Invitation to ASPO-USA Conference in Washington DC, October 7 - 9
Posted by Gail the Actuary on September 6, 2010 - 10:35am
ASPO-USA's 6th Annual Peak Oil Conference
October 7 -9, 2010 Capitol Hill Hyatt, Washington DC
Join The Oil Drum analysts at the 2010 ASPO-USA Peak Oil Conference in Washington, DC Oct 7-9, 2010. Oil Drum contributors speaking at the conference include: Art Berman, Dave Summers (Heading Out), Dave Murphy, Jeff Vail, Debbie Cook, and myself Gail Tverberg (Gail the Actuary).
Early Registration has been extended to September 14, 2010 and The Oil Drum readers can save an additional $50 off the Peak Aware package by typing TOD when prompted. Registration starts at $345 for the full conference including all breaks, lunches, and receptions.
ASPO-USA's 6th Annual Peak Oil Conference will maintain its traditional focus with a full agenda of world-class speakers who know how to connect the dots between the peak oil energy crisis and the complex socioeconomic and geopolitical factors that surround it.
http://www.aspousa.org/worldoil2010/
Confirmed Speakers include:
• Dr. James Schlesinger, Former Secretary of Energy and Secretary of State
• Lawrence Rice, Rear Admiral, United States Navy
• Jeff Rubin, Author, Former Chief Economist at CIBC World Markets
• Roscoe Bartlett, (R-MD) United States House of Representatives
• Dr. Charles Schlumberger, FRAeS, The World Bank
• Chris Skrebowski, Energy Institute, London
• Dr. Robert Hirsch, Senior Energy Program Advisor, MISI
• Charles Maxwell, Senior Energy Analyst, Weeden & Co
• Arthur Berman, Geological Consultant, Labyrinth Consulting Services, Inc., The Oil Drum
• Dr. Roger Bezdek, President, Management Information Services, Inc.
• Michael Klare, Professor, Hampshire College
• Kjell Aleklett, Professor of Physics, Uppsala University, Sweden
• Dr. Chris Martenson, Founder, "The Crash Course"
• Tyson Slocum, Director, Public Citizen's Energy Program
• David Fridley, Deputy, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
• Jeremy Gilbert, Managing Director, Barrelmore Ltd
• André Angelantoni, Founder, Post Peak Living
• Sharon Astyk, Writer, ASPO-USA
• Terry Backer, (R-CT) State Representative of Connecticut
• Jim Baldauf, Co-founder, ASPO-USA
• Jeffrey Brown, Independent Petroleum Geologist
• Dr. Jonathan Callahan, President, Mazama Science
• Eric Chenoweth, Morningstar
• Debbie Cook, The Oil Drum, Post Carbon Institute
• Daniel Davis, Lt. Colonel, United States Army
• Lily Donge, Manager, Calvert Asset Management Co.
• Nicole Foss, The Automatic Earth
• John Michael Greer, Author The Archdruid Report
• Jim Hansen, Financial Consultant, Ravenna Capital Management
• Kevin Hansen, Financial Consultant, Ravenna Capital Management
• Gregor MacDonald, Author, Gregor.us
• David Murphy, The Oil Drum, EROI Institute, SUNY-ESF
• Dr. Tad Patzek, Professor, The University of Texas at Austin
• Anthony Perl, Professor, Simon Fraser University
• Dave Room, Co-founder, Bay Localize
• Dr. David Rutledge, Professor, California Institute of Technology
• Dr. David Summers, Missouri University of Science & Technology, The Oil Drum
• Jason Stevens, Morningstar
• Ron Swenson, CEO, ElectroRoof
• Gail Tverberg, The Oil Drum
• Jeff Vail, Jeff Vail LLC, The Oil Drum
• Richard Vodra, Spire Investment Partners
• Tom Whipple, ASPO-USA
• Ken Zweibel, The George Washington University Solar Institute
Contact
- Content: editors at theoildrum dot com
- Tech support: support at theoildrum dot com
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Will the contributions from Oil Drum contributors be reposted here?
To what extent and when are the ASPO speeches and discussions available on the web?
The Power Points of the presenters are posted by ASPO-USA each year, free to anyone who wants to look at them. This is a link to last year's presentations.
We can work on making certain we do write-ups of the talks as well. Some of the talks overlapped with recent posts, so didn't get written up in the past.
There is a plan to sell access to video recordings. I am not sure I am up to speed on what is happening this year. Last year, all of the talks were recorded.
I ask this every year. Why are the podcasts of the presentations not put on the web, for free, post hoc? You can release them as torrents so you do not incur bandwidth charges.
If your goal is information dissemination, you'd jump at this option.
But if there's a profit motive, it would explain the reluctance.
ASPO-USA is a not for profit, and operates using a combination of donations and fees for services.
ASPO-USA uses the money they get from all of their combined sources to pay for the costs of the convention, including the recording of the videos, all of the various charges by the hotel, food expenses for those attending, and speakers' travel expenses.
I don't know how funding breaks down between donations by members, payments of conference fees, and payments for the use of the videos (I am not sure there are podcasts, because you really need the graphics), but if one source of funds goes down, another one needs to go up. I am sure they look at this to figure out what they think a fair breakdown of charges would be. There are quite a few universities and libraries that buy access to the videos, and they think it is fair to charge for this access, since there are definitely costs involved.
I appreciate that video, with the graphics, is the optimum feed, but there is a large rump of people like me who are never going to pony up the money for the DVDs. So get an audio feed to mp3 and plonk it on the web, pretty please. We can still get 80-90% of the value of the presentations, even sans visuals.
Recording an audio feed is dead easy.
If this request is ignored, I'll simply have to conclude that the motives of your group are somehow self-serving.
When you are dealing with a primarily volunteer organization, there can be a lot of reasons things don't work out the way you would hope. Don't assume bad motives.
If you are talking to a camera anyway, why are you all wasting fuel travelling to a 'jolly'? Is video conferencing not capable..?
A big reason for this conference in the past has been for people involved with peak oil a chance to meet each other. Since Oil Drum staff members are geographically separated, this is one place where we get a chance to get better acquainted, also.
Is there a way to join the conference via VC or Teleconference/Netmeeting to avoid the hidden costs (Time&Carbon) of attending in person? Thanks, SeismicDriller
What exactly is the rationale for this conference anyway? Simply to get some media coverage for peak oil?
I think ASPO-USA is trying to invite a quite a few people this year who are probably not very aware of peak oil. So partly, it is to get information to this group.
I think another reason is to act as a forum for people who are involved with peak oil to get together and examine each others views. Sometimes, contacts made at these conventions can be helpful--for example, with respect to guest posts, or in identifying who is particularly knowledgeable in an area.
I think that meeting periodically in person is very valuable. I attended the ASPO conference in Houston and met Gail Tverberg and invited her to come to a conference in Hawaii to be the key note speaker. This was very valuable to us on the Big Island. And, at this past ASPO conference in Denver, I sat next to Richard Heinberg at dinner and across the table was David Murphy, whom I asked about the EROI of geothermal and if he thought we should maximize our usage of geothermal for base power electricity generation. The estimated hot geothermal potential on the Big Island exceeds the peak power usage by a factor of at least seven. Of course, maximizing geothermal is a no brainer--we should maximize it. The age of oil is about 150 years old and already we are talking about decline. On the other hand, Jim Kauahikaua Chief Scientist at Hawaii Volcano National Park, told me that the "hot spot" under the Big Island will last another 500,000 to 1,000,000 years. This is so obvious to everyone except HECO the state of Hawaii electrical utility who just issued a request for proposals to grow biofuels to run their fossil fuel generating units on the Big Island. Quoting, Chris Martenson, "I cannot think of anything more foolish short of launching barrels of oil into outer space". I don't think that I am wrong. Am I?
See you guys there!
@Gail: any info on the Biophysical Economics conference?
I know that there has been some thought about putting it off for a few months. The originally scheduled date would put it between the ASPO-USA conference and the Barcelona conference, and that would be a lot, all in a short period of time. So I am not really certain about the date.
Flying into DC
Often the cheapest option is to fly into BWI (Southwest Airlines dominates), and take a free 5 minute shuttle bus to the BWI train station. On weekdays, MARC Penn Line is only $6 to DC Union Station. Hyatt conference site is two blocks from Union Station.
http://washingtonregency.hyatt.com/hyatt/hotels/services/maps/index.jsp
http://mta.maryland.gov/services/marc/schedulesSystemMaps/penn.cfm
There is a Red Line Metro stop at DC Union Station and Metro goes to a LOT of places.
Amtrak is more expensive than MARC (low $20's if you do not buy before), but they run on weekends.
Best Hopes for those on a budget,
Alan
PS: Hotels in Baltimore are often cheaper than DC. Thursday & Friday via MARC and Saturday by Amtrak (cheaper to buy Amtrak in advance). Baltimore Light Rail serves BWI (Terminal E, long walk), and both Camden and Penn Line MARC. Amtrak is only at Penn Station.
Some people live in Baltimore and commute to DC via MARC every day.
Looking forward to welcoming you all to my adopted hometown and attending my first ASPO event. Hope to see everyone there and hopefully put some faces to names and handles here on TOD.
p.s. when using Metro, remember to walk on the left and stand on the right...DC escalators work just like politics: left = move forward, right = obstruct path, middle = nobody likes a centrist, make up your mind!
Let me see if I understand this correctly. The world is going to hell in a hand basket due to oil production peaking then descending from peak, but people can still dish out 345 for a conference?
My financial resources are modest indeed, but if nothing prevents me, I intend to go to this conference.
I will drive a ratty 1984 Toyota pickup there from southwest Virginia,even though we have a very nice full size Buick, and I expect to drive about eighty miles back towards Richmond in order to have a place to bathe and sleep with friends.
It's either three hours on the road and twenty dollars worth of gas or probably two hundred bucks plus for a room.Maybe I should feel guilty about the gas, but I can't say that I have noticed that the low carbon example set by individuals has much effect on the behavior of the public.If I don't burn the gas attending a useful conference, some rich kid will burn it driving an Escalade to school even though a school bus passes by his house.
I very seldom go anywhere more than a few minutes from home these days, but the oppportunity to meet and talk with some of the leaders in the field of energy depletion is priceless.
Written communication is a wonderful thing indeed, but it is almost entirely lacking in nuance unless one spends a lot of time on a paragraph or two;and while damned few of us are good enough writers to inspire with the written word, many are good enough speakers to fire up thier audience.
Check out VRE (the poor cousin to MARC). Furthest south is Fredericksburg. I think they have Park & Ride there. Drops you off 2 blocks from conference (public parking @ US Capital is a myth).
http://www.vre.org/service/systmmp.htm
Tom Whipple's wife is Chairperson of VRE (and Minority leader of VA Senate). Dreams of electrified line to just south of Richmond.
Best Hopes to See You :-)
Alan
Couldn't resist a snarky posting...
"Peak Aware Package
Includes Thursday Peak Aware buffet with Keynote Speakers and Energy Leaders ($250 value);
Friday evening dinner, ($150 value); DVD of conference proceedings; all conference video and audio ($150 value); and Online access to conference proceedings. Badge will include name, title, org, location "
Surely you mean "Price" not "Value"? What's the calorie conversion of the value of the conference?
Anyway, wish I could attend, but I'm one of the working poor. A weekend in DC would bankrupt me.
By the way... if any Platinum or Gold or Silver sponsors have an extra registration that's going begging, feel free to send it to this studious but poor fellow:
Cullen McGough
67 North St.
Portland Maine
04101
Thanks!