Editor's Note: EnviroWonk writer Samantha Hulkower will be blogging throughout the week from the WIREC conference in Washington, D.C.

Today kicks off the Washington International Renewable Energy Conference, a Tuesday-Thursday party celebrating renewable energy, thrown by USDA and the State Department. Hmmm, would have thought the Energy Department might have a hand in something like this, but let us not nitpick.

There are three parts to WIREC: the Ministerial Conference where decision makers from around the world come to discuss things and make promises; the Trade Show, where businesses show off their latest innovations; and the Business Conference, where businesses, innovators, and others not important enough to be invited to the political shindig (EnviroWonk included) network, rub elbows, and otherwise have their second-class conference.

All of the Business Conference conferences look interesting enough, covering such power sources as solar, wind, geothermal, ocean, hydro, and TWO rooms running programs about biofuels all three days, but we are really looking forward to the "Taste of America" reception Wednesday afternoon and reporting back on what America tastes like (we think it'll be Miller High Life).

Although such international conferences have been held before in Germany in 2004 and China in 2005, there is (or at least ought to be) a sense of urgency in the discussion of renewable energy. Not only because the technologies and methods being discussed here will be used to help countries reduce their emissions under the new reduction treaty negotiated in Copenhagen next year, but oil prices reached an all time high Monday, surpassing inflation-adjusted 1970s oil crisis prices for the first time.

The eye-popping cost of a barrel of oil, now generally trading above the symbolic $100 mark, isn't just due to increase demand coupled with the all-but-certain decline in global supply. Since oil is traded in the once strong greenback, the decreasing value of the U.S. dollar is responsible for more expensive oil prices; less valuable currency buys less oil, so you need to spend more to buy the same amount.

Stronger currencies, like the Euro and British Pound, can still buy about the same amount of oil for about the same price, although they have been paying much more than Americans for years. It's no surprise then that they have smaller cars and bike-friendlier cities. But in a country where the Governor of the most eco-conscientious state is driving around in a biodiesel-powered Hummer, we don't see Americans kicking the car habit any time soon.