Thursday, November 27, 2008

IT@Cork Conference 2008

A full day yesterday with talk from a wide range of perspectives from a Segway riding (standing/commanding/steering/balancing/figureheading?) economist http://tinyurl.com/6pl4y2 to the CEO of the ESB. Mixed feelings at the end of the day.

We had strong talks on the clear and present danger of both climate change and peak oil (and gas and uranium and coal and copper) but for many people this was a bit of a surprise and were inclined to think they were too down beat. I, of course, would disagree.

On the plus side, great to hear all this stuff that I have been going on about for so long being talked about and built on.

Disconnect I felt, with the ITC presenters, who seemed to be talking about business as usual with lower consumption of energy, but lots more demand for computing. I don't entirely disagree with that, but I don't think they have thought through the implications of peak oil and recession for their customers and suppliers. Will blog on this in more detail in the future.

Very upbeat presentation from Padraig McManus of the ESB. Target for them to be zero carbon by 2035 and 30% reduction by 2012. Also talking demand response, smart metering (although no commitments on installation) and big growth in wind soon. Confident they would not be affected by a downturn and that demand for electricity increase significantly.

Congratulations to the organisers, well run conference, good speakers, although wifi kicking in and out so not able to keep twittering all day - probably a good thing. Met lots of interesting people so very glad to have gone.

1 comment:

cdalby said...

Thanks for the write up Phoebe and thanks for coming along. Your notes from the day are a great commentary to many of the key points.

Hope we can build on the experience from Home Camp 08 to make Home Camp is bigger and better.