The 8th Wharton Energy Conference: “Energy’s Future: Bridging the Gap”

Eighth annual Wharton Energy Conference to be held Friday, October 29, 2010 at the Union League of Philadelphia

This year we witnessed the negative effects that fossil fuels can incur in our environment and in our lives. Months after the Gulf disaster, the 8^th Wharton Energy Conference wants to open a dialogue among the professionals from large corporations and public organizations that will drive the future of US energy in the coming years.

The Wharton Energy Conference will be sponsored by the Wharton Energy Club, an independent, student-run organization, for the eighth year.  The subject of the conference, “Energy’s Future: Bridging the Gap”, is hoped to be the start of a –in words of the organizers- “coordinated effort among traditional, alternative, and innovative sources while aligning political, regulatory, and financial opportunities and interests”, necessary to achieve a “successful and sustainable energy portfolio”.  The conference will take the form of a series of keynotes and panels organized by tracks: traditional energy, alternative energy and innovation, and regulatory, policy and finance.

The first track will address the controversial state which oil, gas and nuclear currently play and will analyze the future for these sources of energy. Executives from large US corporations such as ExxonMobile, Exelon, Shell, as well as service providers and energy M&A bankers will analyze the situation in North America and its effects in the rest of the world.

The alternative energy and innovation track will feature the present and future of renewable energy, smart grid, and energy efficiency. The panels will specifically address the current situation of entrepreneurial companies in the renewable sector, the current state of financing in the bioenergy industry, and will explain why investing in energy efficiency is key to reduce energy consumption.

The last track aims to put the previous two to task. It will cover the existing regulatory, policy and finance aspects of traditional and alternative energy. Representatives of different energy organizations will discuss the future of North America’s investment in energy, beyond the Recovery Act of 2009 that allocated $80bn to the renewable sector. They will also analyze the international trends in carbon markets and the opportunities that new regulation will create in the future. Then, finance experts will explain the rationale behind investing in energy. They will analyze in what conditions investments are attractive to funds and venture capitalists, what the risks and opportunities are, and finally they will try to find an answer to the question “are the alternative and traditional energy industries really at odds? “.

At CleanTechies we want to give you the opportunity to attend the 8^th Wharton Energy Conference for FREE! As media partners of the event, we have 4 passes to give to our readers. Send us an email for your chance to win!