, and I am very excited about Sound Policy’s return gig as part of a Roast, Toast, and Rock & Roll tribute for our friend and energy leader Adam Sieminski on March 16! Sound Policy is composed of bipartisan energy experts and former officials, including former Deputy Secretary of Energy Daniel Poneman. Energy is an extremely complicated, multifaceted, and vital profession and NCAC brings out the best of us practitioners not only by sponsoring thoughtful, nonpartisan, and pertinent events and conferences, but also by allowing us to have a little fun once in a while.

  • 1 Feb 2017 10:00 AM | Anonymous member

    President, Georgetown Energy and Cleantech Club | Georgetown MBA Student

    Please note your affiliation and years of experience in the energy and/or environmental field, and any particular achievement/interest in energy/environment you would like to mention.

    My experience practicing in the energy field is modest, in comparison, at just shy of four years. I was previously a project manager for a solar energy developer in New Jersey called KDC Solar. This was my first professional experience after college and the opportunity that taught me the inner workings of energy project development and construction. I am now a second year MBA student at Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business and recently completed my tenure as President of Georgetown's Energy and Cleantech Club. I'm looking forward to graduation this coming May.

    Any particular achievement/interest in energy/environment you would like to mention?

    I'm particularly proud of the project which I was given the opportunity to lead at KDC Solar. My team and I successfully developed and built a 6.3 megawatt net-metered photovoltaic generating facility for the CentraState Medical Center in Freehold, New Jersey. For those interested in more details I've included the link: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/updated--kdc-solar-and-centrastate-medical-center-cut-ribbon-on-631-megawatt-solar-power-system-300012842.html

    In your opinion, what are important economic/policy issues facing the energy industry nowadays?

    My interest and understanding of energy issues continues to develop the more I learn and involve myself in the industry. On a less technical note, however, I believe that one of the important issues facing the energy industry is motivating people outside of the professional, academic, and policy circles of the energy industry, to engage themselves in those topics. The energy industry is on the precipice of tremendous, and likely necessary, change and it is going to take a volume of collective interest, support, and sacrifice to make that change happen.

    How long have you been a member of NCAC? Any particular NCAC memory you would like to share with us?

    I became a member of NCAC only a year ago after being engaged by James Koehler and Jim McDonnell to assist in planning NCAC's annual conference last April. The energy policy conference, held at Georgetown, was my indoctrination into the USAEE NCAC and was a tremendously successful team effort. I look forward to staying involved with the organization and welcome members to connect:dtm52@georgetown.edu

  • 1 Jan 2017 10:00 AM | Anonymous member

    General Manager, Global Energy Markets & US Economics at BP America

    Please note your affiliation and years of experience in the energy and/or environmental field, and any particular achievement/interest in energy/environment you would like to mention.

    I am General Manager, Global Energy Markets & US Economics at BP America, and have been with the company since 2001. I lead the company’s analysis of world oil markets (both short- and long-term), and have also led market assessments for natural gas and carbon. In addition, I’ve lead the production of BP’s Statistical Review of World Energy. I’ve had the good fortune to work with BP in both Washington DC and London. Before joining BP, I served as an energy security and Middle East analyst in the federal government for 13 years, and before that I was an analyst for an oil trading firm based in Bermuda. I am also involved in a number of external activities, having served as an officer of both the USAEE and IAEE (and having been honored as a 2013 USAEE Senior Fellow); as Chair of the US Conference of Business Economists as well as the American Petroleum Institute's Committee on Economics and Statistics; and on the external advisory board of the University of Michigan Energy Institute (where I did my undergraduate work) – Go Blue!

    Any particular achievement/interest in energy/environment you would like to mention?

    It’s been a privilege for me to lead the production of the annual BP Statistical Review of World Energy (www.bp.com/statisticalreview) for the past dozen years. The Review celebrated its 65th anniversary in 2016; it is the longest-running compilation of energy market data in the world, and is seen as an objective source of global energy data that is widely used by academics, industry, governments, and the media. And I can attest to the “government” part of that—I can remember calling BP’s US offices asking for copies of the Review when I was a junior energy analyst in the federal government in the 1980s. In my business travels, I am frequently impressed to find energy analysts and government officials who proudly point to the collection of Statistical Reviews they keep at their desks (in some cases going back 20 or 30 years). Along with the annual BP Energy Outlook (www.bp.com/energyoutlook), the Review plays an important role in establishing BP as a thought-leader on energy issues.

    In your opinion, what are important economic/policy issues facing the energy industry nowadays?

    I would define it even more broadly—not just issues for the energy industry, but for all of us: industry, academics, policy makers…and consumers! To me, the central challenge is, how does the world get the energy it needs provide a growing population with light, heat, and mobility; to improve peoples’ lives and lift people out of poverty; and to accomplish all of this in ways that are sustainable, secure, and affordable? In particular, how do we manage a system that today is dominated by fossil fuels (86% of primary energy in 2015, according to the Statistical Review!) while getting on a sustainable path for climate and meeting all the other objectives I just described? To accomplish this will require leadership that can think through the problems not only in economic terms, but also integrating disciplines including environmental science, technology, and public policy. This synthesis is the part of my job that I’ve always found to be the most stimulating and rewarding. And I think this is where groups like NCAC will play a key role, in bringing together people from a wide range of backgrounds including industry, academia, NGOs, media and policy making to make decisions that are based on good data and good analysis!

    How long have you been a member of NCAC? Any particular NCAC memory you would like to share with us?

    I’ve been involved with NCAC for about the past 15 years. It’s a great group and I’ve been so pleased to be a part of it. I’ve made many friends & learned so much at group events over the years. I was especially proud to see my great friend and former colleague Neelesh Nerurkar become NCAC president several years ago—a great example of the quality people that NCAC attracts! Beyond that, I think my favorite memory is actually something I missed: The field trip several years ago to Colonel Drake’s well at Titusville PA. I was so excited to participate because I have a personal connection—my wife & I visited the site when we were dating as young energy analysts, and our wedding announcement was published in the nearby newspaper, the Oil City Derrick—but unfortunately I had a conflict. And by all accounts I missed a GREAT trip…well, maybe next time!

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