Tim Cornitius, managing editor of Syngas Refiner, is a consultant in the Zeus
Energy Consulting Group, bringing more than 20 years of experience in covering
such areas as natural gas markets, petrochemicals, lubricants and coal. His
experience includes analyzing supply and demand for Exxon Coal USA,
compiling data on fuel use and mileage for the U.S. Marine Corps and
conducting and maintaining energy statistical surveys and databases for major
energy research firms.
Cornitius holds a BA in Journalism from the University of
Houston.
Niels Udengaard, principal technology specialist,
Haldor Topsoe, representing IDA
Niels R. Udengaard currently holds a position as Principal Technology Specialist in the Syngas Catalyst & Technology group at Haldor Topsoe, Inc. in Houston, Texas. He provides technical and commercial
support for the marketing and sale of proprietary technologies within the petrochemical, refining, power
and environmental industries in North America, and interfaces with the technology and research &
development organizations within the Haldor Topsoe Group. He has over 35 years of engineering and
management experience in catalytic process design, pilot plant operation, and commercialization of new
technologies. He received his MS in Chemical Engineering from the Technical University in
Copenhagen, Denmark, and he is a licensed professional engineer of Texas.
Niels established the basis for Haldor Topsoe’s engineering group in Houston and was responsible for the
transfer of technology from the parent company to the Houston office. He was later appointed as Vice
President of the group.
Niels has been Project Manager of numerous projects including:
• Turnkey project involving design, procurement, construction, start-up and testing of industrial
sized Pilot Plant for demonstration of a new high-efficiency steam reformer for Fuel Cell Power
plants.
• Detailed engineering study for conversion of an existing Methanol Plant into a synthetic gasoline
plant based on Topsoe’s TIGAS gasoline technology.
• Detailed design project for first-of-a-kind implementation of substantially improved operating
conditions in existing syngas plant steam reformer allowing operation at very low steam-tocarbon
ratio using Topsoe’s Sulfur Passivated Reforming technology.
• Detailed study for production of SNG and Methanol from coal based on Topsoe’s technologies
for Sulfur Tolerant Shift, High Temperature Methanation and Methanol Synthesis.
• Several Fuel Cell Power Plant projects including development and design of Fuel Processing
units for PAFC, MCFC and SOFC Power plants.
• Two Hydrogen Plant expansions based on new Oxygen Fired Reforming technology.
• Several energy saving projects for Hydrogen, Ammonia and Methanol Plants.
• Sulfuric acid plant (WSA) for maximum recovery of sulfur emission from coal gasification unit.
Niels has been responsible for operation and maintenance of the industrial sized Pilot Plant complex in
Houston, where he initiated routine maintenance programs and substantially improved performance and
quality of the Pilot Plant, which is used to demonstrate and prepare for commercialization new technologies and catalysts.
Niels has published several articles in technical magazines and presented papers at numerous conferences.
Dr. Xinjin Zhao is a Licensing Manager with ExxonMobil Research and Engineering
located in Fairfax, Virginia. He is currently responsible for all refining technology
licensing activities in China. In addition, he is also responsible for licensing portfolio of
EMRE’s Methanol-to-Gasoline (MTG) technology for the production of clean gasoline
from coal. Prior to his current responsibility, he was responsible for new catalyst
business development at EMRE Licensing. Dr. Zhao previously worked at W. R. Grace
with experience in refining product research, process commercialization, marketing and
business development and had numerous patents on FCC catalysts, gasoline sulfur
removal and other environmental catalytic technology.
Dr. Zhao received his BS in
Chemical Engineering from Taiyuan University of Technology and Doctor of Science
from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He also has an MBA from the Wharton
School of University of Pennsylvania.
Jeff Hassannia, Vice president,
business development, Diversified energy
Jeff Hassannia is the Vice President of Business Development. In this capacity,
he is responsible for creating corporate strategy, identifying and evaluating new
opportunities, capturing business targets, licensing technologies, and managing
relationships with strategic partners. Mr. Hassannia brings a wealth of experience
directly applicable to the vision of the company. Most recently, he was with
Northrop Grumman Corporation, having accomplished a series of assignments
spanning nine years - from satellite systems engineering, to business
development, to a final position as a director in their corporate strategy and
technology organization. Prior to that, he served in the U.S. Air Force as an
engineer and project manager for a space navigation and ground
communications system. Mr Hassannia and his wife currently own and manage a
real estate investment and development company in the Pacific Northwest. He
has also founded, operated, and sold several technology-related companies.
He
holds a BS in Astronautical Engineering from the U.S. Air Force Academy, a MS
in Aeronautics and Astronautics from MIT, and a MBA from UCLA.
Ed Peterson, process engineer, Synfuels International
Dr. Peterson was first involved in GTL process and technology development in 2002 and
joined Synfuels International in January of 2008. He earned his MS from Rice
University in 1981 and his PhD in Oklahoma State University in 1985, both in Chemical Engineering. He has worked for Dow Chemical, S&B Engineers and Constructors, GE
Energy, Shell Global Solutions and KBR Engineering Services. He has broad experience
in product and process R&D as well as process engineering and currently holds 6 patents.
His other areas of expertise include polymer characterization and microwave processing.
Work he initiated at Dow Chemical led to Dow winning the 1999 Texas Governor’s
Environmental Excellence Award
Dr. William H. (Bill)
Pelton, president, Phoenix Wyoming Inc.
Dr. William H. “Bill” Pelton has led three multi-national R&D programs,
commercialized more than one new technology, carried out exploration around the world
for the 12 largest US oil companies, and has participated in the discovery of $13 billion
worth of natural resources. Dr. Pelton has a BA.Sc. in Engineering Physics, a Ph.D. in
electrical geophysics and has led R&D programs, sponsored by major oil companies,
involving the design, construction, and testing of new equipment for the transmission of
electrical power into the ground.
Dr. Pelton has worked on many E&P projects in
different regions of the world, including North America, South America, Asia,
Australasia, Africa, and the Middle East. Dr. Pelton is active in E&P acquisition and
divestiture, E&P technology transfer, and business financing. He has founded and
managed four companies with staffs of 30 to 100 people.
Roger Bezdek, president, MISI -
Management Information
Services, Inc.
Dr. Bezdek has 30 years experience in research and management in the energy, utility,
environmental, and regulatory areas, serving in private industry, academia, and the
federal government. His expertise includes energy technology and market forecasting,
coal market analyses, estimating the costs and benefits of Federal energy research
programs, assessment of DOE energy R&D programs, estimation of Federal incentives
for energy development, assessment of the economic effects of environmental and
energy technologies, energy industry forecasting, environmental impact assessments,
expert witness testimony on energy technologies and R&D strategies, and creation and
management of Federal energy R&D programs.
Dr. Bezdek has served as Corporate Director, Corporate President and CEO,
University Professor, Research Director in ERDA/DOE, Special Advisor on Energy in
the Office of the Secretary of the Treasury, U.S. energy delegate to the European
Community and to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and as a participant in the
State Department AMPART program. He has served as a consultant to the White
House, Federal and state government agencies, and various corporations and research
organizations, including the National Academies of Science, the National Science
Foundation, NASA, DOE, DOD, EPA, IBM, Bear Stearns, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Peabody Energy, Commonwealth Edison, the Southern States Energy Board, Eastman Kodak, Washington Gas Co., American Management Association, ICF, A.D. Little,
National Energy Technology Laboratory, Electric Power Research Institute, Edison
Electric Institute, National Coal Council, and Nuclear Energy Institute. During 2003/04,
he served on the Federal Task Force charged with rebuilding the economy of Iraq and
is currently serving as a member of the joint U.S. National Academies of Science/Chinese Academy of Sciences Committee on Energy Futures and Air Pollution in Urban China and the United States.
Dr. Bezdek received his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Illinois (Urbana), is
an internationally recognized expert in energy market analysis, R&D assessment, and
energy forecasting. He is the author of four books and of 200 articles in scientific and
technical journals and serves as an editorial board member and peer-reviewer for
various professional publications. He is the recipient of numerous honors and awards
(including awards from the White House, the Energy Department, the Treasury
Department, the National Science Foundation, the Wall Street Journal, the Association
for Computing Machinery, and the USSR Academy of Sciences), has served as a U.S.
representative to international organizations on energy and environmental issues, and lectures frequently on energy research issues, economic forecasting, economics, and environmental topics.
Dr. Roger H. Bezdek, President
Management Information Services, Inc.
Washington, D.C.
202-889-1324
rbezdek@misi-net.com
N. Clay Jones, director, project finance, Société
Générale
Mr. Clay Jones, Director of Project Finance for Societe Generale, has nearly 30 years of
professional experience in financing natural resource projects. He has been employed at
Societe Generale for the past 12 years. His past employment includes Brown & Root as a
banker’s consultant and in his early days he was a Production Engineer for Amoco
Production Company.
Mr. Jones has a wide range of project finance experience, from an IFC led financing of a
gold mine in Bolivia to the global financing of the BTC Pipeline out of the Caspian to coal
fired power plants in Shandong Province, China.
Mr. Jones earned a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Texas A&M University, he holds
an M.B.A. from the University of Houston and he is a licensed Professional Engineer in the
State of Texas.
Greg Dolan, vice president,
The Methanol Institute
GREGORY A. DOLAN
Vice President for Communications and Policy
Methanol Institute
Washington, D.C.
Gregory A. Dolan has served as the Methanol Institute’s (MI) Vice President for Communications and Policy since July 2001. He first joined MI in March 1996 as Director
of Communications, and became Vice President for Public Affairs in 2000. From April
2000 through June 2001, Mr. Dolan served as Deputy Executive Director of the U.S. Fuel
Cell Council. Mr. Dolan directs media relations, public education and outreach efforts for
the methanol industry trade association. He also coordinates MI’s international,
Congressional, federal and state relations. Mr. Dolan came to MI after spending a decade
in a variety of public information positions for the New York State Departments of
Environmental Conservation and Transportation, and the NYS Energy Research and
Development Authority.
Mr. Dolan holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science
from Boston University, and did extensive post graduate work in Political Communication
at SUNY-Albany. He and his their three children reside in Fairfax, Virginia.
George Stapleton, chairman and chief executive
officer,
MegaWest Corp.
Mr. Stapleton received his civil engineering degree from Georgia Institute of Technology in 1975 and has 33 years ofinternational experience in the offshore oil construction and service industry, project development, oil and gasexploration and production and energy infrastructure related projects.
Mr. Stapleton is currently the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of MegaWest Energy Corp.,an exploration stage non-conventional oil company with emphasis on North American heavy oilprojects. The MegaWest has operatorship of, and owns or has the right to earn a majority interest in, over 117,000acres of prospective oil sands leases in Missouri, Kansas, Kentucky, Montana and Texas. Through delineation drilling and the completion of demonstration thermal and enhanced recovery production tests, MegaWest is working to establish proved and producing unconventional heavy oil resources in each of these focus areas.
Mr. Stapleton was formerly the President and remains adirector and principal shareholder since 2004 of E-T Energy Ltd., a private Canadian company testing a proprietary electro-thermal approach to theproduction of bitumen from the Athabasca tar sands.
He is also a director of Valcent Products Inc. and PetroBeam, Inc. Valcent is testing a proprietary high-density verticalbio-reactor that produces fast growing algae, which yield large volumes of highgradevegetable oil that can be refined into bio-diesel. PetroBeam is a privately held technology company currently developing a process for utilizing an electron beam particle accelerator for upgrading heavy oil and bitumen.
From 2000 to 2002 he was responsible for the development ofsimulation based training packages for the energy and industrial sectors for Simulis, LLC. He was President – Products& Services for NEOppg Ltd. from 1998 to 2000 where he was responsible for the development of the services side ofthe company's business plan, focusing on a proprietary multilateral system, heavy oil production systems and artificiallift products. Prior to that he was Vice-President, Operations for Asian Tiger Energy Company, an independent oilcompany developing oil and gas projects, primarily in Southeast Asia.
Before Asian Tiger, Mr. Stapleton spent 19 years internationally with J. Ray McDermott in the Arabian Gulf, North Sea andAsia.
Dr. S. Fred Singer,
president,
Science & Environmental Policy
Project
Atmospheric physicist S. Fred Singer is Professor Emeritus of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia and former director of the US Weather Satellite Service.
His most recent book "Unstoppable Global Warming – Every 1500 Years" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2007) presents the evidence for natural climate cycles of warming and cooling.
He is the organizer of NIPCC (Non-governmental International Panel on Climate Change) and editor of the NIPCC Report "Nature, Not Human Activity, Controls the Climate" [2008], which responds to the claims of the UN-IPCC. http://www.sepp.org/publications/NIPCC_final.pdf As a reviewer of IPCC reports, he shares the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore.
Jeff Hassannia, Vice president, 
Dr. S. Fred Singer,
president,