The Changing Energy Landscape, Seen through Westport's Eyes

At North America’s largest international conference on sustainable business and environmental innovation, Globe 2014, taking place March 26-28 in Vancouver, British Columbia next week, Westport Vice President of Strategy Karen Hamberg will reflect on natural gas as a viable transition fuel in the transportation landscape.

With over 9,000 attendees and more than 3,000 participating organizations at the previous biennial Globe conference 2012, this year's event promises to offer diverse perspectives on one of this year’s key themes: The Changing Energy Landscape.

Karen joins speakers from the Canadian Gas Association and FortisBC, among others, on a five member panel titled: Natural Gas: The Transition Fuel which is part of a broader energy theme at the conference. The panelists represent a diverse group of members across the industry including natural gas providers, extractors and technology creators.
“With a sustained fuel price differential between oil and natural gas, driven by relatively low prices in the U.S., the opportunity from natural gas may be larger, earlier and more quickly realized than other alternative fuels,” Karen says. “My remarks will focus on the challenge of energy transitions for transportation and how the adoption of natural gas in key market segments is delivering economic and environmental benefits.”

The panel session will be moderated by Nicholas Sonntag, President, and Clean Technology Systems and will focus on natural gas as a viable option in a lower carbon economy, looking at its role in powering the transportation sector.

Karen expects questions for the panel such as, ‘why consider natural gas as a transition fuel’ and ‘a transition to what’? Other key discussion topics expected are how government and industry should work together to advance natural gas as the transition fuel and the role of renewable natural gas (gas from landfills) in the transportation sector.

Other larger themes being discussed at Globe 2014 include: clean water, global food security, building resilient cities and doing business in the green economy.

“Westport works with the largest original equipment manufacturers in the world, to develop natural gas engine products,” Karen says. “We are well positioned to discuss the macro-level trends related to a shift to lower-carbon transportation fuels.”

The Natural Gas: The Transition Fuel panel session takes place on Thursday, March 27, 2014.