Marketing Regions To Attract Energy Companies, Customers
In the dot-com boom, cities and states did their best to attract internet companies. Now that we're in the watt-com boom, it seems like every locality's economic development office is trying to attract renewable-energy businesses to their region. To me, it makes a statement about renewable energy's status as a sector, and about government leaders' expectations for the long-term growth of the industry. I interviewed some regional representatives at the Power-Gen Renewable Energy and Fuels 2007 conference. (podcast)(photo)
March 19, 2007
Podcast
Listen to the Podcast (17-minute mp3)Also available on iTunes
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Music by Chris Keister
Program notes
At the Power-Gen Renewable Energy and Fuels conference, there are some high-visibility efforts to position cities, states, and countries as the ones to go with, or to, when building a renewable energy business or a manufacturing plant. If you're looking to do that, you've run into many of these same people at specialized events and through trade missions. |
Nevada Governor Jim Gibbons shamelessly promoted his state to the renewable-energy industry at Power-Gen RE in Las Vegas. |
The conference is in Las Vegas, and one of the most blatant efforts at economic self-promotion was in a keynote appearance by Nevada's newly elected governor, Jim Gibbons. On any given day, there are a hundred different conferences going on in Las Vegas. The governor, who I assume is a busy man, chose to speak to this one.
There are more places with exhibits this year than last year or the year before. Some are here to attract businesses to their regions; others are here to promote companies in their regions for export business.
In the podcast, I briefly interview people representing these places:
- Austin, Texas
- Germany
- New York
- United Kingdom
- Oregon
- Washington state
- Spain
These are just the places that are exhibiting here. There are others attending and testing the waters -- Power-Gen even set up a room to facilitate international networking. So we can expect to see even more of this at next year's conference.