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Mark Ruth

Job Title: 
Manager - Industrial Systems and Fuels Group
Organization: 
NREL - Strategic Energy Analysis Center

Mark Ruth is the Manager of the Industrial Systems and Fuels Group in the Strategic Energy Analysis Center at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, Colorado, USA. In that role, Mark leads a group of analysts investigating opportunities to improve energy use in the industrial and transportation sectors. Mark is also leading multiple hydrogen analysis efforts including a multi-laboratory project that estimated the technical and economic potential of the H2@Scale concept, an effort to inform a New York state hydrogen strategy, and analyses of electrolyzer cost and performance including benefits of using them as controllable loads. In addition, Mark is leading analyses of the economic potential to convert existing nuclear power plants to flex between electricity and hydrogen production. Previously, he led several analyses of the optimal configurations and operation of greenfield, tightly-coupled nuclear-renewable hybrid energy systems. Over Mark’s 28 years at NREL, he has an extensive history of developing methods to value opportunities in the energy sector as well as technical analyses of hydrogen and bioenergy systems. Mark has a BS in Chemical Engineering from the University of Colorado.

Profile Type: 
Speaker

Barbara S. de Marigny

Job Title: 
Partner - Tax
Organization: 
Baker Botts LLP

Barbara focuses her practice on tax structuring for transactions, with a particular emphasis on federal income tax issues arising in partnership, joint venture and alternative investment structures, including the use of partnership structures for strategic acquisitions by corporate groups, in IPOs, securities offerings and for tax equity financing. 

Her practice has an energy industry concentration, including transactions involving Fortune 50 corporations, master limited partnerships (MLPs), private equity investors and portfolio companies in all aspects of the energy industry, upstream, midstream, and downstream, oil field services and petrochemicals. Barbara has a particular focus on the taxation of climate and clean energy initiatives, such as the section 45Q federal tax credit for carbon capture, use and sequestration ("CCUS"), tax incentives for hydrogen energy, alternative fuel vehicles and carbon pricing proposals. She is a frequent speaker and author on section 45Q topics, including the provision of comments and testimony to the IRS on the proposed regulations and regularly advises clients on credit-maximizing structures.

Additionally, she is board certified in tax law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization. Barbara has been the Chair of the Partnership and LLC Tax Committee of the ABA Section of Taxation, is a recipient of the committee's Larry M. Katz Award for Distinguished Service for 2009 and was the founder and first Chair of the Section's LLC Task Force. Prior to joining Baker Botts, Barbara was a partner at another international law firm and has also served as managing director in the M&A tax group of KPMG LLP.

Timothy J. Urban

Job Title: 
Senior Principal
Organization: 
Bracewell LLP

Tim Urban leads the tax policy practice at Bracewell’s Policy Resolution Group. He is an experienced tax lobbyist who has advocated for clients on every major tax bill introduced in Congress over the past 20 years. Tim represents companies on business tax issues, extension of temporary tax provisions and federal tax policies within the energy sector.

Drawing on his two decades at a “Big Four” accounting firm’s tax policy group, Tim’s work has spanned the breadth of the energy world. He has coordinated ad hoc coalitions of taxpayers pursuing extension of temporary tax provisions, and sector-wide groups of Washington-based energy trade associations. He has represented companies on tax issues affecting conventional energy companies; production credits for electricity from renewable resources; investment incentives for purchases of renewable energy plant property, and production and blending tax credits for biofuels including biodiesel and cellulosic ethanol.

Tim previously served as the Committee on Ways and Means Staff Associate for a member of the House tax-writing committee. In that capacity he advised on tax, trade, pension and health policy issues; created and implemented an annual tax legislative agendas; drafted legislation and related materials; and coordinated closely with Committee and Joint Committee staff.
*Non-Attorney Consultant

Profile Type: 
Speaker

Infrastructure Spending: Pennies From Heaven or Green Stress?

December 15th, 2021
The U.S. electric utilities, from big IOUs to distribution-only rural electric cooperatives, are waiting to see how the $1 trillion infrastructure bill, which President Biden signed into law...

Electricity Sector Cybersecurity and Digitalization Handbook

Ellie Potter

Job Title: 
Federal Power Policy Reporter
Organization: 
S&P Global
Platts reporter covering federal power policy, FERC | Formerly PGMI_Energy | Opinions are my own | ellie.potter@spglobal.com
Profile Type: 
Speaker

Davin Bagdonas

Job Title: 
Research Scientist
Organization: 
University of Wyoming - School of Energy Resources
Davin Bagdonas is a Research Scientist specializing in Coal and Rare Earth Elements at the Center for Economic Geology Research at the University of Wyoming's School of Energy Resources. Bagdonas currently serves as the principal investigator on three existing rare earth element related projects located in the Powder River Basin (PRB). Partnering with entities such as the Department of Energy (DOE) and the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), these projects concentrate on the extraction technology development of coal and coal byproducts produced at coal fired power stations. Work has included the characterization of multiple coal cores from the PRB and Green River Basin, as well as the characterization of coal fly-ash produced as a byproduct of coal combustion in power stations for rare earth elements.
Profile Type: 
Speaker

Dr. Michael Free

Job Title: 
Professor
Organization: 
University of Utah - Dept. Materials Science & Engineering
Michael Free is a Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and Chair of the Department of Mining Engineering at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, Utah. He has performed research and taught courses as a faculty member since 1996. His areas of expertise include corrosion, electrometallurgy, hydrometallurgy, and materials synthesis. He has been the principal investigator of more than 65 research projects funded by more than 20 companies, the Department of Defense, Department of Energy, Office of Naval Research, and the National Science Foundation. He has authored or co-authored more than 250 publications, including a hydrometallurgy textbook. He has consulted for 41 organizations. He received a B.S. degree in metallurgical engineering, an M.S. degree in chemical engineering and a Ph.D. degree in metallurgical engineering from the University of Utah. He worked as a Post-Doctoral Associate at the University of Florida in the Departments of Materials Science and Engineering and Chemical Engineering for two years before becoming a faculty member at the University of Utah.
Profile Type: 
Speaker
Credentials: 
Ph.D.
Secondary Job Title: 
Chair
Secondary Organization: 
Department of Mining Engineering

Dr. Bridget Scanlon

Job Title: 
Research Professor
Organization: 
University of Texas at Austin - Bureau of Economic Geology

Bridget Scanlon is a Research Professor at the Bureau of Economic Geology, Jackson School of Geosciences, University of Texas at Austin. Her degrees are in Geology with a focus on hydrogeology with a B.A. Mod. from Trinity College, Dublin (1980); M.Sc. from the Univ. of Alabama (1983), and Ph.D. from the Univ. of Kentucky (1985). She has worked at the Univ. of Texas since 1987. Her recent research focuses on critical minerals, including rare earth elements, in coal and coal ash deposits in the Gulf Coast region. She has authored ~ or co-authored ~200 publications. Dr. Scanlon is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union and the Geological Society of America and a member of the National Academy of Engineering.

Profile Type: 
Speaker
Credentials: 
PhD

Dr. Stephan Oborny

Job Title: 
Assistant Research Professor
Organization: 
Kansas Geological Survey
Dr. Oborny is an Assistant Research Professor at the Kansas Geological Survey, who primarily acts as a lead mapper for the STATEMAP program, and spends the remainder of his time modeling Paleozoic depositional systems in Kansas and the surrounding area. Of particular interest are the basins and arches region of eastern Kansas, northern Oklahoma, and westernmost Missouri (host to REE and hydrocarbon resources) in addition to the assessment of economically viable aggregate resources in Iowa and Kansas. Dr. Oborny holds a Ph.D. and M.S. in Geological Sciences from the University of Iowa and a B.S. in Geological Sciences from the University of Kansas. 
Profile Type: 
Speaker
Credentials: 
PhD

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