Energy and Climate March 2012

Discussion on White Paper:

• Excellent feedback from everyone that commented on the paper.
• What agencies would be interested?: add to current list - USDA, NOVA, Forest Service, REC (reclamations), EPA.

Discussion Points:

• Rob: Document (page 4) only mentions wind and solar – will have impact on geothermal so we shouldn’t just limit to wind and solar. Expand it (water, thermal, biomass) to increase chances of funding. If you make it more direct, then make it clear in the document that you are starting with one subsector but that you are interested in expanding it if the interest/support exists.
• Laurie: If we expand the scope, it may seem too broad – too general for specific buy-in from different agencies.
• Kumar: The thought was to capture essence of what was needed (wider scope) but then start with a manageable subset. We’ll make it a broader paper, where we’ve listed tools will be examples of tools that we know of to illustrate the existing gaps.
• Kumar: Point of clarification, this document is about needs assessment, not tools assessments.
• Kumar: (page 8-9) Will need to take Rahul’s description (page 10) and insert it on the semantic web description to clarify why we need that technology. We could also add a reference to a tutorial (for semantic web) in the document in case anyone wants to learn more about the technology. May also help to add a brief summary/overview on semantic web in the appendix.
• ESRI tools: It would be helpful to explain why ESRI tools is mentioned in the document. Will ask Christine to elaborate on that some more.
• Rob: Get cross-cutting analysis group engaged – may want to do another phone call between now and July to get them engaged.
• ESIP Summer Meeting: July 17-20 in Madison, Wisconsin.
• Kumar: Rough agenda for the summer meeting (July 17-20) Will have a read-out from the agencies on what their thoughts are on the white process and then plan out strategy for how ESIP can play a role. Ultimately, we want to draft a plan for how we can move forward on this – through agency support and ESIP membership involvement.