Four Keynote Speakers At An International Energy Conference: Every North Dakota US Senator Is A Keynote Speaker -- June 1, 2015

The annual EIA conference on current energy issues is two weeks away. 

This is normally something I would "blow off," but look who the keynote speakers are. From an EIA press release:

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) will hold its 2015 Energy Conference on June 15 and 16 in Washington, DC.

This two-day event provides the opportunity to meet and network with energy analysts, decision makers, and EIA staff. Last year more than 900 people from industry, government, and academia attended EIA's conference.

Session topics include:

• Effects of changing world oil prices: production, economy, and geopolitics 
• North American energy markets 
• The role of emerging electricity storage technologies 
• Natural gas: domestic and global markets 
• Greenhouse gas emissions: power and methane 
• Developments in hydrocarbon gas liquids markets 
• Electricity distribution markets in the 21st century 
• Energy by rail and water 
• Energy infrastructure needs and options 
• New data in residential and commercial energy consumption 

Government keynote speakers include:

• Dr. Ernest Moniz, U.S. Secretary of Energy 
• Pedro Joaquín Coldwell, Secretary of Energy, Mexico 
• John Hoeven, U.S. Senator 
• Heidi Heitkamp, U.S. Senator

Look at the session topics again. North Dakota has a seat at the table with regard to almost every issue regarding energy these day:

• obviously, oil, economy, and geopolitics
• obviously, NA energy markets
• perhaps not so obvious, electricity storage technologies; but with wind energy, it's obvious
• obviously, natural gas but not as much as the Marcellus, Utica
• greenhouse emissions: flaring
• developments in hydrocarbon gas liquids markets: fertilizer? CBR conditioning, ethane
• obviously energy by rail and water (CBR to the east coast; by barge to the gulf)
• energy infrastructure needs and options: the IS the Bakken

Most interesting to me is that although renewable energy (solar and wind) can be tucked into any of the sessions, there were no BIG sessions called

• winning the war on coal
• sandbagging pipelines 
• why wind works even if the stats don't
• why solar works even if the stat don't

Missing from the keynote speakers' roster

• either one of the Koch brothers
• Tom Speyer 
• Bill Clinton