Experts gather at Stanford for public forum on energy efficiency

Kevin Surace made headlines and earned a visit from Vice President Joe Biden when he reopened a shuttered window company in Chicago and re-hired its workers to produce windows with superior insulation properties.

Better insulationSurace says windows should insulate just as well as wallsreduces the amount of fuel burned to heat a building. That, in turn, slows down the accumulation of heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Surace, the CEO of Serious Materials in Sunnyvale, will be a key speaker Monday afternoon at a free public symposium at Stanford on Energy Efficiency Solutions. The first of three such discussions, Monday's event will focus on buildings, from both a construction and operation point of view.

Also on the panel:

# Dian Grueneich, a member of the California Public Utilities Commission who has focused on energy efficiency.

# Marc Porat, Chairman and CEO of CalStar Cement and fomer CEO of Silicon Valley's General Magic. He'll talk about "green cement."

# Stephen Selkowitz, head of the Building Technologies Department at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, a pioneering lab in energy research.

# Jim Sweeney, director of the Precourt Energy Efficiency Center at Stanford.

# John Weyant, the deputy director of the Precourt Energy Efficiency Center.

Event details:

Advance registration is requested but not required:

http://peec.stanford.edu

Monday, May 11, 2009 - 3pm to 5pm

Stanford University

Frances C. Arrillaga Alumni Center, McCaw Hall (locate on a campus map)