California Carbon and Low Carbon Fuel Standard Summit
Each year, I attend somewhere between 10 and 15 conferences on energy and the environment, sometimes as a speaker, but always as an active participant in meeting people and encountering new ideas and cleantech business plans. It’s also important to expand my understanding of the industry, and thus I choose some of the events principally because they focus on a subject area with which I really should have more fluency.
The annual California Carbon and Low Carbon Fuel Standard Summit, produced by Argus Media, is a great event to attend, this year as a “media sponsor,” in order to accomplish the goals named above. Here, I’ll be walking away with a complete understanding of some fairly arcane but extremely important issues:
• What will happen to California and RGGI (Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative) in the absence of the Clean Power Plan (as the U.S. Supreme Court has stayed its implementation pending judicial review)?
• What is the current status of Ontario’s cap-and-trade program and a future linkage with California and Quebec?
• How will proposed changes to the RFS (Renewable Fuel Standard) impact California’s LCFS (Low Carbon Fuel Standard) and other states fuel programs, which provide targets for a series of new environmental goals for 2030, including reducing current petroleum use in cars and trucks by 50 percent.
• What are the market implications of California’s 50% RPS (Renewable Portfolio Standard) by 2030 mandate?
• The renewable enhancement and growth support rule proposes to make numerous changes to promote the production of renewable fuels, including significant modifications to the RFS program to resolve outstanding issues and provide clarification on certain RFS requirements. How will it impact the credits market?
• Is California hitting a biodiesel blend wall (i.e., the concentration of biodiesel beyond which the petroleum industry claims can potentially damage engines and catalytic converters)? Can renewable diesel negate the blend wall?
• How will higher octane levels in the gasoline pool impact the transportation market?
Anyone wishing to join me at the summit, October 27th and 28th in Napa, CA should let me know in advance, so I can arrange to meet you there.
FWIW, I like these people from Argus, an independent media organization with more than 700 full-time staff. It is headquartered in London, England and has offices in each of the world’s principal energy centers. They’re quite competent, and they’re a dream to work with.
Hi Craig,
It’s great to see that you are still an enthusiastic conference attendee. (I know how rewarding, but how tiring that can be).
I’ve always found that attending too many of the same sort of conferences, can produce a rather one track perspective. Perhaps that’s not such a negative for an advocate and devoted convert such as yourself. I can understand you have only so many hours in the day, and conferences such as these keeps you motivated and focused on the technology and issues which concern you.
I envy you the luxury of attending only those conferences that you want to attend. I find myself attending a much wider variety of conferences and exhibitions, for fear of losing objectivity or greater perspective. (Some of the attendee’s and organizers are incredibly boring, banal, or barking mad.)
Certainly any conference which includes input from Adrian Binks’ Argus Media would be worth attending. Argus is a highly respected organization with some really great people. Having known the organization since it was founded by Jan Nasmyth in 1970, I can attest to the quality of the organization’s information, analysis and high standards.
I sounds a great conference, and I hope you have an interesting,informative but fun time !
Cheers !
I appreciate your suggestion that I try not to “breathe my own exhaust,” i.e., surround myself with only those ideas with which I already agree. That’s a stumbling block for all of us, I believe. I try to be aware of it, and to do my best to avoid it.