I have been to renewable conventions full of people who write grants, sell policies, lobby politicians, finance projects; where I feel like I’m the only one who actually knows the first thing about the basics of energy. I wholeheartedly agree with avoiding such events, unless you have a specific need such as capital to expand a business. There’s no point in going where politicians, bureaucrats, and salesmen go to talk to each other. Those people have a boondoggle somewhere every week you could go to, while engineers don’t get together as much.