University of Minnesota's Institute on the Environment to host international bioenergy convention

Sept. 14-16 gathering in Minneapolis will help define global bioenergy vision

MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (09/02/2010) —Bioenergy industry experts, policymakers, NGO leaders, stakeholders, academics and presenters from around the world will gather in Minneapolis for the Global Sustainable Bioenergy (GSB) Project’s North American Convention Sept. 14-16. The meeting, hosted by the University of Minnesota Institute on the Environment, is the last of five continental conventions that together will create a vision and path forward for bioenergy as a global resource.

The GSB Project is a collaborative effort led by universities and organizations around the world. Overall leadership is provided by representatives from the University of Minnesota, Penn State, Dartmouth and the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Convention presentations will include:
· Maximizing bioenergy output from currently manged lands -- a U.S. case study
· Biofuels in Brazil -- lessons for success
· Bioenergy -- a Canadian perspective
· Bioenergy and the food system: Potential synergies and international examples
· The challenges of measuring land use and land use change
· The complete agenda is available at http://environment.umn.edu/gsb/agenda.html

Convention participants will evaluate the working hypothesis that it is physically possible for bioenergy to sustainably meet a substantial fraction of future demand for energy services while feeding humanity and meeting other needs from managed lands, preserving wildlife habitat, and maintaining environmental quality. At the end of the gathering, participants will produce a resolution that, along with similar resolutions already drafted on four other continents, will help set the course for bioenergy research and application for decades to come.

The convention will also include a special evening keynote presentation on Sept. 15 by Roger Thurow, author of the book “ENOUGH: Why the World’s Poorest Starve in an Age of Plenty.” The keynote is open to the public and individual tickets are available.

All events are scheduled for the Marquette Hotel, 710 Marquette Ave., Minneapolis.

Press passes are available for the convention. If you are a member of the media, please contact Stephanie Szurek, Institute on the Environment events coordinator, at (612) 626-1202 or sjszurek [a] umn (p) edu.

For more information and to register, go to http://environment.umn.edu/gsb/index.html.