The Nevada Sagebrush

A campus organization is hosting a 10-member-panel discussion on clean energy at 11 a.m. Sunday in ballrooms B and C in the Joe Crowley Student Union.

The event, called the Clean Energy Forum, will be free and include a lunch.

The four-and-a-half-hour  event will feature talks given by 10 local panelists on several energy issues, from wind and solar energy to the nuclear waste storage facility at Yucca Mountain. The panelists are University of Nevada, Reno professors, local businesspeople and elected officials.

“Renewable energy is a hot topic right now,” Susannah Lee, the president of the event’s organizing group, called the Sustainable Energy Forum, said.

Lee said talks given by the panelists will be 15-20 minutes long, with a question-and-answer session after. Topics will also include biomass, geothermal energy, local renewable energy centers and Nevada energy policy.

Several local businesses will also have booths around the perimeter of the room to explain how their businesses use clean technology and different renewable energy sources.

The event is meant to not only engage students in discussion about renewable energy, but to get exposure for the Sustainable Energy Forum as well, Lee said.

“It’s important because all too often our voices aren’t heard as the little guy,” Jonathan Martinez, a 25-year-old general studies major and the vice president of the group, said. “Nevada has a huge potential for renewables to be implemented, and a huge potential for jobs.”

“It should be a really good conversation,” he added.

The group, which started last year and has about 10 active members, has been heavily promoting the event, posting flyers around the community, sending personal invitations to local environmental organizations and using ad space in the Reno Gazette-Journal and Reno News and Review.

“It’s totally the biggest thing we’ve done,” Martinez said. “(The) campus is on board. There’s a lot of students mobilizing.”

Although the group has hosted lectures in the past, Martinez says they are trying to become a more active organization with a loose goal of hosting a large event at least once a semester.

Lee said that formal or business dress is preferred for the forum, but organizers won’t turn people without it away.

Benjamin Miller can be reached at news@nevadasagebrush.com.

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