Day in the Life: Alejandro Moreno (Text Version)

This is the text version of the video "Day in the Life: Alejandro Moreno."

My name is Alejandro Moreno. I'm the director of the Water Power Technologies Office. The Water Power Technologies Office covers all of the Department of Energy's research in hydropower and marine energy technologies like wave and tidal power.

For me the most exciting part of my job is that it's something different every day. For example, yesterday I was representing the Department of Energy at the White House Summit on Partnerships in Ocean Science and Technology. But the day before I was doing something totally different; I was working with the leadership from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory to provide infrastructure that will test how you fundamentally operate a power system that is almost entirely based on wind and solar.

Innovation in the marine energy side is significant in many different ways. What excites me about working in marine energy is that it's potentially a source of large-scale renewable energy generation for coastal communities, whether big cities or remote communities, that don't have any other source of power generation.

I first got interested in renewable energy as a career when I was actually teaching scuba diving in Los Angeles. One of my favorite parts about teaching scuba diving was introducing a whole new suite of people to the marine environment. What's important to recognize about a career in renewable energy is that it takes all types of backgrounds and all types of skill sets, so most people in my position are actually scientists and engineers. On the other hand, I come from a background in economics, public policy, energy policy. I wouldn't be able to do my job without working with the best engineers and scientists on the planet. 

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