I didn't stay for Bill Clinton's speech.

I already heard it - at the ARPA-E annual meeting this spring. It seems like the former president has been booked by virtually every major energy conference this year to be their star attraction.

At the Edison Electric Institute annual meeting in Orlando this week, I joked with the head of one of the groups that is paying a princely sum to Clinton to have him speak later this year. I observed that his fee would represent a significant down payment on a major renewable power installation. 

The EEI gathering was interesting for a wide range of reasons.

Perhaps the most interesting session was on grid security - a topic we will be covering in a free hour-long webcast on July 19. To register, click here.

Gerry Cauley, the head of the North American Electric Reliability Corp., said, "We need to figure out how to stay ahead of the curve." Simply put, in the next three to five years, the power grid will be threated by "more groups that can do us harm and will get access to ... sophisticated tools," Cauley said.

Cauley will be one of our featured speakers at our EnergyBiz July 19 webcast - so listen in and bring along your questions about the implications of all this to your operations.

The real treat for me was sitting down with seven utility chief executive officers who together run enterprises worth $120 billion - roughly one-quarter of the value of investor-owned electric utilities in America. What did they say? It will all be in the September-October issue of EnergyBiz - and well-worth a subscription. One appetizer to get you ready for the main course. Their observations about the failure of the federal government to lead on energy - sizzled.

I wonder how Bill Clinton would respond. Hard to say. I am told that his handlers have a long list of rules that limit interaction with him when he speaks.