09/26/08 Preparing for the Conference

Preparing for the Conference. I'm Greg Martin as Line On Agriculture presents the Harvest Clean Energy Report. It is still some time away but everyone involved with the annual Harvesting Clean Energy conference is gearing up. With renewable fuels and energy savings on everyone's mind, the conference is a great place to get in touch with the people that make the industry move. According to Peggy Beltrone, you get a good mix of information. BELTRONE: They drill down extremely well into what real and what is affecting us on the ground and giving us tools for problems and I guess that is my biggest message about this conference is people who come get top notch expertise and really lessons on how to take action. And it's at the policy level and it's at the farm level. She says that is especially good. BELTRONE: A lot of the time people who work at the policy level never see people who get their hands dirty on the farm. This is the opportunity to have a really robust education and then the individual players leave with information to go on and do their policy work or go back to the farm and implement renewable energy or implement energy efficiency and really save themselves money. And according to Beltrone a lot of work and the on-going energy climate goes into making this show. BELTRONE: There are sub groups and meetings and all through the year people are communicating about what should be in this conference. And we are really affected by what is going on. In Montana for instance, the utility has informed us that we will probably see a doubling of our natural gas for heating homes. That electricity will increase 30%. The conference is planned for January 25 through 27 in Billings, Montana and is open to everyone. BELTRONE: There are tracts of this conference designed for them. There's an energy self reliance tract to give people real information about how they can go back to their residence or their farm and take some action on renewables and energy efficiency. There's a tract on some of the big renewable projects information if you are thinking about entering into a lease with a wind company. What do you need to know? Look for more information as the conference gets closer. For additional information on clean energy, visit harvestcleanenergy.org. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network. www.harvestcleanenergy.org