As Energy Secretary and as an energy expert, Ernest Moniz has often participated in CERA Week, the annual convocation of oil and gas industry experts in Houston, Texas. This year marked the first in-person CERA Week since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the well-attended conference took on added significance following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent turmoil in global fuel markets.
Moniz addressed the current crisis and the imperative for energy innovation during several appearances at the event, including a fireside chat on energy innovation with John Browne, the former CEO of BP who serves as chairman of EFI’s advisory board. “We can all imagine the destination of a net-zero energy economy,” Moniz told attendees. “But the road to that destination is going to be very rocky.” He voiced similar views during a plenary session entitled “Erupting Conflicts & Green Upheaval—Where Energy Transitions and Geopolitics Collide,” sharing the main stage with Jason Bordoff, co-Dean of the Climate School of Columbia University, and Meghan O’Sullivan of Harvard University’s Kennedy School.
Moniz also served as an interviewer at CERA Week, hosting a one-on-one chat with Deepak Bagla, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Invest India, on his efforts on creating public-private partnerships to promote clean energy. Another session, “Fusion Energy: Closer than you think,” attracted a standing-room-only crowd eager to hear about the recent technological breakthroughs that move fusion energy closer to scale. Moniz told the audience that “there is a very good probability that privately financed companies are going to demonstrate what we need in this decade. And then in the next decade, we may have power plants [generating fusion at scale.]”
CERA Week’s content is restricted to those who attended the conference, but Moniz and Bordoff recapped many of their main points in an episode of Columbia Energy Exchange recorded in Houston.
You can listen to the Columbia Energy Exchange podcast here.
—David Ellis
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