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There is little doubt that one of the great economic actors of this century will be the energy sector, and that one of the great challenges will be to satisfy mankind’s growing energy requirements in a sustainable way. Global primary energy demand has been steadily growing in the past, and it will likely continue in the future even if the most positive energy efficiency measures will be put in place . Fossil fuels, notwithstanding the recent price surge, are the cheapest option and are the most natural candidate to satisfy the world energy needs. To give but one example, China alone in 2006 built about 110 GW of new power capacity, most of which coal fuelled. Although such a deployment is above China recent average , it nonetheless underlines the rate of investments currently undertaken in energy technologies.

However, such a continued use of fossil fuels will likely have serious impacts on our environment, and ultimately on our economies. The recently released IPCC 4th Assessment Report on the science of climate change has made clear that global warming is unequivocal and that it is almost surely caused by human activities. The timing of CO2 mitigation is important because carbon is a long lived element in atmosphere on one side, and because most energy investments have a long life-time on the other. Thus, the shape of the energy technology developments in the next 50 years will likely be determinant from an environmental and socio-economic viewpoint. Other reasons besides global warming call for a targeted development of the energy sector to come: energy security, spurred by the fossil fuel prices volatility and reliability in recent years, and air pollution, which is a growingly important element of health concern.

Within this general picture, the European Union has been playing a particularly important role. Various goals pertaining sustainable development aspects have been identified over the years. As an important recent landmark, in the so called “Energy for a changing world”, the European Commission adopted new proposals for an ambitious energy policy for Europe. The European Council set a firm target of cutting 20% of the EU’s greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, as well as binding goals for renewable energy sources.

Such targets, and the ones that will presumably follow, set an ambitious agenda for the evolution of energy technologies in Europe, and possibly in the rest of the world. As such, this research project represents an valuable occasion in defining the future of energy technologies, and the requirements for their competitive deployment.

 

Seventh Framework Programme

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