From July 29th through July 31st, the EngEx conference will descend upon the San Diego Convention Center. The conference focuses on energy, water, infrastructure, and the environment. It will provide access to decision makers and offer C-suite insight and dialogue. Key government agencies will be participating in this year’s conference, including: The Environmental Protection Agency, The Department of Energy, The Department of Transportation, The Bureau of Land Management, The Department of Commerce, The Small Business Administration, and The US EXIM Bank.

The keynote speaker at the conference will be Mark Quartermain, President of Shell Energy North America. Other speakers include Will Coleman of Mohr Davidow Ventures, Theresa Harten from the EPA, and Lisa Bicker of CleanTECH San Diego.

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It is President Barack Obama’s priority to find new ways for this administration to partner across government and across sectors in addressing our nation’s greatest challenges. Given the nature of the problems we face, the ability of government to forge effective relationships with organizations of all types will be critical in making progress on the President’s agenda –particularly in areas like energy innovation.

Last Friday, the Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation co-convened a conference on Energy Innovation that included participation by five White House offices, four federal departments, three federal agencies, entrepreneurs, state government officials, academia, private sector leaders, nonprofits and innovators.　 Through this convening, we sought to embrace these actors as our partners in three areas: advancement of shared policy objectives, enhancement of visibility around these issues, and the coordination of resources so as to improve the government’s ability to fulfill specific objectives of the Administration.

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Delegates from developing nations at the Copenhagen conference were incensed after reading a leaked document purporting to show that a group of wealthy nations intends to sideline the UN in future climate change negotiations and place CO2 emissions restrictions on poorer nations.

The Guardian reported that the so-called “Danish text” — reputedly drafted by wealthy nations including the United States, the United Kingdom, and Denmark — would abandon the principles of the Kyoto Protocol requiring industrialized nations to commit to binding greenhouse gas emissions while poorer nations were not compelled to act. The draft text would hand control over financing climate change projects in the developing world to the World Bank and would make funds given to poorer nations for climate change adaptation contingent on those nations taking actions to reduce emissions.

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What is the current smart grid infrastructure? How will we deploy the smart grid? Answer these questions and more by joining some of today’s leaders in the smart grid movement, next Wednesday, November 4, 2009 at Greentech Media’s The Networked Grid conference. The morning and afternoon keynote speeches will be given by PG&E’s Andrew Tang, senior director, smart energy web, and Oracle’s Linda Jackman, vice president of product strategy and management, utilities business. Also joining them will be speakers from California’s big three utilities and its public utilities commission, PG&E, SDG&E, SCE and CPUC, as well as companies such as ABB, Cisco, Control4, Coulomb Technologies, Enernex, Google, GridPoint, GTM Research, Intel, Oracle, Siemens, Silver Spring Networks, Stanford Research Institute, Tendril, Verizon Wireless.

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What makes energy start-ups succeed or fail? Are energy investments wise for venture capitalists? What will shape energy finance innovations and the adoption of the smart grid?

The 2009 Wharton Energy Conference will explore these questions and more October 30 in Philadelphia. CleanTechies is excited to serve as a media partner of this one-day conference and career fair.

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While the slumping economy has delivered a gut shot to the CleanTech sector, many optimists are confident that a new wave of investment is coming. Even so, one must wade through a torrent of sobering news to arrive at such a conclusion.

A quick peak at recent headlines tell the story. Cleantech.com reported that venture investment in the CleanTech sector dropped 41 percent in 1Q09 compared to the last quarter. And Biofuels Digest has run a series of articles about highly regarded biofuel startups succumbing to market forces (here and here).

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