We’ve just launched the call for participation for the Energy Innovation Conference. It’s a new conference we’re putting on this year in the clean tech/alternative energy space. I’ll be co-chairing the conference together with Alec Proudfoot from Google.
This all started a couple years ago in a conversation Tim O’Reilly had with Larry Page and Sergey Brin about the power demands of Google’s massive data centers. Energy costs are simply staggering: the cost of powering a server for a year is a greater factor in budget planning than the cost of purchasing the server. The need for efficient production and use of energy is not only relevant to current concerns about oil depletion, pollution, and global warming, but also one of the biggest factors in the shape of future computer technology.
It’ll be an interesting conference—a cross section of makers, inventors, VCs, university researchers, car manufacturers, petroleum companies, power distribution companies, government departments, and others, all exploring practical solutions to our energy problems.