Keynote Speakers Announced for National Renewable Energy Conference

August 10, 2006

DOE and the USDA are jointly hosting a national renewable energy conference in October. The conference, entitled "Advancing Renewable Energy: An American Rural Renaissance," will take place October 10th to 12th at America's Center in St. Louis, Missouri. On August 10th, the agencies announced the keynote speakers for the conference, including Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman; Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns; Vinod Khosla, founder of Khosla Ventures (which invests in clean energy and biorefineries) and a previous co-founder of Sun Microsystems; Robert W. Lane of Deere & Company, which is investing in wind power; Patricia A. Woertz of Archer Daniels Midland Company, which is heavily involved in biofuels production; and James R. Woolsey, a former director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Woolsey is a co-chairman of the Committee on the Present Danger (CPD), which has published a paper linking U.S. petroleum dependence to national security threats. See the DOE press release, the conference Web site, and the CPD paper (PDF 800 KB). Download Adobe Reader.