I would first like to apologies for not being a reporter, a journalist or even a very good note taker. I'll do my best to hit the highlights from the presentations I heard but I won't have any exact quotes and any figures I throw out could be wrong, so take it all with a grain of salt :)

If you'd like more real time updates and reactions from the conference, I have a few sources to point you to on Twitter:

• I'll be 'live tweeting' over on the TechBoise Twitter account.
• Chris Blanchard and Jess Flynn will also be live tweeting.
• We also created the #NWEnergy tag which you can follow via Twitter search. If you plan to tweet from the event be sure to use the #NWEnergy hashtag.

After the conference is over the summit's Web site (http://www.nwenergysummit2009.com/) will stay live with recorded presentations of all the speakers.

Instead of giving you a blow by blow of the summit I wanted to hit an a few highpoints/reoccurring themes. I also asked a few of the people sitting at my table to chime in with their highlights.

Infrastructure

One of the biggest challenges in fixing the growing energy crisis is the grid. Our power lines and infrastructure is sorely outdated an incapable of carrying new power, even if we did have new power plants.

This is a huge opportunity for Idaho. We sit right on the the worlds largest potential for renewable energy: Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Utah and Canada. The Rocky mountain region has every possible type of energy source: Wind, solar, geothermal, hydro-electric, bio-fuels, along with huge untapped potential for coal, oil and uranium.

Over the next several decades this area will be utilized to a much greater potential than it is today. The good news is that, just like today, the greatest energy needs will be located on the coast. In order to get the energy from the Rocky Mountain region to the coast there going to need infrastructure.

Education/Research

One theme we heard time and time again was that many of the solutions we need to get us out of this mess don't exist yet. This will require major investments in research and development. Most of the true scientific research is being done at our national labs and our universities. There are bills being worked on today that will allocate large amounts of government funding for research at our universities.

The good news for BSU is that everyone there, including the DotCom techies, agreed that Material Science was the best research area. Fortunately, thanks to Micron, we have a pretty decent Material Science program. The bad news is that I doubt Micron will be funding much at BSU for the foreseeable future and Governor Otter just announced major cuts to our Universities.

My hope is that our state universities along with INL can work together to make what funding we have stretch further.

People and Jobs

Another reoccurring theme was the need for people. Not just high tech, college educated people but mechanics, electricians and skilled workers. Wind and solar farms require construction and constant maintenance. Although, don't get me wrong highly technical engineers will also be needed in abundance.

This is a great opportunity for both short term and long term job creation for every pay level, and these are jobs that cannot be outsourced. Just look at Idaho Power, they have more stable jobs than the Government.

Notes from the audience

From Robert Deen

• Move money to entrepreneurs. Less to universities and corporate bureaucracies – move faster!
• No one simple answer – we need lots of good ideas and innovation to solve this problem. Where will it come from? Entrepreneurs
• There is little faith that Big Government has the answers – pessimistic that money will get into the hands of the young entrepreneurs who can bring about real change

Jess Flynn’s Takeaways

• In innovation, don’t focus primarily on the cost-benefit analysis but look at and emphasize the life-cycle benefits
• Harsh words, but they received the biggest response from the audience - 'Government innovation is an oxymoron, and universities aren't very far behind' Speaks to the bigger truth that it isn’t top down, but ground up, that will change behavior and our energy industry.
• Most inspiring of all – in a time of national recession and on the day of significant budget cutbacks announced in Idaho’s State of the State, the conference was standing room only, speaking to the passion, enthusiasm and optimism surrounding the innovators, supporters and thought-leaders in the field.

Chris Blanchard's take-aways

1) There is a huge problem with meeting future demand for energy. I don't really follow the energy markets so my assumption coming in to this conference was that the issue was that there was a large and growing group of people looking to move from convention fossil fuel powered plants and vehicles, to more environmentally friendly methods. In other words I thought this was environmentally driven. But, the problem is actually much greater. We simply do not know how we are going to generate the power the world will need in the next 40 years.

2) All the speakers mentioned that we have a major problem with "human capital" where meeting the energy challenge is concerned. That is especially relevant in light of the fact that higher-ed and K-12 have been asked to take large cuts to balance the state budget. But the problem is not just on the white-collar side - scientists, etc. The problem also exists on the blue-collar side. Someone has to install and maintain "smart grids" and wind power generators. The labor unions in many states already have training programs to move workers into new green tech and clean tech jobs.

3) The geographic area that runs from Alberta, Canada down through the Front Range, has some of the world's highest concentrations of oil sands, coal basins, oil shale, and uranium. The West, and Idaho institutions such as INL are sitting at the doorstep of some of the world's most valuable natural resourcesFor those of you reading this that were there, did we miss anything? Please add your highlights in the comments.

See you tomorrow for highlights from day two.

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