A one day conference entitled "A New Bi-National Energy Future: Biofuels and Solar Policy Summit" will be held on October 26, 2009 at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico. The summit will bring together high level officials, experts and individuals, representing all levels of government, industry and academic/research communities from Mexico and the U.S. Participants will be invited to consider critical issues relevant to creating a new bi-national energy future in the U.S.-Mexico border region. The Summit will be held in conjunction with the Iberoamerican Science and Technology Education Consortium's annual General Assembly, the Nano Network of New Mexico's October "Nano Convergence" meeting, and an ISTEC/MANCEF matchmaking event. The energy summit will focus on the key issues of biofuels and solar electric energy as well as the importance of enabling technologies such a nano- and micro-technologies to advance these energy industries. This will be done in a bi-national context with the goal of identifying measures to link technology and policy to action at the regional, national and international level.
The Summit will look at various issues including: Federal and State alternative energy policies; regional planning and roadmaps; national and bi-national opportunities and challenges; private sector views on investment and production; state of the technologies.challenges and opportunities; transmission and distribution infrastructure; a .Green Grid. integrated with high value solutions, including the use of high performance computing; potential impact and importance of enabling nano- and micro-technologies to these energy industries, and establishing a bi-national strategy.
The Summit is being carried out as part of the New Mexico-Chihuahua Partnership for Innovation agreement signed by the governors of the two states earlier this year. It is the first of an expected series of workshops and conferences focused on strategic areas of interest identified in the agreement and will be used to help implement the broader intent to stimulate economic development between the two states.