A presentation from Friday night that stood out for me was by Kevin Brokish, about adaptive load-leveling, which is akin to what the black box will do on the smart grid, but within that context, quite different.

For the smart grid, the box will allow communications between customer and grid, allowing, among others things, customers to set the rates they are willing to pay for the functions of each (i.e., run the dryer only overnight, when electric prices are at their lowest).

I've already pimped several times for Building Energy '09, but I want to mention the public forum that is table-setter for it.

I just love shows like the just-completed MIT Energy Conference, for all the opportunities to learn in such a short space, and often directly from people actively studying in the field. Another such opportunity arises this week at NESEA's Building Energy '09.

Here's some orts left over from my walk through the poster session Friday night and the four-plus hours I was able to spend on Saturday...

* d-lite.org is a new website, still being populated but open for visiting, whose purpose is ...

In the previous post, I alluded to US Rep. Jay Inslee, the Washington State Democrat with a very clear focus on energy issues. He said a bunch, both in his luncheon speech and in a generous discussion with journalists afterward. Some highlights:

Cap-and-trade legislation will pass this year. "I can't conceive of sending President Obama to Copenhagen empty-handed." "Coperhagen," of course, refers to the multilateral climate change conference scheduled for Dec. 7-18 in Denmark.

For many, the question isn't "will cars be powered differently in 40 years?" but whichnfuel will dominate — electricity (plug-in, or batteries or both?), biofuels (food-based ethanol, or something more advanced?), or hydrogen? (Really?)

But in a session at the MIT Energy Conference Saturday afternoon, analyst John Casesa, a one-time GM employee who spent 17 years on Wall Street before opening his own consultancy, says he doesn't envision much change:

In general and as one might expect, discussions at the MIT Energy Conference this weekend were energetic and forward-thinking, which made a comment by Bernard Neenan of the Electric Power Research Institute (none of their links were working yesterday) stand out:

This is no doubt a post about a word guy lashing out, unfairly even, at a bunch of very educated scientists, some of whom grew up speaking a language other than English, but hey, I'm as human (read: shallow) as the next guy, so why not....

I spent part of today at the MIT Energy Conference, but before I get to any of that, I want to post on the three dozen hardy souls who turned out to protest at the Dominion power plant in Salem a week ago. I started to say "report on," but I don't have much more than photos to share...

Mindy Lubber, president of Ceres (and listed as a "green hero" to the right — follow those links to see how she got there), is one of the speakers at MIT's Sustainability Summit April 24.

According to a release, the point of the summit is to explore we can transition to a sustainable world.

Building Energy '09 is next week, but online registration ends tomorrow. The Northeast Sustainable Energy Association, which runs the show, is offering an enrollment deal: With six, you get discount. If you shared the savings, it would amount to 18 percent off for each of you, which is decent.