Fuels Institute Annual Meeting Attracts a Wide Array of Industry Professionals

Conference included education sessions, field trips and the annual University Case Competition.

May 04, 2016

SAN FRANCISCO – The Fuels Institute’s Annual Meeting in San Francisco last week attracted 100 industry professionals from oil companies, research labs and advocate organizations. The disparate but cohesive group came together for two and a half days to attend field trips, discuss the future of fuels and listen to finalists from three universities present in the annual University Case Competition.

The meeting kicked off on Wednesday, April 27 with a field trip to the Joint BioEnergy Institute and Advanced Biofuels Process Demonstration Unit—Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (ABPDU) in Emeryville, California. Participants toured the facility and heard about the organization’s quest to grow plants, break them down for their sugars, and create biofuels. In the afternoon, field trip participants toured a hydrogen refueling station, as well as an operational Loop convenience store and one under development, allowing them an up-close look at a fueling infrastructure.


A staff member of True Zero hydrogen brand demonstrates how to refuel a Toyota Mirai.


Fuels Institute Annual Meeting attendees toured a hydrogen distributors station on the first day of this year’s conference.

On Thursday, presentations focused on the future of fuel retailing and liquid fuel, quality assurance and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) standards, and the future of powertrains and technology, including autonomous vehicles. The day concluded with presentations from the three University Case Competition finalists: Duke University, Morgan State University and the University of California at Berkeley. Each school spent 30 minutes presenting and fielding questions from attendees about their vision of an ideal future transportation sector, including both mass transit and consumer vehicles. UC Berkeley’s proposed natural gas and electricity model took home the top prize this year.


Students from the University of California at Berkeley took home the top prize in the 2016 Fuels Institute University Case Competition.

Keynote speakers from the fuels industry included Paul Machiele of the EPA and John Melo, CEO of Amyris Biotechnologies. Ellen Peters, psychology professor and director of the Decision Sciences Collaborative, presented the closing keynote session on Friday, April 29, titled “Consumer Decision Making Processes.”

Founded in 2013 by NACS, the Fuels Institute is a nonprofit, research-oriented think tank dedicated to evaluating the market issues related to consumer vehicles and the fuels that power them. Its governing structure incorporates a diverse set of stakeholders including, but not limited to, fuel retailers, fuel producers and refiners, alternative and renewable fuel producers, automobile manufacturers, environmental advocates, consumer organizations, academics, government entities and others with expertise in the fuels and automotive industries. 

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