BARELY recovering from hosting the Apec 2009 summit last week, Singapore played host to a lesser-known but equally interesting conference this week — the Singapore International Energy Week.
The annual conference, in its second year, saw bigwigs from the energy industry such as Pulitzer Prize-winning author Daniel Yergin descend on the city-state to exchange ideas and engage in debates on energy issues.
If I could sum up one theme that spoke for the entire week of events, it would be this: innovation.
Dr Yergin, chairman of the IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates and author of a prize-winning book on the history of the oil industry aptly noted that while the 20th century was the century of oil, the 21st century will be the century of energy innovation.
"This intense push for innovation is drive by two powerful forces - the quest for clean energy and the need to provide energy for economic growth," he said.
"The reality is nowhere more vivid than in Asia, the centre of economic growth," he observed.
That spirit of change is truly in the air. While moderating a panel discussion on the second day of the Energy Week at a dialogue organised by the Energy Studies Institute (ESI) and Royal Dutch Shell, I found the speakers, and members of the audience, often going back to the theme of renewables.
Principal fellow at the ESI, Dr Michael Quah, gave a rousing presentation on how the world must transit to one that runs on renewable energy - there is no other option.
While it took billions of years for the earth to create finite, fossil energy, we are using it up at an extremely unsustainable rate.
But while we would all like to convert to renewable energy, it is still unavailable on a massive scale and this is likely to be fully achieved only in the medium to long term, perhaps in 50 years, he said.
In the meantime, countries must grasp low-hanging fruits such as energy efficiency to make their economies leaner, while pumping research and development money to bring clean energy to the masses, said the panel members.
There are also some "transition" fuels that we could use while on the journey towards renewables, such as natural gas and its different forms (which are less polluting than crude oil) which could be tapped on.
This is something energy firms like Shell are innovating in, says Shell executive vice president Tan Chong Meng, who spoke on how we need to move from simply talking about our energy challenges, to actually acting on solutions that exist today.
This is achieved by maximising oil recovery, broadening the energy mix and reducing the carbon intensity of fossil fuels through technologies such as carbon, capture and storage (CCS), he suggested.
As part of the Singapore International Energy Week, the Clean Energy Expo Asia opened on Wednesday, and Singapore's Energy Market Authority (EMA) announced an interesting test-bedding project to power one of Singapore's well-loved island, Pulau Ubin, completely with renewable energy.
The initiatives came fast and furious after this: EMA also launched a smart grid pilot project to be implemented at the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and the Jalan Bahar Cleantech Park to make our grids more intelligent.
Singapore's solar energy research institute opened its doors and will invest $130 million into the industry in the next five years. Electric vehicles will arrive by next year so we can collect data and learn how to implement them on a wider scale.
So even as the week of activities have come to an end, the issues that were discussed and initiatives put in place will have an impact that will last well into the next year.
And it is an exciting period of time. It seems like the energy landscape is on the cusp of a green revolution, and Singapore has done well to position itself right in the middle of this rapidly-evolving sector.
As EMA's chief executive Lawrence Wong aptly puts it: If Singapore makes the right move, it will provide the platform for new products and services, spur energy innovations, and completely transform the shape of the energy industry in future.