Humanizing Energy
Lawrence Jones is Senior Vice President of EEI International Programs.
Welcome to this month's EEI International Programs Column. For this edition, I interviewed Michael Howard, chair of the World Energy Council and CEO Emeritus of EPRI. We were happy to have Mike as a panelist at our seventh annual Global Electrification Forum during our session on the evolution of energy markets in turbulent times. This time, our conversation focused on the World Energy Council, how it fosters international collaboration, balancing tradeoffs, and what it means to humanize energy for the benefit of all people.
Lawrence Jones: You were appointed as the World Energy Council chair last October. Talk about the World Energy Council's mission, what your role entails, and what it means for you.
Mike Howard: First, a little bit of history here. I got involved in the World Energy Council probably fifteen years ago in my early days as CEO of EPRI. I got a request to attend and present at the World Energy Congress. It was ten to fifteen thousand people from all over the world attending this week-long event with sixty to seventy different sessions about all forms of energy.
During that week, I was impressed with some of the things that the World Energy Council was doing. That's when I started getting more involved and eventually got on the board, and then I was appointed chair. It's a three-year term. I've been the chair since last October, but I joined the board a few years before that.