Please join Benchmark Mineral Intelligence and the Payne Institute for Public Policy at the Colorado School of Mines as we welcome Dr. Morgan Bazilian presenting Energy and Mineral Security and Geopolitics at Benchmark Week 2023 on Wednesday, November 15, 2023 in Los Angeles, CA.  

Since 2016, Benchmark Week has been the leading gathering for the world’s lithium-ion battery supply chain and the wider energy transition.

This year, multiple content streams held simultaneously over three days will provide broader context of the opportunities and challenges facing clean energy supply chains, with in depth expert presentations & discussions alongside unrivalled networking, all hosted by Benchmark Mineral Intelligence.

Please join the Payne Institute for Public Policy, Mines DI&A, and Mines Athletics as we welcome Johnnie Johnson, Former NFL All-Pro, presenting a virtual seminar titled From Athletics to Engineering: 8 Ways to Support Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for All on Monday, November 6, 2023.

Supporting Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion is about using more of your full potential as an individual, team, or organization with an attitude that promotes harmony and prosperity for all.  How do we come together to be the best we can be when many of us have different beliefs, habits, attitudes, or expectations in life, especially when it comes to DEI? In learning from athletics and engineering, Johnnie will share how a diverse, equitable, and inclusive society serves as a pathway to breaking down barriers and bringing people together across ethnic, racial, and economic lines to use more of their full potential, and harmony and prosperity for all. 

Johnnie Johnson serves as CEO of the 8 Ways to Support DEI International Sports Alliance (Johnber Multimedia Inc.). The company works to break down barriers and bring people together across ethnic, racial, and economic lines to use more of their full potential with an attitude that promotes harmony and prosperity for all. As the team’s #1 draft pick, Johnnie excelled for ten years in the National Football League as an All-Pro safety for the Los Angeles Rams. He was a two-time consensus All-American at the University of Texas at Austin, where he was named the best defensive back in the country by the committee that awards the Heisman Trophy. He is a member of the National Football Foundation and College Football Hall of Fame. Johnnie is co-author of the popular book “From Athletics to Engineering: 8 Ways to Support Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for All.

Please join the Payne Institute for Public Policy at the Colorado School of Mines as we welcome Jason Eleson, Founder and Senior Geoscientist, the GeoIntegra Group, presenting a hybrid seminar titled On Site Screening and Geologic Modeling and Simulation of Prospective Carbonate Reservoirs for CO2 Storage in Central Kansas on Wednesday, October 25, 2023 from 10-11am in Golden, CO hosted by CCUS Program Manager Anna Littlefield. Coffee and bagels will be served.  Questions and discussion to follow his presentation.

Jason Eleson is the founder of The GeoIntegra Group and a Senior Geologist with twenty two years of experience from locations across the world. Jason first grew interested in geology as a child when he found fossilized remains of ancient horses and aquatic reptiles in outcrops near his home in Nebraska, and that resulted in a life-long career in geosciences. Prior to joining GeoIntegra, Jason was the Principal Geologic Advisor at Enverus. He has geologic experience in the continental United States, plus international projects in Kazahkstan, Brazil and Argentina. In 2001, Jason started his career as a geoscientist at ExxonMobil , then moved to Denver in 2014 and worked for Koch Exploration Company, Neos GeoSolutions, Caerus Oil and Gas and Enverus. In doing so, he expanded his knowledge of unconventional and conventional reservoir characterization, petrophysics, geophysics, machine learning, operations, development, and exploration. Since 2022, Jason has been working on energy transition projects, including site screening and prospect mapping for subsurface storage of carbon dioxide across the Midwest and Rocky Mountain regions.

Jason holds both Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Geology. Jason is the former president of the Rocky Mountain Section of SEPM and the current 2nd Vice President Elect of RMAG. He currently resides in Denver.

Please join the Payne Institute for Public Policy at the Colorado School of Mines as we welcome Joel Gratz, founding meteorologist at Open Snow, presenting a hybrid seminar titled Chasing Powder and Finding Weather Windows for Outdoor Adventures on Wednesday, November 1, 2023 at the Colorado School of Mines.  

Joel Gratz, the founding meteorologist at OpenSnow, will discuss how to read weather forecasts and snow reports so that you can plan your perfect days on snow this winter. In addition, Joel will discuss the outlook for the upcoming season, new weather technology that is being developed by OpenSnow, how far out we can trust forecasts, what shifts that we are (and are not) seeing in the climate, and also new year-round weather features that will allow you to use OpenSnow to plan non-snow adventures during any month of the year. Also, Joel will walk through the OpenSnow application and other weather visualizations in real-time. And finally, Joel will be happy to chat about the business side of OpenSnow, including what it took to get the business started.

Joel Gratz is the founding meteorologist and Colorado forecaster for OpenSnow, a mobile app and website that provides snow forecasts, travel advice, and year-round weather data to millions of skiers, snowboarders, and adventurers every year. Joel graduated from Penn State with a degree in meteorology and then earned his MS and MBA from the University of Colorado. As a die-hard skier and powder seeker, Joel spent years studying local weather patterns and made his first public snow forecast in 2007 to an email list of 38 people. When he’s not forecasting and running the business, Joel talks excitedly about weather to anyone who will listen and he also finds plenty of time to enjoy the outdoors through skiing, biking, hiking, and even chasing and photographing thunderstorms and tornadoes. Joel, his wife, and son Levi live in Boulder, CO, but when the snow flies, they hit the road to personally test his forecasts.

Please join the Payne Institute for Public Policy at the Colorado School of Mines as we welcome Levi Patterson, Mines Alumni, Professional Staff Member, U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, presenting a hybrid seminar titled Energy and Science Policy: A Staff Perspective from the U.S. Senate on Wednesday, October 11, 2023 at the Colorado School of Mines.  

Levi graduated from the Colorado School of Mines a decade ago with degrees in engineering physics and nuclear engineering. After working to design nuclear power plants for GE, he transitioned to working as a staffer in the U.S. Congress where he advises members of Congress in the development, passage, and oversight of key science, technology, and energy legislation. In recent years, energy and science have been a significant focus of U.S. lawmakers leading to the passage of many landmark bills including the Inflation Reduction Act, the Bipartisan Innovation Law, and the Chips & Science Act. Universities that focus on critical and emerging technologies, such as advanced energy, quantum information sciences, and artificial intelligence will play a key role in advancing the federal science and technology strategy set forth by these bills. In this talk, Levi will discuss the role that scientists and engineers play in shaping and implementing federal energy and science policy, as well the progress Congress has made on these issues and what Congress may do in the near future.

Levi Patterson is currently serving as Professional Staff for the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee focused on Science, hydrogen, efficiency, storage, and emerging technologies. Previously, Levi was able to contribute to these same issues for Senator Ben Ray Luján and Senator Chris Coons. Before coming to Capitol Hill, Levi worked at General Electric Hitachi Nuclear Energy where he worked on nuclear energy and cyber security projects. He holds a B.S. in Engineering Physics and a M.S. in Nuclear Engineering from the Colorado School of Mines.

Please join The Polycrisis and Phenomenal World and the Payne Institute for Public Policy at the Colorado School of Mines as we welcome Dr. Morgan Bazilian on a virtual seminar presenting Oil and Politics in the Mid-Transition on Thursday, October 5, 2023.

A discussion on the geopolitics of a transitioning global energy system.

Featuring:

Amy Myers Jaffe, Director of the NYU SPS Energy, Climate Justice, and Sustainability Lab

William Oman, International Monetary Fund

Morgan Bazilian, Director of the Payne Institute for Public Policy, and Professor Colorado School of Mines

Alex Turnbull, Keshik Capital

Moderated by Adam Tooze, Professor of History at Columbia University.

Please join the World Investment Forum and the Payne Institute for Public Policy at the Colorado School of Mines as we welcome Payne Institute Program Manager Brad Handler presenting Financial Instruments for Early Retirement of Fossil-Fuel-Assets on Thursday, October 19, 2023 in Abu Dhabi.

This session will discuss the concept of creating and enabling investment vehicles to promote the early retirement of fossil-fuel based assets. It differs from other discussions on innovative financing of the energy transition in two ways. First, it looks beyond promoting investment in renewables and sustainable infrastructure at instruments to facilitate the decommissioning of carbon-intense assets. Second, it goes beyond concessional financing and blended finance or public private partnerships to consider more sophisticated financing and “responsible portfolio management” techniques.

The premise is the need to provide the owners of operating fossil fuel assets the financial incentive either to retire those assets before the originally-intended date or to divest their holdings to investors that will do so. That financial incentive can come in different forms; what has been envisioned to date includes a combination of concessional lending/financing from national or multinational development organizations and climate “results-based” financing mechanisms. It is imagined that such climate financing could be sourced from selling carbon avoidance offset credits or from pools of funds dedicated to climate mitigation.

The discussions will consider how this idea has been envisaged to date as well as the early experiences of practitioners. Learning experiences will be explored from two efforts: early closure of coal-fired power plants and of oil wells. These are consistent with mechanisms that have been introduced at recent COP sessions, including the Energy Transition Mechanism and the Energy Transition Accelerator. Consideration will be given to the perspective and incentives of asset-seller and asset buyer/investor, as well as to the various forms of financial support that can be provided to facilitate transactions and address the impacts of closure on affected communities. Consideration can also be given to the feasibility and merit of structuring such mechanisms at a portfolio level, to include a number of assets, versus on an individual asset basis.

Session themes: 
 

• What are some of the proposed structures of financial instruments for early retirement of fossil assets? Given early experience, what are the conditions for making such instruments attractive?
• What might it take for such structures to help promote retiring such assets at scale? Given assumed limitations on how much concessional financing support will be available, is it realistic to imagine adequate amounts of results-based climate financing can be raised and if so, in what forms? 
• How can issues related to the integrity of emissions reductions goals be ensured and “built into” such financial instruments? For example, how can it be verified/measured that asset retirements are not simply resulting in the use of more of a different carbon emitting asset? Or, how can it be ensured that the asset would not have been retired anyway?