The Raleigh Convention Center will be hosting the Inaugural Southeast Alternative Fuels Conference and Expo from Wednesday, Oct. 22 to Friday afternoon, Oct. 24. This is the first conference and expo to concentrate on the entire Southeast region, as opposed to just North Carolina, according to Anne Tazewell, the clean transportation manager at the NC Clean Energy Technology Center.

Tazewell said there are partners from North Carolina as well as from five other states. To put on the expo, Tazewell obtained a grant from the United States Department of Energy for the proposal to bring together partners across the region for an information exchange.

According to her, there are 30 sponsors for the conference and more than 60 vendors attending, as well as three keynote speakers. The speakers include US Department of Energy Deputy Assistant Secretary Reuben Sarkar, former USAF General Duncan J. McNabb and journalist Jim Motavalli.

The talks from the keynote speakers will take place when everyone is together, but there are 90 speakers in three different tracks, according to Tazewell.

She said it is difficult to quantify how much the conference affects alternative fuel use. However, they can do general surveys for the vendors to follow up with them.

“Because of [the conference] more connections have been made, so more people have the right information. It’s a ripple effect,” Tazewell said.

To make the conference more eco-friendly, the NC Clean Energy Technology Center that organized the event contracted with Shift Equity Carbon Advantage Program, a company from Charlotte.

Tazewell said she and her colleagues calculated the carbon emissions created through travel distances of participants and the energy consumed during the conference.