Luncheons

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It has been two years since the blowout and fire at the Macondo well in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico took the lives of 11 workers and set in motion an unprecedented examination of offshore drilling practices and risks. The result has been thousands of hours of testimony, dozens of reports, many uncompleted legislative proposals, and charges and countercharges about the impact on the industry.

J. Robinson “Robin” West, founder and Chairman of PFC Energy, will discuss what it all means for the future of global deepwater.

West, through his work advising chief executives of leading international oil and gas companies and national oil companies on corporate strategy and working with the U.S. government in many capacities, has a unique perspective on the international energy industry. Before founding PFC Energy in 1984, West served in the Reagan Administration as Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Policy, Budget and Administration with responsibility for U.S. offshore oil policy.

Between 1977 and 1980, he was a First Vice President of Blyth, Eastman, Dillon & Co., Inc., an investment banking firm. Prior to that, he served in the Ford Administration as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Economic Affairs (1976–77) and on the White House Staff (1974–76). In 1976, he received the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Civilian Service.

West has served on many government boards and commissions in several administrations including as a Director of the United States Institute of Peace, Vice Chairman of the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board, trustee of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline Liability Fund, member of the Chief of Naval Operations Executive Panel and on the Industry Policy Advisory Committee on Multilateral Trade Negotiations of the U.S. Trade.

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Sally Benson, Director of the Global Climate and Energy Project at Stanford University, will speak on Following Your Convictions: Even When the Going Gets Tough.

Policy decisions about energy and the environment often closely touch people’s lives and thus are often the focus of angst, activism and alarm. Central to good decision making is access to high-quality scientific data and knowledge, which often requires new experimental data, models and ideas.

Three different examples of conducting policy-relevant research in the public eye spanning three decades will be presented.

Benson is a ground water hydrologist and reservoir engineer and has conducted research to address a range of issues related to energy and the environment. She currently serves on the Board of Directors of the National Renewal Energy Laboratory and Climate Central.

Dr. Sharon Mosher, Dean of the Jackson School of Geosciences at The University of Texas at Austin, will speak on Building a Diverse and Sustainable Geoscience Workforce.

Geoscientists are needed to address societal needs more than ever, in the areas of energy, water, natural hazards, natural resources, climate, the environment, geological engineering and public policy. Yet the pipeline is not prepared to meet the predicted future demand for a robust geoscience workforce. A multidimensional, sustained effort to increase the number of students embarking on a geoscience career is critical.

Key elements in successfully increasing the number of students interested in geoscience careers will be discussed using successful examples to illustrate problems and solutions.

Mosher is the founder and past chair of GeoScience World, an international journal aggregation for geoscientists. She is currently President-Elect of the American Geological Institute.

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Mike Blum’s research interests lie in fluvial, coastal, and shallow marine depositional systems, Quaternary climate and sea-level change, and source-to-sink routing of sediments to deepwater systems. He has been a Senior Research Scientist at ExxonMobil Upstream Research Company in Houston since 2008. Blum’s current focus is on developing exploration-scale stratigraphic research concepts and models. Prior to that, he was Harrison Professor in Geology and Geophysics at LSU, where he worked on evolution of the Mississippi Valley and Gulf of Mexico shoreline. Mike’s talk is entitled Impact of Sea-Level Change and Regional Subsidence on Coastal Evolution: Prospects for the Mississippi Delta.

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Most experts agree that the United States has over 2,000 trillion cubic feet of natural gas entrained in the ground, about equal to all Saudi Arabia’s oil reserves and enough to provide the country with 100 years’ worth of energy at current usage rates.

Much of our natural gas reserves reside in shales and tight sands and can only be accessed through techniques such as horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing. Yet through documentaries such as Gasland and targeted political campaigns, environmental groups have initiated an all-out war on shale development in general and hydraulic fracturing in particular. They allege that drilling and “fracing” will create and release methane, contaminate water supplies and even cause seismic events.

Steve Leifer, who works on hydraulic fracturing issues in 25 states and 10 foreign countries, will examine current regulatory, legislative, and private initiatives directed at hydraulic fracturing, attempt to sort out whether various environmental concerns have a sound scientific basis, and project what challenges to the use of this technology might lie ahead.

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A top priority of the geothermal industry is ready access to comprehensive, reliable geoscience information for exploration and development. The National Geothermal Data System (NGDS) is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy as a distributed network of databases and web services in all 50 states that collectively form an online system for discovery, access, application, and management of geothermal-related data.

NGDS is being called the “killer app” for data integration in the U.S. and the framework is being adopted for other uses across the geosciences, including in the upstream petroleum industry.

Lee Allison was appointed State Geologist and Director of the Arizona Geological Survey in December 2005. Previously, he served as State Geologist in Utah (1989–1999) and Kansas (1999–2004).

Allison received the Public Service Award of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, the Tanya Atwater “Encourage” Award from the Association for Women Geoscientists for promoting the role of women in the profession, and the American Institute of Professional Geologists John T. Galey Jr. Award for Public Service.

FrackNation

Ann McElhinney is an Irish journalist and documentary film maker. Her work examining the real-life costs of environmental policies has outraged many in the environmentalist movement. Her upcoming film FrackNation will look at the controversies around hydraulic fracturing.

In 2009, McElhinney produced and directed Not Evil Just Wrong (2009) a film which critiqued concerns about global warming. Previously, she produced and directed Mine Your Own Business (2006) – the first documentary that asks difficult questions of the environmental movement.

McElhinney is an inspiring and humorous speaker and at CPAC 2009 was voted most popular speaker after Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh. She is a regular contributor to an array of international media organizations including the Sunday Times, the Irish Times, ABC, BBC, CBC (Canada), ABC (Australia), RTE (Ireland) and Fox News.