Thursday, July 1, 2010

New Conference to Highlight Energy as DOD Advantage

As there as so many going on all the time, first-time conferences sometimes have a hard time showing up on folks' radars. No so with the Internal Defense and Fuel Security (IDEFS) conference coming up on 8-10 November. With its tagline: "transforming energy vulnerability into military advantage" it heralds an entirely new way of thinking about military energy matters.

One that reminds me very much of fellow DOD energy advocate Captain Clayton "Mitch" Mitchell. In the concluding remarks of his energy security talk at last year's GovEnergy conference he said he hoped DOD's emerging emphasis on energy strategy might help provide our forces new tactical advantages over adversaries not inclined to think about energy this way.

I too share Mitch'es sentiment. Until recently, we've always heard about energy solutions as trade offs against mission effectiveness. The IDEFS conference is the first (I believe) centered on the belief that DOD (and its allies) become an even more powerful force when we learn to use energy strategy as yet another arrow in our quiver.

There's a great list of speakers, participating organizations, and much more on the conference here. And be forewarned ... I'll be there too. Hope you can make it!

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