Just as Lawrence Kazmerski, a top official at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, was about to give the keynote address at the University of Minnesota's annual E3 conference at the RiverCentre in St. Paul, the lights went out, bathing the audience in darkness and a deep sense of irony.
Since E3 focuses on clean energy technology, one would assume the RiverCentre staff would keep a few extra solar panels or wind turbines on standby in case of a sudden loss of power.
A blackout disrupting a clean energy conference? Isn't that sort of like swine flu shutting down a hospital?
