Monday, November 14
8:15am - 9:30am

"Energy and Water: Two Vital Commodities"

In a world with limited resources and growing energy needs, both the energy sector and all other industries, whether they produce food supplies, manufactured goods or transportation services, compete for the public's need for access to clean water and other essential systems affecting the quality of life. This year's keynote panel of experts will continue the exploration of the energy-water nexus begun with ASME's Energy Grand Challenge roadmap and discuss how these vital commodities share an important interdependence.

Keynote Panel

		Mike Hightower Sandia National Laboratories Mike Hightower is a Distinguished Member of the Technical Staff in the Energy Security Center at Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, New Mexico. He is a civil and environmental engineer and has over 30 years of experience in research and development projects. His work includes research and evaluation of innovative environmental and energy technologies and security and protection of critical water and energy infrastructures. He serves as project leader for development of a Science and Technology Roadmap for the Department of Energy for Energy-Water research and development. With scientists from Los Alamos, NETL, EPRI, and Sandia he also helped write a Report to Congress on current and emerging energy and water interdependencies and challenges. Hightower serves on the executive committee of the New Mexico Pollution Prevention Technical Resource Center, the Board of Directors for Citizens for Responsible Energy, is past-chair of the Waste Management Education and Research Consortium Industrial Advisory Board, and chair of ASME's Environmental Engineering Division. He also was appointed as the first chair of the ASME Energy-Water Nexus Interdisciplinary Council in November 2010. He holds Bachelor's and Master's degrees in civil engineering from New Mexico State University.
		John G. Voeller Black & Veatch John Voeller, P.E., is senior vice president of the Federal Services Division of Black & Veatch, a leading global engineering, consulting and construction company specializing in infrastructure development in energy, water, telecommunications, management-consulting, and federal and environmental markets. As chief technology officer and chief knowledge officer on the Black & Veatch corporate management team, Voeller is responsible for visioning the company's global strategic technology directions. He is the principal architect of POWRTRAK, the automated engineering system of Black & Veatch that was used to build over 500 power facilities around the world. He served as an ASME Federal Fellow in the Office of Science and Technology Policy for the executive office of the President and continues to work through the ASME Innovation Technology Institute on consulting projects for the Department of Homeland Security, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and several Washington firms. Voeller has a mechanical engineering degree from Georgia Tech and is a registered professional engineer in Kansas and Michigan.
		Michael Webber University of Texas at Austin Center for International Energy and Environmental Policy Michael Webber is the associate director of the Center for International Energy and Environmental Policy, co-director of the Clean Energy Incubator at the Austin Technology Incubator, and assistant professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, where he trains a new generation of energy leaders through research and education at the intersection of engineering, policy, and commercialization. He has authored more than 150 scientific articles, columns, books and book chapters, including a compendium of his commentary titled Changing the Way America Thinks About Energy, which was published in May 2009. He has given more than 175 lectures, speeches, and invited talks, including testimony for hearings of the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources committee, keynotes for scientific conferences, lectures at the United Nations, and briefings for executives at some of the nation's leading companies. Webber holds a Bachelor's degree with high honors in Plan II liberal arts and a Bachelor of Science degree with high honors in aerospace engineering from UT-Austin. He has a Master's degree in mechanical engineering and a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering and minor in electrical engineering from Stanford University, where he was a National Science Foundation Fellow from 1995-1998.

Prior to the Keynote Event, a free continental breakfast will be served from 7:45am - 8:15am