researcheu - ani

European Commission

Special issue – April 2008

researcheuthe magazine of the european research area

Extracting ourselves from oil

ISSN 1830-7981

energy

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Shedding light on the horizon

We are eating oil (see page 40). This issue is a reminder of the omnipresence of oil –or “black gold” – in our everyday lives. The symbolic US$100 a barrel mark and the prox-imity of peak oil signal the beginning of a heralded end. There is but one certainty:humankind and the planet are engaged in a process of metamorphosis. How will we livein the post-carbon society? This is the pertinent question, since it sparks so many dif-ferent answers! In opening the doors of the laboratories, this issue shows that, initially,research is set paradoxically to strengthen the use of fossil hydrocarbons. Beyond that,the future becomes clouded and the scenarios diverge and intersect. No energy dom-inates and they all seem necessary. There is some light on the horizon, such as the recentHyWays European project that has concluded that hydrogen has a seemingly brightfuture. Its use could reduce oil consumption in the transport sector by as much as 40% by 2050. We also know that “agri” fuels are not the panacea, and that solutions will alsocome from the emerging countries.

But these many and very real possibilities ultimately fade into conjecture. What remains is the concern of thecitizen who is already feeling the consequences of this major change in day-to-day life, with price rises, climatechange, and depletion of resources. To the point where some are even reluctant to continue living as they do now…To all these people this issue will hopefully provide a little ray of hope. Current research looks very promising.The imminent change heralds a renaissance. A world that may not be better but that will be sustainable. Becauseit is either that or no world at all.

Michel ClaessensEditor in chief

research*eu is the European Union’s research magazine, written by independent professional journalists,which aims to broaden the democratic debate between science and society. It presents and analyses projects,results and initiatives through which men and women are making a contribution towards reinforcingand uniting scientific and technological excellence in Europe. Published in English, French, German and Spanish,with ten issues per year, research*eu is edited by the Communication Unit of the European Commission’sDirectorate-General for Research.

The opinions expressed in this editorial and in the articles in thisissue do not necessarily represent the views of the European Commission.

Different voices

4 Meeting the post-oil challenge How to prepare effectively for when the oilruns out? A difficult question to which threeprominent international figures seek toreply. Offering views that are as illuminatingas they are different.

9 Prolonging the agony

Fossil energy

10 Coal is dead… Long live coal? Often seen as the resource of another age,coal is making a comeback. Especially in India and China that are experiencing an explosion in energy demand.

CO2 capture and storage

12 Zero emission target Carbon capture and storage remains tooexpensive to be deployed on a large scale. A look at the current state of research.

Energy efficiency

14 Doing more with less Improving energy efficiency is a major battle for the EU. research*eu takes a close look at the construction sector toreveal an impressive potential for savings.

Greenhouse gases

16 Trading the right to pollute Can market mechanisms be an effectivemeans of reducing greenhouse gases?Europe’s first attempt was less than convincing.

17 Renewables, at last

Electricity networks

18 Rethinking the European grid With the SmartGrids platform and the EU-DEEP research project, the EuropeanUnion is radically rethinking our electricitydistribution networks.

Biofuels

20 From promises to doubts As the second generation replaces the first,will biofuels keep their promises? A subject that remains highly controversial.

Solar energy

23 PhotovoltomaniaPhotovoltaic cells could meet up to a fifth of Europe’s future electricity needs. The latest developments with this brilliant idea.

24 From heat to megawattsAs a primary energy source, the Sun hasmuch to offer: technologies using the heatof its rays are rivalling those of traditionalpower plants.

Wind energy

26 Rotors take to the high seas The DOWNVInD project is embarking on a major and unique enterprise: a wind parkon the high seas, almost invisible from the coast.

Primary energies

28 Water and fire The limits of hydroelectricity contrast withthe promises of geothermics.

29 The “big” energiesNuclear

30 Generation four: fission reinvented Despite the suspicions, nuclear energy isserving up a fourth generation of reactors.

32 Finland buries its wasteCan a country’s nuclear waste be discarded without risk when it remainsradioactive for hundreds of thousands ofyears? The Finns certainly think so.

Transport

33 When will the hydrogen age arrive? Hydrogen is in the process of becoming“the” clean energy of the future, especially in the transport sector where expectationsare raised.

37 What when the oilruns out?Energy revolution

38 Star billing for science – End of oil – Tomorrow is another day Can there be a smooth transition to an oil-free age? Or should we prepare for somemajor upheavals? A look into the future ofresearch, agriculture and society.

43 To find out morePublications and websites.

44 Images of scienceOil traps.

research*eu SPECIAL ISSUE I APRIL 2008 3

CONTENTS

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There are few people today who still deny that humanity is facing a growingnumber of threats – or challenges, if you are an optimist. Eminent officialinstitutions are joining social critics indeclaring that our development is nolonger sustainable and in stressing theneed for radical change if we are not tocourt disaster. But what changes? Do wewant more or less international trade and regulation? Which technologies and socialpractices should we support, and whichshould we resist? A frank and open debatethat is free of taboos is needed if we wantto agree a shared vision for the future.To contribute, albeit modestly, to such a debate, we put some questions, crucial to our collective future, to three leadinginternational figures drawn from very different backgrounds. Each answeredindependently of the other. We thenbrought together their replies to offer the reader a mix of stimulating and verycontrasting ideas.

Meeting

Laying a pipelinenear Sangachal, in Azerbaijan.

Do you believe that the very high oilprices are due to circumstantial reasonsor are they here to stay?

Vandana Shiva These prices are logical andnot in any way circumstantial. All the inde-pendent experts say that we have alreadyreached peak oil or, if not, are about to. As themain concern of oil companies is to maintainour dependency on hydrocarbons for as longas possible, they are notably unforthcoming

state-owned companies (in Mexico, Russia,Iran, the Middle East, etc.) whose priority isnot to invest. We are witnessing a revival of oilnationalism within a broader context of energynationalism that is even evident in someEuropean countries. I would also add that thepost-oil era is not for tomorrow. We are ratherentering a period of scarcer oil with moredifficult access and higher prices.

Achim Steiner The present high prices arethe result of a combination of factors: thelevel of global reserves, global growth, andthe policies of producer countries. But as anenvironmentalist and economist, I believe thatthe prices of fossil fuels should reflect thecosts they inflict on the economy in the widestsense – and if this were to be the case, thenI believe prices would no doubt be even higher.Because these fuels increase the quantity ofgreenhouse gases in the atmosphere, whichwill lead to an increased number of extremeevents and rising sea levels, with a resultantloss of agricultural land and destruction ofinfrastructure. But their use also increases thelevel of pollutants that undermine publichealth in cities, and acidify the rain, therebydamaging productive ecosystems such asforests, lakes, estuaries and coastlines. Weknow that there are going to be fossil fuels fora long time yet, so let us cost them correctly soas to encourage the most efficient use possibleand the development of alternative energies,from solar energy to hydrogen.

Do you, like the International EnergyAgency (IEA), believe that a majorincrease in the use of coal is inevitable?Could CO2 capture and storage (CCS) offset the disastrous climatic consequences of such a development?

V.S. An increased use of coal is onlyinevitable if we persist in wasting energy andif the economy continues to promote industrialsolutions even when we could do withoutthem. In that case, then clearly we are goingto resort to coal as we run out of oil and gas.As to CCS, there is not yet any proof


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the post-oil challenge

on the exact status of their reserves. But wenow know the truth.

Claude Mandil It is not impossible that, inthe short term, if there is an economic crisis,we will see a very severe correction in oilprices. But I believe there is a very strongunderlying trend towards expensive oil, not somuch due to a lack of the physical resource asdue to a lack of investment in extracting it.Most oil reserves are now in the hands of

Vandana Shiva, 56, is a doctorof physics and the philosophy of sciences. Of Indian nationalityand a writer, ecologist and feminist, she is a leading figurein the international alterglobalisation movementwhose commitment to natureand the oppressed has earnedher many prizes. She heads theNavdanya association that iscampaigning for an agriculturethat respects the environmentand is seeking to update traditional farming practices.

Claude Mandil, 66, is an engineer and graduate ofFrance’s prestigious EcolePolytechnique. He has headedthe Bureau des RecherchesGéologiques et Minières (BRGM),the French Oil Institute (IFP) andwas Managing Director of Gaz deFrance. He recently retired fromthe post of Director of theInternational Energy Agency(IEA) that he had held for fouryears. He answered our questions in a personal capacity.

Achim Steiner, 47, studied philosophy, economics and political science at OxfordUniversity and at the HarvardBusiness School. He wasSecretary-General of the WorldDams Commission and for fiveyears headed the IUCN(International Union for theConservation of Nature), the NGOthat is a reference in global biodiversity. Since June 2006 he has been Executive Director of the United NationsEnvironment Programme (UNEP).

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that it works. What is more, introduc-ing on an industrial scale gases or liquidswhere they do not belong – look at genes forexample – never fails to have an impact on theenvironment. This will also have the effect ofprolonging our dependency on fossil fuelswhen we should be promoting renewableenergies – more time wasted for humanity.

C.M. The future growth of coal is evident.The Chinese, Indian and North Americaneconomies are massively reliant on coal thathas all the desired qualities: cheap, abundant,well distributed. Its only drawback is that itemits a lot of CO2. That is why it is so impor-tant to be able to capture and store CO2.Admittedly that raises technical and economicproblems that have not yet been totally resolvedand no doubt also problems of social accept-ability that governments should be concerningthemselves with already. But we simply mustsucceed, for if we do not, the planet will havemany difficult days ahead. But we must alsonot over-dramatise the risks: CO2 is not a toxicproduct. It is naturally present in abundance inthe atmosphere and below-ground.

A.S. The IPCC devoted a special report toCCS, and estimates that between 15% and55% of the effort needed to stabilise our emis-sions could come from such a strategy. Theplanet has a very large geological storagecapacity, somewhere in the region of 2000 Gt(billion tonnes) of carbon dioxide! The con-sensus of opinion among scientists is that this

gas could be stored in liquid form for tens ofthousands of years before re-entering theatmosphere. But it is important to establishbasic standards and secure procedures: energyproducers risk not investing in this technologyif they are legally liable in the event of gasescapes. The least expensive option would beto supply this technology to countries such asChina where it can be incorporated in newlyconstructed plants rather than equippingexisting plants.

Could the system of emission permits finance CCS? More generally, do you favour this system?

V.S. The system of emission permits is bothethically unacceptable and economically inap-propriate. It is unacceptable because ultimatelyit is a system that rewards the polluter – whereassince the Rio summit the international commu-nity has adopted the principle that the polluterpays. That said, all kinds of convoluted arrange-ments are being introduced in connection withthis polluter pays principle, in particular theso-called clean development mechanism(CDM). In the name of this system, we are gen-erating a vast amount of polluting activities inChina and India, congratulating ourselves onhaving cut their emissions by 10% whileignoring the 100% clean options! In India, theso-called sponge steel plants can be financedthrough CDMs despite being ecologically andsocially disastrous. Emission permits are also an


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inappropriate system as it is founded on anindustrial paradigm, making it incapable oftaking into account the needs of traditionalsystems based on renewable energies – there-by ignoring totally the needs of the poor ofthis world.

C.M. What is needed to develop CCS is toallocate a cost to the carbon emitted into theatmosphere so that it becomes more econom-ical to store it. This cost could be generatedthrough a tax, a regulatory obligation, or anemission permit charge. The latter seems tome to be by far the best solution as it makes itpossible to implement solutions at a lowercost. I am quite optimistic about its future: theEuropean experience has been very interest-ing. It was criticised, but Europe had all theteething problems to deal with. There will beimprovements and I note that more and morecountries are expressing an interest. We canexpect a major expansion of this system overthe coming years, even if it will never be uni-versal and perfect, and will have to makeallowances for the particular cases of certaincountries or industrial sectors.

A.S. There is no doubt that an intelligentlydesigned emission permit market could stim-ulate carbon storage and, more generally,stimulate more efficient carbon usage. It willbe for the politicians to decide whether sucha system must be put into place and on possiblespecial arrangements for poor countries. Butwe must not forget that, in many countries,

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Global reduction in CO2 emissions possible in 2030 by combination ofreplacing fossil fuels and energy savings. The International Energy Agency’s reference scenario predicts a 55 % increasein world primary energy needs between 2005 and 2030, representing an average annual increase of 1.8 %. The alternative policies scenario calculates a global demand for primary energy increasing at the rate of 1.3 % a year over the 2005–30 period, which is 0.5 % less than for the reference scenario. A high-growth scenario based on the hypothesis of more dynamic economicdevelopment in China and India (an average of 1.5 percentage points a year above the reference scenario) puts energy demand in 2030 for the twocountries together at over 21 %. As the graph shows, the efficiency of finalelectricity and fuel use represents two-thirds of possible reductions in 2030.

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the challenge is to bring electricity to ruralpopulations despite the absence of a distribu-tion grid – in which case solutions such assolar energy or wind power can prove botheffective and cheap.

What should we think about biofuels,about which so much has been written?

V.S. Most of the world’s poor use biomassas an energy source – understood as such, thenotion of biofuel does not pose a problem.The problem is the transformation of vegetalmatter into ethanol and biodiesel using indus-trial processes. First, because more and morestudies are showing that the production ofthese agrifuels consumes more energy than itsaves. But also and most importantly, becauseby trying to meet the needs of an “all fossil”economy by diverting agricultural land fromgrowing food, we are generating a major crisisamong the poorest. In India, under a recentgovernment plan, 11 million hectares are to beplanted with jatropha to produce biofuels.These crops are often planted on common landfrom which the peasant farmers are evicted,often by force. In practice, the needs of thepoorest are denied so that the rich can con-tinue to drive their cars.

C.M. The IEA has long been saying thatmany fuels placed on the market are in factmore damaging than useful. The idea that, if wewant to use biofuels, they must be producedin one’s own country is absurd: Europe’s costconditions and climate make these fuels tooexpensive and cause them to emit too muchCO2. I fear that the EU’s targets will prove diffi-cult to meet in a sustainable manner. In fact, thebest solution is no doubt to simply importethanol from Brazil where it can be producedbetter and at a lower cost, while awaiting thesecond generation of fuels based on wood orwhole plants.

A.S. It is vital for sustainability criteria to bedeveloped and applied to biofuel production.It would not be right to fell tropical forests forethanol or biodiesel production to complywith new European or North American stan-dards. Or for agricultural land to be used. Whatis more, if it proves impossible to convinceconsumers that such production is ecologicallycompatible, it could all backfire. That said,biofuels could be a means of meeting part ofthe climate challenge while at the same supply-

ing farmers in the developed and developingcountries with new sources of revenue. Brazilsays it can increase its ethanol productionwithout any additional deforestation and indeedthis country has reduced its deforestation by50% over the past three or four years despitethe growth in biofuels. So it is possible.

The energy system of the emergingcountries is expanding very rapidly at present. Is there any chance it willtake the route to sustainability?

V.S. The forces that are pulling the energydevelopment of our countries (India, etc. –editor’s note) in non-sustainable directions arethe same as the forces that drove developedcountries towards total hydrocarbon depend-ency. These forces, notably agribusiness or themotor industry, are now looking at expandingtheir markets in countries such as India. A “people’s car” is to be launched here inIndia for example. It will cost US$2 500. But atthat price it is not for the “people” at all, as just5% of Indians can afford that! And the factorywhere it will be made as well as the steel-works that will supply it are based on landexpropriated from farmers, often firing themin the process. And then the port from whichthe spare parts will arrive infringes on a man-grove that provides a natural protectionagainst cyclones for the population. Let megive you another example: in India as inEurope and the United States, all subsidies goto industrial agriculture that consumes 10 timesas much energy as biological agriculture. Infact, 95% of Indians do not want this energysystem, they simply want to live – and that issomething that only sustainable systems canprovide.

C.M. As to China, there is a very strongdesire to take this problem into account andI sense that it is ready to make a major effortto develop renewable energies, CCS andnuclear energy – even if everything will bepartly dependent on negotiations over thenext two years. China is already taking meas-ures to improve energy efficiency. It is, forexample, the country with the highest pene-tration of low-energy light bulbs in the world.For the automobile industry too, standards arebased on European standards, with a two-yeartime lag. In this area the Chinese are muchmore advanced than the Americans! It will no

doubt be more difficult for the other emergingcountries as their policy is more chaotic thanChina’s. But we must not lose hope because ifwe fail global warming threatens to exceedthe IPCC forecasts and the costs of adapting tothe changes will be truly exorbitant.

A.S. There are some positive signs. China isoften criticised for building a new coal-pow-ered plant every week, but in fact these areoften to replace existing plants with new onesthal are more efficient. South Africa and Brazilnow use sustainability indicators and, in termsof renewable energies, two of the world’sbiggest companies are in China and India. Butthere is clearly an urgent need to acceleratethe transfer of technologies to the developingcountries. It is worth pointing out in passingthat the Bali roadmap, which will serve as abasis for future climate talks, makes explicitreference to this. Then there is the need tospeed up research: during the last oil crisis, inthe late 1970s, a billion US dollars was investedin research on solar energy, resulting in a 50%increase in the efficiency of photovoltaic energy!

Do you believe nuclear energy canhelp us make the energy transition?

V.S. One sometimes has the impression thatsince global warming was discovered anyform of energy that doesn’t emit CO2 hasbecome “sustainable”. Yet this is certainly nottrue of nuclear energy that is dangerous andgenerates huge quantities of toxic waste. Not even hydroelectricity is always sustainable.In India there is a powerful popular oppositionmovement to the building of large dams that –like the Three Gorges Dam in China – destroyrivers, generate landslides and pose an industrialrisk. Dams have already displaced 50 millionIndians! In countries like India, energies

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Oil needs of China and India according to the scenarios


that consume capital are not reallysuited. What we must do is regenerate localrenewable energy systems, animal energy, bio-mass, and the biogas that Gandhi already pro-moted on a large scale in his day.

C.M. Nuclear energy is absolutely essential.I do not see how one can seriously envisagesustainable development without nuclearenergy contributing a share of the globalenergy supply. Unfortunately this share is indanger of falling during the next 20 yearsbecause many power plants will reach the endof their lives and they will not all be replaced.It seems to me there is a certain contradictionin seeking, like Germany, to cut CO2 emis-sions, not be too dependent on Russian gas,and abandon nuclear energy! On the otherhand, I do not believe we should favour thedevelopment of nuclear energy in countriesthat do not have a competent and fully inde-pendent safety authority. By that I mean a bodywith the authority to shut down a dangerousplant despite objections from the head of state.

A.S. It remains to be seen. Nuclear bringsthe risk of proliferation, a terrorist risk andgeopolitical tensions that are already visible.In economic terms, if the costs of building anddismantling the nuclear plants and storing thewaste are taken into account, it is then by nomeans certain that nuclear energy does notprove more costly in the long term than majorinvestment in renewable energies.

Is it possible to move towards sustainable development without reducing our level of consumption oreven question the notion of growth, at least in the rich nations? Is our economic system capable of such a development?

V.S. I do not believe that the market economywill be able to assure our future without a setof political regulations and support for non-intensive energy production systems. If thetransition to tomorrow’s world is made demo-cratically, through debate in an informed con-text, then it can result in a fairer society, withincreased well-being. On the other hand, if apowerful elite continues to impose unsustain-able options so as to maintain a system that isultimately doomed, while denying the poortheir share of resources, then we will see an ero-sion and destruction of democracy, increasedviolence, and genuine social disintegration. A dominant, centralised model dictated by a handful of large companies, symbolised bymonoculture and uniformity, must be replacedby a model based on decentralisation anddiversity. But for that we also need an ethicaltransition. What does it mean to live a humanlife to the full? The market has no answer tothat question; that is for society to answer.

C.M. We are certainly going to have toimplement some profound changes. In ouruse of energy, fortunately we are a long way


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from having exhausted all the potential forproductivity gains.

There are also some revolutions to be madein transport: perhaps the electric vehicle, per-haps alternative approaches to combiningindividual and public transport. In particular,we are going to have to rethink the linkbetween problems of town planning andenergy efficiency. As to growth, I would saythat in future we must be content with verylow growth in our countries, of between 1%and 3%. Clearly we are not going to see thekind of growth we had in the post-war years.But I do not see how we can explain to theemerging countries that they must limit theirgrowth when their per capital wealth is a fifthor even a tenth of that of people in the West.No doubt we will have to change the way wecalculate growth so as to better take accountof its negative aspects, but I believe that theaspiration of having more goods, more wealthand better health and education is going tolast for a long time yet. And it is possible tomeet these aspirations while consuming muchless energy.

A.S. The issue is not to reduce our eco-nomic activity but to make more intelligentuse of our resources. From fishing to energyproduction, to date our development haswasted resources in a way that is clearly notsustainable. But there are some positive devel-opments. A recent United Nations Environ -ment Programme (UNEP) report estimates thatinvestment in renewable energies such as windpower or solar energy now stand at US$100 bil-lion a year or 18% of total energy investments.The financial services sector is also showing a growing interest in companies committed tosustainable development. More than 230 insti-tutional investors representing several tens ofthousands of billion US dollars now supportthe “Principles for a Responsible Investment”put into place by Kofi Annan in 2006. Thissends a clear signal to the markets, a signalthat social, environmental and governanceconditions must become major concerns forthe economy and investment. In other words,the way we do business is changing – partlybecause the markets and the consumers aredemanding this transition.

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Big Island Fuel Crops Project. Biofuel research on jatropha, carried out in Hawaii by South PointPropagation, in cooperation with the Hawaii Agricultural Research Center, University of Hawaii Hilo and the Hawaii Biodiesel Consortium.


Prolonging the agonyWhen will we reach the world peak oil? This is thepoint at which the annual production of oil will peakbefore decreasing, indicating that half the world’sreserves have been depleted. The experts are lost in conjecture: 2006? 2015? No matter because,according to another view, peak oil will coincide withthe first socioeconomic and geopolitical upheavalscaused by the growing shortage of black gold.

It is already happening. Now all we need to do is to make the reserves last until renewable energiesmake good their promise, while at the same time satisfying the exponential demand from emergingcountries.

And meanwhile hunting down climate enemy number one: greenhouse gases. So the search for ideas is on. In industrialised countries, one idea is toimprove energy efficiency. China and India are scouring the depths of their coal seams. Everywherewe can, we are capturing and storing greenhousegases and making polluters pay for the privilege.

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According to the reference scenarioset out in the World EnergyOutlook 2007 published by theInternational Energy Agency (IEA)

– focusing largely on China and India – glob-al coal consumption will increase by 74%between 2004 and 2030. Global reserves cur-rently stand at 998 billion tonnes, which isenough to meet the planet’s energy demandsfor the next 160 years. Although coal is minedin over 100 countries on every continentexcept Antarctica, two-thirds of exploitableresources lie in the sub-soil of four countries.The United States has the largest stock, with27% of the world’s reserves, followed byRussia (17%), China (13%) and India (10%).In 2004, 66 % of world production camefrom these four countries and two-thirds ofthe 5.9 billion tonnes of coal produced in2005 was destined for electricity generation.

The exploding energy demandThis situation is very fortunate for India and

China, which are in urgent need of energy todevelop their industry and electricity grid. TheIEA expects the number of people needing

electricity in India to increase from 62% to96% of the population between 2005 and2030. This means India will have to triple itsproduction capacity. “According to forecasts,700 GW will have to be added to the Indiannetwork by 2030, 60% of which will be gen-erated using coal,” says N.N. Gautam, a formerexpert attached to India’s Ministry for Coal.China’s energy targets are even more impres-sive: no less than 1 300 GW – equivalent to thetotal energy capacity of the United States! –will have to be added to the grid during thissame period to satisfy consumer demand.Coal-fired plants will contribute 38%.

While 70% of India’s coal demand comesfrom electricity generation, almost half (45%)of Chinese demand comes from its fast-grow-ing basic industries, especially iron and steel.China is also interested in coal with a view toproducing synthetic oil. The Shenhua CoalLiquefaction Corporation has just completedconstruction work in Mongolia on China’svery first coal liquefaction factory. Inexpensive,immediately accessible and widely availableworldwide, coal is coming to be seen as themost suitable energy option for meeting

Chinese and Indian needs. These two coun-tries will alone be responsible for as muchas 72 % of the growth in coal consumptionbetween 2004 and 2030.

The pitfalls of the coal renaissanceThis coal renaissance is nevertheless caus-

ing concerns. The quantity of CO2 emittedduring coal combustion is about 25% higherthan that emitted by oil per unit of energy pro-duced, and 50% higher than for gas. In 2004,coal was already the second most pollutingenergy source in terms of CO2 emissions,accounting for about 39% of total emissions,and by 2010 it is expected to replace oil as thebiggest polluter.

A vast deployment of CO2 capture and stor-age systems (CCS) could limit the environ-mental impact of this return to coal, althoughthe technology is still in its infancy andexperts expect it will take another decade toperfect it. “In addition, present studies high-light a lack of storage solutions in India, thuscomplicating the installing of CCS. China doeshave some reservoirs but the storage potentialin Asia remains low in comparison to the rest


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Coal is dead… Long live With soaring oil and gas prices, coal consumption is experiencing a marked recovery.The trend is particularly strong in China andIndia where abundant coal deposits provide a means of meeting an exploding energydemand. But reconciling the growing population and economies of the emergingworld with the imperatives linked to globalwarming and energy security is set to remain a major challenge.

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of the world,” believes Sankar Bhattacharya,CCS expert at the IEA.

“In accordance with the IEA recommenda-tions for the short term, China and India aretoday concentrating on optimising the yield ofcertain existing coal-fired power plants andclosing the most archaic plants that are toopolluting,” explains the expert. Subsequently,to reduce drastically greenhouse gas emissionsin the medium term, the IEA recommends thelarge-scale installation of clean-coal technolo-gies. Also, with a view to reducing dependencyon a single and limited energy, it advocatesdiversifying energy sources by investing in thelong term in nuclear and renewable energies.

A necessary technology transferChina has already shown proof of goodwill,

in particular by announcing a 20% reductionin energy consumption per unit of GDP by2010 and making a determined effort toexploit its green energy potential. “China is setto invest over 10 billion US dollars in devel-oping its renewable energy facilities in 2007,making it the world’s second biggest investorin this sector after Germany,” states a press

release published at the end of 2007 on theWorldwatch Institute (1) site. However, emerg-ing countries are demanding financial supportand a greater technology transfer on the partof rich nations, a message clearly stated at the international climate conference in Balilast December. “The developing countries are not going to sacrifice their quality of life in the name of global warming,” warned N.N. Gautam. “The developed world musttherefore increase the transfer of technologiesto the poor countries.”

With its origins in the European Coal andSteel Community (ECSC), the European Unionis also increasing its research on clean coal tocounter its dependency on gas and oil imports.The ECSC treaty, which expired in 2002, hasenabled the EU to cultivate a high-tech expert-ise, both in terms of energy efficiency and cleancombustion, thanks to 50 years of poolingresearch on coal and steel. It is an expertisethat, if shared, could prove extremely useful tothe developing countries.

Research will clearly play a key role in har-monising economic growth, energy consump-tion and environmental protection at world

level. It remains to be seen if and how politi-cians will coordinate the huge scientific effortneeded to meet this formidable challenge. The choice is a crucial one as many expertsdeclare that, in the context of a global energyshortage, what humanity is most lacking is notthe resources or the technologies, but time.

Julie Van Rossom

(1) China on pace to become global leader in renewableenergy, www.worldwatch.org, 14/11/2007.


FOSSIL ENERGY

coal?Coal liquefaction: a sustainable solution?

Coal liquefaction – developed by Germany in the 1920s and widely used by the Nazis in WorldWar Two – involves producing fuel for combustion engines from coal.

Indirect liquefaction is based on the Fischer-Tropsch (F-T) process and involves totally breakingdown the coal’s structure by gasification with oxygen and steam. This produces synthesis gas– syngas – that then reacts on an F-T catalyst to form liquid hydrocarbons.

Direct liquefaction is based on the Bergius process. This involves mixing with crushed coal a recyclingsolvent itself obtained from coal. The resultant coal paste is then heated to 450 °C in a hydrogenatmosphere at a pressure of between 13 900 and 20 900 kilopascals.

Revolutionary alchemy? That all depends on the efficiency of future techniques for capturingand storing CO2 because, whether direct or indirect, liquefaction releases much more CO2 than oilextraction and refining.

www.iea.org

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All of Europe’s oil- and coal-firedelectrical power plants equippedwith a carbon capture and storagesystem (CCS). Is this a realistic

prospect or pure fantasy? For the past threeyears the Castor (CO2 from capture to storage)project has been looking at Europe’s energysector to test the feasibility of postcombustioncapture systems and the accompanying CO2

storage methods. Postcombustion makes it possible to inter-

cept the CO2 within the smoke that is usuallyemitted into the atmosphere. “It has theadvantage of being easily adaptable to tradi-tional electrical power plants and as such isthe capture system most suitable for short-term implementation,” explains Pierre LeThiez, Castor coordinator for the French OilInstitute. “The principle is simple. The smokethat escapes is processed inside a contactorthat contains a solvent that binds with carbon


CO2 CAPTURE AND STORAGE

Zero emission targetAccording to all the scenarios, natural gas and coal could supply the electricityand industry sectors with sufficient electricity for at least another 50 years. But hydrocarbons mean greenhouse gases,which in turn raises the question of carbon dioxide capture and storage, the energy cost of which remains much too high.

Options for geological storage of CO2

1 Exhausted oil or gas extraction sites 2 CO2 storage making it possible to increase the yield of oil extraction 3 Storage in deep offshore (a) and continental (b) saline deposits 4 CO2 storage permitting the extraction of methane in coal deposits

Oil or gas extraction

CO2 injection

Stored CO2

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Julianna Franco, researcher atMelbourne University (Australia)reading the results of experiments on membrane-based CO2 extraction.

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dioxide. Once ‘enriched’ in this way, the solventpasses to a regenerator where it is heated tobreak the chemical links that bind it to theCO2. The carbonic gas is then captured andthe depleted solvent reinjected into the circuit.”

The method has been tested in Esbjerg,Denmark, since March 2006 where a coal-firedplant fitted with a CCS system was introducedas part of the Castor project. This unique pilotproject, the only one of its kind anywhere inthe world, will make it possible to test andimprove postcombustion. “Reduction of thecapture costs, at present responsible foraround two-thirds of the total cost of CCS, iscrucially important. Because if the process ofreducing CO2 emissions proves as energy-hungry as the electricity generation itself, CCSclearly ceases to be of any interest.”

The competitors: pre- and oxycombustionSince 2000, a major research effort has also

focused on two other capture options: pre-combustion and oxycombustion. These bothoffer possible potential in the longer term.

Precombustion, which captures the CO2

upstream, adds steam or oxygen to the fuel soas to transform it into synthesis gas – syngas –made up of CO2 and hydrogen. Once isolated,the hydrogen is used to generate electricitywhile the CO2 is liquefied prior to storage.This constitutes a first step towards thehydrogen society. In Europe the research isbeing carried out by the HypoGen project –the counterpart to the US FuturGen project –that aims to build Europe’s first electrical powerplant equipped with precombustion CCS. Thefirst phase of HypoGen is being implementedby the Dynamis (Towards Hydrogen andElectricity Production with Carbon DioxideCapture and Storage) project which is lookingat feasibility issues, seeking in particular toreduce capture costs by 50%. “Nothing is certainas yet, we still have to convince the creditors ofthe project’s viability if they are to finance theconstruction of pilot plants,” explains NilsAnders Røkke, Dynamis coordinator withinSintef, an independent Norwegian researchinstitute. “Some technological problems con-tinue to bar the route to this generation ofclean energy production, in particular the factthat as yet there exists no turbine able to runon 100% hydrogen.”

Much less advanced technologically thanthe two previous methods, oxycombustionmakes it possible to generate an exhaustsmoke with a very high CO2 concentration. It is enough to burn the fuel in pure oxygenrather than air to obtain a smoke with morethan 90% CO2 concentration and which canthen be captured directly as such. Nevertheless,the process remains too costly at present as itrequires large quantities of energy to producepure oxygen.”

Burying the CO2

“No capture without storage,” is Nils AndersRøkke’s judicious reminder. Indeed, there isno point capturing CO2 if you don’t know howto store it. “The problem is that it is impossibleto test the viability of a process over hundredsif not thousands of years. So studies are con-centrating on the analysis of natural geologicalsinks in which CO2 has been imprisoned formillions of years, as well as on the observationand study of existing industrial storage sys-tems. The data obtained is then extrapolatedin the framework of these projects with thehelp of predictive computer models,” explainsPierre Le Thiez.

Ocean sinks (1) and mineral sequestra-tion(2) are today no longer regarded as viablestorage solutions as they present too manydisadvantages compared with geological stor-age. The latter involves injecting CO2 into theintergranular space of porous and permeablerocks that are present in geological formationsvirtually all over the world. These deep sedi-mentary deposits sometimes extend over hun-dreds or even thousands of kilometres and aregenerally filled with salt water, which is whythey are known as saline aquifers. They some-times already contain CO2 in their naturalstate, which led to the idea of injecting themwith the gas. Experiments in this field havebeen carried out since 1996 by the Norwegiancompany Statoil in particular, at its Sleipner(Norway) site in the North Sea, and they haveproved very convincing to date.

A profitable storage?Saline aquifers can also include “trapping”

structures that contain methane or oil. Storagecan thus be optimised by injecting CO2 intoalmost exhausted deposits, re-pressurisingthem and extracting the residual oil or natural

gas. This method of “CO2 injection assistedrecovery” has been practiced by the oil industryfor decades now and could also be used forunexploited coal deposits that are also candi-dates for carbon storage.

However, Pierre Le Thiez explains thatthese assisted recovery methods, whetherfrom depleted deposits or unexploitable coalseams, are losing some of their interest. “Manyof these reservoirs are too small and, in thecase of oil or gas deposits, were very oftenpenetrated in the past by a number of wells,raising the problem of impermeability. This iswhy I believe that saline aquifers are the mostviable geological storage method.”

Time is short for introducing systems forreducing CO2 emissions, such as CCS. Electricalpower plants today generate 40% of globalemissions and CCS could also be applied toindustries that use coal or gas as the principalfuels. It is a question of resources, believesNils Anders Røkke: “The political recognitionof global warming has catalysed a growinginterest in CO2 capture, resulting in increasedfinancing for related research. But resourcesare still sadly lacking with which to perfectthese technologies as quickly as is necessary.”

J.V.R.

(1) The oceans are natural carbon sinks. But they seem to besaturated already by the atmospheric CO2 that is alsoincreasing their acidity.

(2) We are accelerating mineral carbonation, a natural processfor the formation of carbonated rocks. But the technologyremains very costly.


CO2 CAPTURE AND STORAGE

Castor

30 partners – 11 countries

(AT-DE-DK-ES-FR-EL-IT-NL-NO-SE-UK)

www.co2castor.com/QuickPlace/

castor/Main.nsf/

Dynamis


(AT-BG-CH-DE-DK-ES-FR-IT-NL-NO-SE-UK)

www.dynamis-hypogen.com

Consume better to consume less: thatis Europe’s new motto. As it tacklesthree key sectors – transport, industryand construction – it aims to reduce

energy consumption by 20% by 2020. TheEuropean Commission’s “Action plan for energyefficiency” identifies the construction sector astop priority, with it alone absorbing about40% of the EU’s energy. Housing accounts forabout two-thirds of this percentage, with publicbuildings and business premises making upthe rest.

What is more, for once this is a field inwhich private interests are largely favourableto public initiatives. “Unlike other sectors, andtransport in particular, introducing energy-efficiency measures to buildings brings onlybenefits, in terms of reduced energy bills,increased comfort and job creation,” stressesthe European Construction Industry Federationin a memorandum(1).

Act locally, think globallyThe eco-design of a building offers a twofold

advantage. First, from an economic point ofview it results in huge energy savings. “We candivide a building’s energy consumption byeight and thus reduce consumption from 280 kW/h/m² to 35 or even 15 kW/h/m²,”explains Claude Rener, Administrator with

Arc&Style, a Belgian company that has spe-cialised in eco-construction and eco-renovationfor the past 25 years. Secondly, from an ecolog-ical point of view eco-construction concentrateson the global energy balance of a material andthus takes into account the energy used in itsproduction as well as the energy savings it willpermit when incorporated in a building. “Wetake into account the total impact of the mate-rial on the environment, from its creation to itsdestruction. It is an approach that also opensup a whole new recycling chain based on therecovery of grey energy (2) from materials,”continues Rener.

Wood is particularly favoured in this newvision of construction. “This carbon reservoircan be used both as the frame and as insula-tion, in the form of wood fibre for example. It makes it possible to obtain a very low K coef-ficient(3), and thus to limit heat loss from thebuilding. To offset wood’s low thermal mass –its ability to store heat – it is combined withsilico-calcareous materials that are lessdemanding on energy than earthenwarebricks and better calibrated, which makes itpossible to limit mortar use. Admittedly thesebricks are a little less effective in terms ofinsulation but when reinforced with woodinsulating sheets the energy results are never-theless excellent.”

This innovative approach also marks a returnto the materials of the past. “Traditionally, woodhas been favoured in the construction sector.Similarly, natural, earth-based coatings, straw,air-slaked lime, marble or casein powder aremaking a marked comeback after having beenabandoned during the past 30 years or so,”notes Rener. “When combined with modernmethods – such as domotics that make it pos-sible to automate a building, or heat pumpsthat will soon replace condensing boilers –these traditional materials help save vastamounts of energy.”

The biggest challenge of course lies in ren-ovating existing buildings, which are the mostnumerous and the least efficient. “All the tech-nologies needed have already been developedand the issue now is to discover how to speedup their inclusion in everyday life,” explainsAndrew Warren, Adviser with the EuropeanAlliance of Companies for Energy Efficiency inBuildings (EuroAce). This is the goal of theEuropean Energy Performance of BuildingsDirective (EPDB), which entered into force in2003 and introduces requirements in terms ofthe energy certification of buildings, a jointevaluation methodology, minimum perform-ances for certain buildings and the training ofexperts to make regular inspections.

The inaction of Member StatesBy adopting such measures Europe would

already be able to reduce its energy con-sumption by 11%. Yet despite such promisingpotential, the Member States seem tornbetween the political commitments given atEuropean level and the actual implementationof the measures laid down in the EPDB. At theend of February 2007, infringement proce-dures were instigated against 19 countries thathad failed to submit an action plan setting outnational measures acting on the Directive.

“It was negotiated by the energy ministersbut has to be applied at national level by theconstruction and buildings ministers, hencethe problem of synchronisation certainlyexplains this delay on the part of Member States,”says Andrew Warren. “This situation is furtheraggravated by the fact that building policy isfragmented inside the Member States them-selves, with responsibility lying at regionallevel. Also, only new buildings and buildings ofmore than 1 000 m² that undergo major ren-


ENERGY EFFICIENCY

Doing more with lessThe most direct weapon for combatingEurope’s dependency on hydrocarbonimports can be summed up in just twowords: energy efficiency. The energy-thirstyconstruction sector in particular offersmajor scope for savings.


ovation are subject to energy performanceobligations. The present shortage of experts isalso delaying the system of certification that issupposed to draw up an inventory and identifyactions to be taken for each building owner.It must also be said that this is the first energyefficiency measure to really tackle buildingsglobally so it is perhaps not surprising thatimplementation is taking rather long.”

“Fortunately,” says Claude Rener, “whereaswe were preaching in the desert for 20 years,we have now seen a major shift in public think-ing since 2000, and also among politicians who– at least in Belgium, the Netherlands, Franceand Germany – are making strenuous efforts toput into place financial incentives.”

J.V.R.(1) FIEC Memorandum, The impact of buildings on climate

change - FIEC’s suggestions for raising the energyperformance of buildings, 6/12/2007.

(2) The quantity of energy needed for the production of industrial materials or products.

(3) Heat insulation coefficient of a material constituting a wall or a building (not to be confused with the lambda) – the lower the figure the better the insulatingperformance.

How to make buildings less energy thirsty?By insulating, opting for wood or solar panels. The “blue flame” (Laboratoire d’Études Thermiques –CNRS) is a visualisation of internal air movementsas an aid to an understanding of turbulence to control heat transfer while minimising energy consumption.

Some European projects

What to do while waiting for Member States totranspose European resolutions? Intelligent energyfor Europe, a vast programme launched in 2003

and now financed under the Framework Programme forCompetition and Innovation, already supports many projectsdesigned to promote the development of green energiesand improve energy efficiency.

EuroTopten is a website where you can compare the energyefficiency of various products available on the market. It consists of 10 sites for 10 Member States (FR, AT, BE, HO,IT, PO, HE, NL, FI, CZ).The ECO N’HOME project offers 1 000 European householdsa free energy audit of their home and travel practices. Thedata obtained are then used to draw up a guide to bestpractice in this field. BOILEFF aims to optimise the use of boilers and waterheaters. Responsible for most of the energy consumed inEuropean buildings, these appliances are often improperlyused or badly maintained. REMODECE is seeking to compile a database and computerprogramme of the various characteristics of residentialelectricity consumption in the EU countries. The new EU Member States are much less advanced interms of energy performance.

The CEECAP project is seeking to identify the best way ofintroducing energy labels for devices in Eastern and CentralEurope.

ec.europa.eu/energy/demand/

clusters.wallonie.be/ecoconstruction/fr/


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Maison des Cyclistes in Ixelles(Brussels – BE). Frame in FSC (Forest Stewardship Council)-certifiedwood, thermal solar panels, geothermics, double glazing and insulation, eco-materials, vegetal roof.

Kyoto commits the Member Statesto reducing their greenhouse gas(GHG) emissions by adopting theappropriate measures. To ensure

that the policy does not to compromise eco-nomic development, three ’flexibility‘ mecha-nisms have been introduced. The Internationalemissions trading market tackles greenhousegases emitted in industrialised countries andthe two other mechanisms (1) – emissions inthe developing and transition countries.

These mechanisms take their inspirationfrom tried and tested solutions, such as in theUnited States for SO2 emissions. The bestknown is the cap and trade system that setsa limit or cap on the emission entitlement ofeach ’polluter‘ who therefore has to reduceemissions and bear the related cost. If theoperation proves too costly for company A,that company can then purchase ’emissionrights‘ from company B for which the cost islower, thus effectively financing the latter’semission reductions. Hence the notion oftrading in emission rights. Everybody bene-fits, including the atmosphere.

A and B do not interact directly, however,but negotiate emission rights through access toa regulated exchange or market. The startinglimits must also be realistic and then subse-quently lowered to make emission rights anincreasingly scarce commodity and thusincreasingly costly. “The threshold price from

which the system permits emission reductionsvaries depending on the field of activity,”explains Claire Dufour, Product Manager atBlueNext, the French exchange market. “Themain aim of cap and trade systems is to allowfor variations in the costs linked to emissionreductions from one sector to another.”

A bad startFor the International emissions trading

market, it is the Kyoto Protocol that sets thelimits (expressed as quotas) of the signatorystates while the United Nations FrameworkConvention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)must ensure that the system works effectively.For its part, the European Union has taken thelead by introducing, between 2005 and 2007,Phase 1 of its own market, the EU EmissionTrading Scheme (EU ETS). It is here that emis-sion rights known as the European UnionAllowance (EUA) are traded. For the ceilings,each country submits a “national quota alloca-tion plan” for the European Commission’sapproval, this providing a breakdown of itsquota per sector.(3).

But of the 2.2 billion tonnes of CO2 allocatedfor the EU, “only” 2 billion were rejected. Theceiling set was too high and consequently metwithout effort, the phase 1 EUA rate plummet-ing from around €25 to €0.03. The issuingright proved much too cheap to motivate com-panies to reduce their emissions.

Should we leave it to the Member States todraw up allocation plans? Claire Dufour seeksto be optimistic: “The Commission is becomingstricter. Nearly all the Member States had torevise the thresholds they proposed for Phase2 of the EU ETS (2008–13). The EU’s globalthreshold, although widened overall, was cutfor C02 to 2.082 billion tonnes – 1.974 billion forthe Phase 1 country installations – which hasalready increased the price by between €20and €25 for Phase 2. The Commission’s rightof consultation will certainly guarantee thesystem’s viability.”

Delphine d’Hoop(1) The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) enables

industrialised countries and their businesses to achievetheir goals by financing projects to reduce emissions in thedeveloping countries. Joint Implementation ( JI) is a similardevice for investments in countries in transition such asthose of Eastern Europe and Russia.

(2) The terms “permits”, “credits”, “quotas”, “units”, etc. are allfound depending on the systems. For GHGs theserepresent the equivalent of one tonne of CO2.

(3) The EU ETS is for energy, ferrous metals, non-metallicminerals, pulp and paper only.


GREENHOUSE GASES

Trading the right to pollute2008 sees the launch of the international systemfor trading in emission rights as laid down inthe Kyoto Protocol. Since 2005, it is Europe thathas taken the lead. But how exactly does thismarket operate and, most importantly, can itprove effective?

ec.europa.eu/environment/climat/

emission.htm

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Renewables, at lastThe burning and brightness of the Sun, the heat of the Earth, the force of wind, the might of water,the bounty of plants. All are infinite or continuallyregenerated energies on which we are pinning ourhopes. So great is the obsession with renewableenergies that a fresh surge of creativity seems to be inspiring government and private researcheverywhere. Laboratories are teaming with newideas: solar thermal energy, photovoltaics, geothermics, wind power, hydroelectricity, biomass.

Although at times these energies compete, we now know that they will all need to be harnessedand our overly rigid power distribution systems will need to be adapted to supply them. So there is already speculation about the ingredients and mixof our future energy cocktail. Of course there’s manya slip twixt cup and lip, especially when enthusiasmturns into a mindless fad, as has happened with biofuels – a solution that is showing its limitations.

But learning is a process of trial and error. And neverhave we needed research so much.

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Today, electricity distribution generallyhas a centralised and vertical struc-ture. Companies produce electricityat a few powerful production units,

subsequently feeding the supply into a distri-bution network or grid. Consumers then pas-sively receive the electricity used in line withtheir needs. This is a one-way flow in whichthe last element in the chain (the consumer)has no control, beyond that of making certainchoices, of supplier for example. It is a systemdesigned to operate on a large scale, eitherregional or national.

But things are starting to change. The European Union is seeking to point thesystem in a new direction, by supportingresearch efforts in this field. The timing is par-ticularly opportune. Existing distribution sys-tems, built about 50 years ago, are becomingobsolete and over the coming years will haveto be progressively replaced. There is everyreason to do so as efficiently as possible, byallowing for the requirements of our age.


ELECTRICITY NETWORKS

Rethinking the European gridFor a number of years now, Europeanresearch has been trying to overcome a major challenge: how to modernisedistribution networks that are sometimes 50 years old by incorporating new production unitsthat are dependent on the whims of the sun or wind.

The paradox of renewablesIn response to climate change, recent years

have brought a growth in renewable energiesand with it the problem of incorporating themin the design of existing distribution networks.“This is in fact a problem that existed prior tothe industrial revolution of the 19th century,when we relied on nature alone to supply ourneeds,” remarks Jacques Deuse, TechnicalManager with the EU-DEEP (EUropeanDistributed EnErgy Partnership) integratedresearch project on distribution networks.

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“With renewables, we are returning to depend-ency on nature. Wind and sun in particular arenot necessarily available when the consumerneeds them. In our regions, for example, it isin winter that we need a lot of electricity butit is in winter that there is the least sun…”

As it is not easy to store electricity, produc-tion must match consumption as closely aspossible. This is why it is such a challenge forthe network regulators to incorporate such a variable and unpredictable factor as electricitygenerated by solar and wind renewables.While wind turbines generating flat out inhigh winds will create a production surplus ifdemand is insufficient, it is not possible toshut down production of traditional coal orgas plants as they take too long to start upagain if the wind suddenly drops. They arerather switched to a low-generating regime,ready to fire up again when needed. But it isin this mode that power plants fuelled byhydrocarbons generally emit the most green-house gas per unit supplied. Thus the para-doxical situation whereby giving priority towind-generated electricity can result in a morepolluting production.

A radical rethink of distribution networksthus seems essential. As to the solution, this iswhat the dozens of scientists from researchcentres, universities and private and publiccompanies working on the largely EU-financed SmartGrids platform and EU-DEEPresearch project are seeking to come up with.

SmartGrids in the long termTwo key ideas underpin future distribution

networks or electricity grids. The first is a bet-ter interconnection of existing networks tocreate a vast European grid. The bigger thenetwork the greater the likelihood of beingable to balance production and demand. If thereis no wind to turn the turbines in Denmark, forexample, the electricity shortage could be offsetby solar-powered plants in Spain.

The other idea is to permit a two-way flow.A myriad of small local networks powered byindividual wind turbines or photovoltaic pan-els on the roofs of houses could ultimately beharnessed as part of the international grid.When the mini-networks are not producingenough electricity for local consumption, themain grid could step in. If the opposite is thecase, they could sell the surplus to the main

grid. This design would ensure a two-way flowin which the consumer would to a degree bean active producer.

The SmartGrids researchers claim a num-ber of advantages for their system. Renewableenergies could easily be included in the mini-networks as well as the main grid, withoutposing any problems in terms of low voltage orintermittence. This would result in decreasedCO2 emissions. Costs for the consumers wouldalso fall as they would produce a part of theirown electricity and could even sell any surplus.

EU-DEEP in the short termSuch infrastructure cannot be created

overnight, however, and much remains to bedone before being able to reap its full benefits ona large scale. It requires extremely high per-formance connection systems as well as highlydeveloped logistics. As a result, it is a vision thatis only feasible in the relatively long term.

“On the other hand, the EU-DEEP project isdeeply rooted in the here and now,” explainsJacques Deuse. “It is not a question of makinga clean sweep and starting again from scratch.We want to improve existing skills and infra-structures to meet the needs of today, tomorrowand the day after tomorrow. We are proposinga new design for distribution networks thatpermits a flexible integration of distributedelectricity production into the grid. Within thissystem the consumer and the producer aretreated separately. The client is supplied by the

electricity supplier, but through this supplier oranother entity the consumer can also sell theirown local production. As to the distributionsystem, this must be conceived of on a Europe-wide scale so as to be best able to deal withthe issue of the intermittent supply of wind-and solar-generated electricity.”

Matthieu Lethé


ELECTRICITY NETWORKS

Large-scale storage

While awaiting the large-scale implementation of new distribution networks, thereremains the problem of the intermittent nature of the most renewable energies. One solution would be to store surplus electricity production at times when consumption

is low and then reinject it into the network at times of peak consumption. The problem with this isthat electricity is very difficult to store in large quantities. But for several decades now there haveexisted vast reservoirs of electricity: Pumped Storage Plants. These consist of two successive dams,with a major level difference between the two. In Europe, the largest of these plants is situated inthe French Alps, at the Grand’Maison Dam. At times of peak consumption, when production units– whether traditional or renewable – are unable to meet demand, the water held in the upper basinis released into the lower basin to generate electricity, like a traditional dam. On the other hand,when the electricity produced exceeds demand, the surplus is used to activate powerful pumpsthat transfer the water back to the upper basin.

Pumped Storage Plants have the advantage of excellent performance: just one-fifth of the energyis lost in the flows. The drawback is that they take up too much space and require a mountain site.

SmartGrids

www.smartgrids.eu

EU-DEEP

39 partners – 15 countries (BE-ES-FR-UK-DE-

PL-AU-SE-FI-CZ-HU-LV-GR-CY-TK)

www.eudeep.com

It was the Royal Society (UK) that soundedthe warning, in its January report enti-tled Sustainable biofuels: prospects andchallenges. “Unless biofuel development

is supported by appropriate policies and eco-nomic instruments that address these issues,then there is a risk that we may becomelocked into inefficient – and potentially envi-ronmentally harmful – biofuel supply chains.”The House of Commons Environmental AuditCommittee went even further in calling for a moratorium on biofuels. At the very timewhen the European Union is aiming for a 10%share of biofuels in the transport sector by 2020,many politicians, scientists and members ofcivil society are stressing the uncertain carbonfootprint of biofuels, their environmental con-sequences and the higher food prices they aregenerating.

Emissions: no consensusThe GHG emission savings generated by

biofuels depend very much on the parameterstaken into account. Renton Righelato, Presidentof the World Land Trust, and DominickSpracklen of Leeds University (UK)(1) considerthat the model used by the EuropeanCommission fails to take into account the indi-rect effects of converting land and forest for

biofuels or the displacement of food cropsoutside Europe. These scientists believe thatan area of forest stores between two and ninetimes the quantity of greenhouse gases aswould be gained on the emissions side by usingthat same area to produce biofuels. “A 10% tar-get would require the use of 38% of Europe’sarable land, requiring the import of agricultur-al raw materials and leading to deforestationin other countries,” adds Dominick Spracklen.But for Etienne Poitrat, Head of Biofuels at theFrench Environment and Energy ManagementAgency – ADEME (2), a significantly smallerland area could suffice – 14% for France, forexample.

Paul Crutzen, an atmospheric chemist at theMax-Planck-Institut (Germany) and 1985 NobelPrize winner for chemistry, estimates that the


BIOFUELS

From promises to dIn Europe, transport is responsible for the biggestincrease in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.This is a trend that a new European directivewould like to reverse by having biofuels meet10% of transport sector needs by 2020, as opposed to 2% at present. However, the use of biofuels is also raising many fears about thepossible environmental and social impact. It is no doubt optimistic to believe that these concerns will be allayed by the second generationof biofuels.

Installing a glass fixed bed micro-reactorto evaluate catalysts with a view to developing new clean production methods.

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amount of nitrogen in fertilizers that is con-verted into nitrous oxide (N20) – a greenhousegas almost 300 times more powerful than CO2

– is between 3% and 5% rather than the cur-rent estimate of 2%. Another example: theADEME estimates the increased greenhousegases resulting from ethanol produced fromwheat to be 60%, while the scientists andindustrialists at the Commission’s Joint ResearchCentre (JRC) put this at somewhere between –-8% and + 80%. It is all a question of how oneevaluates the share of refining co-products inthe gains or the sources and quantities ofenergy needed for production.

Eat or drive?In the EU today, 81% of land is given over

to forests or crops and available fallow landrepresents no more than around 11% of cul-tivable land. However, achieving the 10 %biofuel target would require the use ofbetween 15% and 38% of the land, depend-ing on the studies. There is thus a real risk thatthe growth of biofuels will result in significantdamage to the environment, with the loss ofecosystems, intensive farming, soil degradation,deforestation and increased water consump-tion. “As long as markets do not correctly takethe environment into account, there will be a major incentive to convert natural ecosystemsinto plantations for biofuels,” writes the OECDin its 2007 report entitled Biofuels: is the cureworse than the disease?

The OECD also estimates that subsidiesgranted to biofuels have the effect of divertingland from food crops, thereby causing pricesto rise. With a 40% increase in food prices in2007, a 52% increase in wheat prices and a 70% increase in oilseed and vegetable oilprices (Food and Agriculture Organization –FAO – figures), the choice between fuel andfood is becoming very pertinent. This is not asserious in the rich countries – where foodprices rose by “just” 22% between 2000 and2007 – as in the least developed countrieswhere the price rise is a staggering 90%.Although biofuel production is not the sole

cause of the rise, the FAO nevertheless cited itas one of the four causes identified.

A necessary new generation The Commission is not insensitive to these

criticisms and is seeking to reassure by guar-anteeing that land considered to be ”carbonsinks” or with a high degree of biodiversitywill not be converted. It is also counting onthe second generation of biofuels – althoughthey are not expected until 2015 – to improvethe poor ecological and human balance of thefirst generation. Although using wheat andmaize to produce bioethanol or growing colzafor biofuel is fuelling concerns, the use ofplants not dedicated to food production islikely to allay them. There will be no more oil-or sugar-based plants needed as the secondgeneration aims to transform lignocellulosedirectly into alcohol or hydrocarbons.

Consisting of 25% lignin, 50% cellulose and25% hemicellulose, lignocellulose constitutesthe greater part of the plant biomass found inwood, leaves, tree and shrub stems and allherbaceous species.

Biological conversion It is possible to convert this plant matter

into fuel biologically. As cellulose is a polymerformed of glucose chains, the biologicalmethod involves recovering these sugars andconverting them into ethanol through a processof fermentation. Although man has been ableto produce alcohol from sugar for thousands ofyears, separating the cellulose from plant fibre(representing between 9% and 17% of the costof cellulosic ethanol) and then breaking itdown to extract the glucose (between 20%and 33% of the cost) is not so easy. TheEuropean project – New Improvements forLignocellulosic Ethanol (NILE) – aims, amongother things, to find a good panel of enzymeswith which to recover the glucose throughenzymatic hydrolysis. Their team is interestedin cellulases, enzymes present in mushrooms(Trichoderma reesei), bacteria or other organ-isms that feed on raw plant matter, with a viewto selecting the best candidates, combiningthem and developing production frameworksfor boosting yields.

Biological conversion is far from optimaland only uses cellulosic sugars, disregardinghemicellulosic pentoses, sugars for which we

have not yet mastered the fermentationprocesses. The NILE project is seeking toincrease the yield and speed of enzymatichydrolysis and increase the amount of ethanolproduced per unit of dry matter, which is cur-rently between 12% and 16%. Project coordi-nator Frédéric Monot believes that “currentresearch should improve the yield of enzy-matic hydrolysis, open up new avenues forexploiting pentoses and make better use oflignin.”

Thermal conversionThe other solution is to heat the plant mat-

ter under conditions of high pressure and lowoxygen, thereby “breaking” the molecules toextract a gas that is a mixture of carbonmonoxide and hydrogen. This gas is thentransformed by catalysis using iron or cobaltto obtain a hydrocarbon wax that is then refinedinto synthetic fuel. Although improvements arenecessary to pretreat the plant matter, limit theformation of impurities during gasification andthen filter the gas, each element in the chainis operational today. The next step is to bringthem all together within a production unit thatis sufficiently profitable. The chain of collecting,transporting and storing the raw materials rep-resents a considerable cost, with the difficultylying in finding the critical industrial size thatmakes it possible to maximise production andminimise the distances travelled to collect thebiomass.

With a yield currently estimated at 15% fuelper dry matter unit, the German Energy Agencyestimates the production potential at 4 000 litresper hectare. This would enable Germany tomeet 20% of its total fuel consumption. TheEuropean biofuel platform tempers this enthu-siasm, however, stressing the need for vastinvestment to industrialise the process – invest-ments that the technological and commercialrisks do not encourage.

Not all is resolvedToday, Etienne Poitrat considers the biolog-

ical route to be the most advanced, whilestressing that “the demand for diesel beingstrong and with the biological process unableto meet this demand, there is certainly a rolefor thermal conversion.” Yet these new tech-niques do not really ease the concerns raisedby the first generation. Waste recovery


BIOFUELS

doubts

is unlikely to meet more than 15–20%of biofuel needs and, despite a 35% forestcover in Europe, the quantity of remainingexploitable forest remains marginal. As tostraw and other agricultural residue, their usefor energy purposes is in direct competitionwith other sectors that use them, such as stockfarming, crop farming and the paper industry.It is therefore impossible not to have land ded-icated specifically to growing ligneous plantsfor biofuels.

Although high lignocellulose levels and a chemical structure that facilitates the extractionof sugars by biological means are essential cri-teria for these “energy plants”, they must alsobe perennial, require little water input, be fastgrowing and cultivable on land unsuitable forgrowing food. The varieties in view areherbaceous plants such as miscanthus orswitchgrass and trees such as the poplar, thewillow or the locust tree. EPOBIO, a jointEuropean and US research group, is studyingthese species to describe their varieties andidentify their most interesting characteristics.Once the genetic sequences have been identi-fied, the EPOBIO researchers will have toselect, hybridise or genetically modify thedifferent varieties to arrive at strains that aremost suited to biofuel needs.

Moreover, even optimised to provide yieldper hectare that is superior to that of the colzaused for first generation biodiesel, these plantsdo not completely resolve the issue of theGHG balances for which it is becoming essen-tial for the various stakeholders to agree on a calculation method accepted by all. EuropeanEnvironment Commissioner Stavros Dimasstresses that “the responses to social and envi-ronmental issues are precise and incorporat-ed in the text”. Of the arguments that fail toconvince environmentalists, Friends of theEarth describe these responses as “particu-larly unsubstantial, offering no guarantee ofsustainability.”

Question of confidence Is the EU awarding too much importance to

these biofuels? Perhaps. But how to respondto the urgency of the need to reduce green-house gas emissions and the depletion of oilresources? Although Europeans may be scep-tical about biofuels, that does not mean theyare ready to leave their cars in the garage. It is

thus up to the legislators to restore confidenceby offering concrete guarantees on environ-mental protection, food price stability and theexpected decrease in greenhouse gas emis-sions.

There is also another concern. If, as JohnHontelez, Secretary General of the EuropeanEnvironmental Bureau, suggests, these meas-ures are no more than a tool to “avoid applyinggenuine remedies to the growing role of trans-port in climate change,” they could also attractfunds and weaken other equally promisingprogrammes. Electric vehicles, hydrogen cells,improved energy performance of vehicles orthe reduction of transport needs may not offershort-term solutions, but they are perfectly in keeping with a true objective of sustainabledevelopment. As many experts state, biofuels

are no more than a link in a chain and must notcause other avenues to remain unexplored.

François Rebufat(1) Carbon mitigation by biofuels or by saving and restoring

forests? Science Vol 317, August 2007.(2) Energy and GHG balances of biofuels and conventional

fuels – convergences and divergences of main studies,ADEME, July 2006.


BIOFUELS

NILE


(FR-IT-FI-SE-DE-CH-BE-LV-UK-PT-IL)

www.nile-bioethanol.org

EPOBIO


(FR-NE-SE-DE-CH-UK-GR-IT-US)

www.epobio.net/

Study of the catalytic reaction for green fuels. This device makes it possible to studythe performances (activity, selectivity, life) of a solid catalyst.

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Although the photovoltaic effect wasfirst discovered by French physicist,Becquerel, in 1839, it was not untilsemiconductors were invented in

the 1950s that an application was found for it.A photovoltaic (PV) cell is a device that gener-ates direct current electricity from the energy ofphotons alone, with no mechanical or thermalinput.

Two layers of a semiconductor material(more often than not silicon) are sandwichedbetween two electrodes. The upper layer (N),which is impregnated with an impurity withhigher valency than silicon, such as phosphorus,initially has spare electrons. The lower layer (P),which is doped with an impurity with lowervalency, such as boron, has a deficit. At the P-N junction, the electrons migrate from N toP until they achieve a balance, creating anelectric field that prevents any subsequenttransfer of charge. When light falls on the cell,the photons extract new electrons, so creating‘holes’. As these negative and positive chargesare unable to cross the P-N junction, they areforced to travel through the electrodes, gener-ating an electric current.

The energy efficiency of PV cells hasincreased from 8% in the 1980s to between11% and 17% at present, although this is stillnot enough to guarantee the sector’s prof-itability because of the high manufacturingcost. However, Germany has already succeed-ed in creating a market thanks to a highlyproactive policy of incentives. In the space of eight years, the number of jobs in the photovoltaic sector has grown by a factor of

20, from 1 500 to 30 000. The sector’s futuredepends heavily on research, both to improveperformance (with planned energy efficienciesof 25–45% by the year 2030), and to reduce thecosts of producing current modules.

This is the path that the EuropeanCommission has chosen to take with theCrystalClear project, which aims to make crys-talline silicon cells more affordable. Thebehaviour of crystalline silicon, which is usedin around 85% of solar modules, has beenstudied extensively. CrystalClear researchersare exploring two main avenues of enquiry.The first is to use new types of silicon, such assolar-grade silicon, which is less purified andhence cheaper. The second is to maximise theusable portion of silicon, mainly by reducingscrap and improving cell architecture.

“We are aiming to halve the price of siliconPV cells by overhauling their design entirely.One idea is to place both electrodes behindthe cell, rather than on the front and rear as atpresent”, explains Wim Sinke, CrystalClearproject coordinator.

Reducing costs would also limit the envi-ronmental impact of production. Cuttingdown on the quantities of silicon used in PVcells also decreases the energy payback time(the amount of time a cell has to operate untilit has produced the same amount of energy aswas used to manufacture the cell), which iscurrently between one and two years. “So,reducing the costs goes hand in hand withreducing the environmental impact”, concludesWim Sinke.

Marie-Françoise Lefèvre


SOLAR ENERGY

PhotovoltomaniaThe photovoltaic cell is poised for massivegrowth. According to the European PhotovoltaicTechnology Platform, it could cover up to 20% of the world’s electricity needs by the year 2040.Increasingly efficient and affordable, the photovoltaic cell is well placed in the race for green energies.

European Photovoltaic Technology

Platform

www.eupvplatform.org/

CrystalClear

16 partners – 6 countries (BE-DE-ES-FR-NL-NO)

www.ipcrystalclear.info

Other contenders…

The flexible thin-film CIGS solar cell usesan innovative semiconductor made fromcopper, indium, gallium and selenium.

With a junction unlike the P-N junction, it achieves a conversion efficiency of close to20%. Various types of thin-film solar cell are the main rivals to the current silicon modules.

The light and flexible plastic PV cell offers a conversion efficiency of 5 % for a very lowproduction cost. However, its sensitivity to oxygen and humidity makes it unsuitable for outdoor use, a drawback that researchersare endeavouring to resolve by encapsulating the cell.

The Graetzel solar cell works on the photosynthesis principle and is made up ofnanocrystals of titanium dioxide (TiO2) coatedwith organic dyes which sunlight causes torelease electrons.

The conversion efficiency of the Graetzelsolar cell exceeds 10% in the laboratory and its inventor, Professor Graetzel, has announcedthat his cell will be five times cheaper to manufacture than a silicon cell.

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The Sun was the sole source of energyat the Earth’s beginnings, it triggersphotosynthesis and its heat governsthe rhythms of the water and wind

cycles. Since humans first appeared on Earth,the Sun has governed the rhythm of their livestoo, although people have learned to exploitit to meet their increasingly sophisticatedneeds. By 250 BC, the Greeks were alreadyconcentrating the Sun’s rays on Roman shipsto set them on fire. In the 18th century,Antoine Lavoisier managed to heat his solarfurnace to 1 755°C to melt platinum.

Now we are turning our attention to theSun to generate electricity, among other things.By using light, photovoltaic cells are openingup a highly promising avenue of enquiry, butare not necessarily suited to mass energy pro-

duction, enabling them to supplant traditionalelectric power plants. The other avenue is toexploit heat, direct solar radiation, in larger-scaleconcentrated solar power (CSP) facilities(1).

Even when they are erected in deserts or inareas with a lot of sunshine, CSP plants needto concentrate solar radiation to activate anefficient thermodynamic cycle for producingelectricity. Mirrors track the path of the Sunand channel its rays onto a solar collector inwhich a heat transfer fluid circulates. This inturn feeds a heat-transfer medium (steam orgas such as air), activating a turbine that drivesa generator. The principle is simple and thetwo power-plant variants for CSP – parabolictrough power plants and solar tower powerplants – are yielding excellent results.

Power of concentrationParabolic trough power plants are the most

cost-effective and tried and tested means forconcentrating solar power. They have achievedan efficiency level close to that of coal-firedelectric power plants. Dozens of rows of curvedreflectors, each containing a central tube filledwith heat-transfer fluid, heat the fluid to a tem-perature of around 400°C. This heat collectorelement (HCE) then feeds a conventionalelectrical unit.


SOLAR ENERGY

From heat tomegawattsThe Sun is responsiblefor 99.98% of the thermal density at theEarth’s surface andprovides almost all ourenergy either directly or indirectly. It is aninexhaustible source of heat that can be converted into electricityduring the day… and even at night.

Parabolic concentrators: CSP in miniature

An amazing module is being tested at the Almeria solar platform.The Euro-dish parabolic solar concentrator trains the Sun’s raysonto a focal point where a Stirling engine transforms the heat into

electricity. It is quick to assemble and not at all bulky. Energy efficiencyexceeds 30 %, with a concentration factor of more than 2 000 suns and a temperature of 750 °C.

The dish targets the market for autonomous systems, to pump waterfor example. For the past 20 years, the concept has been developed inArizona, mainly by Stirling Energy Systems (SES), which has integrated thedish into a 25 kW module. The module is aimed largely at remote areaswhere it is difficult to install and maintain CSP systems and to store energy.Another benefit is that the desired power output can be achieved byclustering several modules together. The technology can thereforesupply networks with 25–50 MW, using a variable-sized power plantand a capacity for adjustment to achieve economies of scale.

If the current R&D collaboration between manufacturers proves suc-cessful, commercialisation is envisaged in 2–4 years from now, withexcellent prospects for the future, especially in developing regions.

Sanlúcar La Mayor (near Seville in Spain), the site for Europe’s largest CSP complex for electricity production, with its PS10 power station,the doubly powerful PS20 under construction and12 hectares earmarked for photovoltaic captors.

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Solar dish by StirlingEnergy System (USA).

Pilot projects for parabolic trough powerplants sprang up in the United States in the1980s and ended up being marketed. Solarelectricity generating systems (SEGS) is a col-lection of nine plants with a total capacity of354 MW currently in operation at KramerJunction, in California’s Mojave Desert. Thereare no industrial parabolic trough powerplants in service in Europe. “The cost-effec-tiveness of parabolic trough power plantsvaries depending on the market and the cost ofCO2. Although parabolic trough technology isreliable, its prospects are limited because itsconcentration power is restricted to 100 suns,i.e. a maximum of 500°C”, explains GillesFlamant, Director of the Laboratory forProcesses, Materials and Solar Energy(PROMES) at France’s national scientificresearch centre (Centre National de RechercheScientifique – CNRS).

As a result, interest has now turned to solartower power plants, which also came to life inCalifornia in the 1980s, with Solar One, laterredeveloped to make Solar Two, which havedemonstrated the feasibility of power towers.In the case of solar tower power plants, anarray of hundreds or thousands of mirrors –called heliostats – project the Sun’s rays ontoa single collector positioned at the top of

a tower. “With a concentration factor of upto 1 000 suns, power towers have muchgreater development potential in terms ofcost-effectiveness.”

Spain, where else?In Europe, research began in the 1980s and

has been concentrated mainly at the AlmeriaSolar Platform (PSA) in Spain’s Tabernas Desert.The Spanish Research Centre for Energy,Environment and Technology (Centro deInvestigaciones Energéticas, Medioambientalesy Tecnológicas – CIEMAT) is currently testingthe CESA-1 solar tower power plant and a small solar power system (SSPS) at the Almeriasite. Since 2004, the Spanish government hasbeen providing a support framework for theinitiative, by setting a guaranteed floor priceper solar kWh.

All three of Europe’s existing CSP projectsare based in Spain. Each project has receivedEuropean Union funding worth €5 million,which covers only part of the innovation costs.Additional funds are needed to carry out theconventional work, such as assembling theturbine. “Construction of Solar Tres has justbegun, while that of Andasol should be com-pleted shortly. The only project currently incommercial operation is the PS10 solar towerpower plant, Planta Solar 10.”(2)

Since 30 March 2007, the PS10 solar powertower has been injecting 11 MW of power intothe electricity grid. 10 000 inhabitants con-sume the annual 21 GWh produced by thepower plant. A 14-metre-wide collector placedat the summit of the 115-metre tower absorbsthe heat from 624 heliostats into a fluid to pro-duce steam. The four collector panels canconcentrate an average power of 55 MW. “Theidea is to validate the technology on an oper-ational scale prior to the marketing stage. Firstthe components will be developed in Europe(heliostats, collector) and then the plant’s pro-ductivity has to be proven.”

Storing heatThe problem with CSP is, of course, inter-

mittent sunshine and the fact that generatorscannot operate at night. At present the prob-lem is resolved by storing the surplus energyaccumulated during the day in large insulatedtanks filled with molten salt. The PS10 solartower power plant can store only 20 MWh,

which allows it to offset overcast intervals.However, Solar Tres, which is expected tocome into service in 2009, will have a storagecapacity of 600 MWh, enabling it to produceits 15 MW continuously throughout summerand to operate for 15 hours after the sun hasset, totalling close to 96 GWh annually, spreadover 270 days.

In the case of parabolic trough powerplants, in late July the Spanish group ACSCobra and the German firm Solar Millenniumwill start marketing CSP electricity for the firsttime in Europe. Their parabolic trough facility,Andasol, will produce 50 MW, supplying nearly180 GWh of energy every year. If the power sup-plied is any higher, stores dwindle faster. The880 MWh stored during the day feed the pow-er plant for only 7.5 hours once the Sun has set.

Dawn of the solar ageIn 2005, CSP generated a mere 0.025% of the

world’s electricity. However, a slow but steadyrevolution is underway. In late 2007, AlgerianEnergy Minister, Chakib Khelil, laid the founda-tion stone of the Hassi R’mel hybrid solar-gaspower plant. Shortly afterwards, the ChiefExecutive Officer of NEAL (New Energy Algeria)announced the construction of a 3 000-km, highvoltage direct current (HVDC) connectionbetween Adar and the German city of Aachen.

Solar thermal technologies are undeniablygaining ground. Simple, non-polluting andcheaper all the time, they can help to balance theworld’s energy relationships and to bring to thefore certain regions in the developing world.

Delphine d’Hoop

(1) Also called solar thermal power plants.(2) All quotes are from Gilles Flamant.


SOLAR ENERGY

PS10

4 partners, 2 countries (ES-DE)

www.solucar.es/

Solar Tres

4 partners, 3 countries (ES-FR-DE)

www.sener.es/

Andasol

6 partners, 3 countries (ES-DE-SL)

www.mileniosolar.com/

Other resources

www.TRECers.net

www.sollab.eu

www.solarpaces.org/

By 2013, they should achieve a total capacity of 300 MW and be used to power 153 000 homes,saving 185 000 tonnes of CO2 a year.

According to the latest estimatesfrom the European Wind EnergyAssociation (EWEA), by the end of2007, one-quarter of the European

Union’s energy requirements could be met byinstalling wind generators across 5% of theNorth Sea’s total surface area (1). However, weare currently a long way from this proportion.Only five countries use offshore wind energyat present: Denmark, Ireland, the Netherlands,the United Kingdom and Sweden. At the end

of 2006, their cumulative 900 MW representedonly 3.3% of the European Union’s wind-energyproduction. Today, their 25 offshore windfarms produce 1 100 megawatts. The conclu-sion is plain. Only a small portion of Europe’soffshore wind energy resources are beingexploited.

However, on 10 December 2007, amid a blazeof publicity the British government announcedthe launch of a national plan designed to supply33 GW of electricity (or 33 000 MW – one-fifth

of national requirements) to the country usingoffshore wind energy between now and 2020.Based on the use of current technology, thiswould require no less than 7 000 turbines tobe built. The project’s critics, complaining ofthe resulting disfigurement of the landscape,have made the somewhat misleading buthard-hitting calculation that this would meanseeing a wind generator every 800 metres allalong Britain’s coastline …

Obviously nobody seriously envisages dis-tributing wind turbines all along the coast. Onthe contrary, the DOWNVInD project is seek-ing to make them as unobtrusive as possible.The aim of this €65 million project, of which€6 million is funded by the EuropeanCommission, is to set up and test offshorewind generators far out at sea in places wherethey are barely, if at all, visible from the shore.

Inspired civil engineeringThe chosen site is 25 km out to sea in the

Moray Firth off north-east Scotland. The newwind farm was given the quaint name ofBeatrice Wind Farm, after the Beatrice oil rigonly a few hundred metres away, which it hasbeen supplying with one-third of the rig’selectricity requirements since July 2007. Thetwo wind generators that make up the windfarm, each with a capacity of 5 MW, are the firstever to be erected in waters around 50 metresdeep. Up to now, such structures have beenbuilt only at depths of around 20 metres.

“Our chief problem has been to erect sucha large infrastructure at sea so far from thecoast”, explains Allan MacAskill, Director ofthe DOWNVInD project. “Many parts wereassembled onshore and transported out to seato be set up at the correct site. In fact ‘only’


WIND ENERGY

Rotors take to the high seasHaving exploited the North Sea’s oil and gasresources since the 1960s, Europe has alreadyacquired extensive experience with platforms at sea. It is currently enriching this experiencewith the DOWNVInD (Distant Offshore Windfarmswith No Visual Impact in Deepwater) project,which focuses on an inexhaustible resource:powerful and steady offshore wind. The wind generators measure 126 metres in diameter… yet are almost invisible.

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two trips were required: the first to transportthe substructure jacket for anchoring the windgenerator to the seabed and the second totransport the tower, turbine and blades previ-ously assembled onshore.”

This is quite a civil engineering feat, since thetwo wind turbine generators are immense. The70-metre-tall substructure jacket, 20 metres ofwhich will be submerged, weighs 750 tonnes.Although the tower-turbine-blade unit weighsless than 1 000 tonnes, it is rather bulky: withits 88-metre-high tower and 63-metre-longblades, the total diameter is 126 metres… Afteranchoring the substructure jacket, the engineerstransported the wind generators in a verticalposition, before setting them down on thesubstructure using giant floating cranes.

And the environment?In parallel with the many studies conducted

for the erection of these two turbines, theUniversity of Aberdeen in Scotland has piloteda number of research programmes to assessthe potential environmental impact of suchwind generators both on the shores of theMoray Firth and out at sea. A maximum numberof scenarios was considered in all projectphases, ranging from onshore assembly to theoperation of the turbines, including transporting,fixing, installing and maintaining the structures,dismantling them at the end of their life andeven possible accidents and emergencies.

DOWNVinD has obviously left nothing tochance. It has made a census of the variousanimal and plant species living in the sur-rounding area, introduced measures to assessair and water quality, together with the visual,noise and electromagnetic impact, conductedsurveys of the people living on the shores of

the Moray Firth, and so on. A special radarsystem has even been set up to monitor birdmovements through the wind-generatorblades.

The public tends to think of the sea as anarea to be left wild and untouched. It is notrisk-free for a company to set up major infra-structure that could harm nature, as this couldalso damage their public image. To convinceindustry of the benefits of exploiting thepotential of offshore wind energy, DOWNVinDtherefore had to lay all its cards on the table.

According to Allan MacAskill, “The greatestchallenge for DOWNVinD is to create thetechnical conditions for developing large-scale, commercially viable projects. In other

words, to set up wind farms with 200 windgenerators, not just two like the Beatrice WindFarm.”

Matthieu Lethé

(1) Delivering Offshore Wind Power in Europe, www.ewea.org.


WIND ENERGY

Very small wind generators

While offshore wind generators can be viewed as the extra-large version, there is also anextra-small version: urban wind generators. Specially designed for built-up areas wherewinds behave highly randomly, these small wind generators are usually positioned on or

near building roofs. Their design, tailored to suit these special conditions, differs significantly fromthat of conventional wind generators. The main difference is that the axis of rotation of urban windgenerators is vertical rather than horizontal.

They have a fairly small capacity of between 1 kW and 20 kW (that is, between 0.001 MW and0.02 MW), which does not allow them to supply all the requirements of an ordinary building. “Thisis probably their main drawback”, admits Patrick Clément, coordinator of WINDEUR – a project toraise awareness and provide information on small wind turbines in an urban environment, which is50 % funded by the European Commission (to the tune of €450 000). “As the output is quite low,manufacturers are not interested in them, and so costs remain high. Wind generators are in thesame situation today as photovoltaic systems were 15 or so years ago: they were expensive becauseproduction was only on a small scale.”

However, the technology is already highly developed and, while a few elements could still beimproved, such as the profiles and the electronic starting and shut-down systems, several groupshave launched projects of varying sizes. “The Netherlands and the UK are particularly proactive inthis area”, says Patrick Clément. “For instance, The Hague is developing a project for 50 or so smallwind generators in the city. And France’s electricity generation and distribution giant, Electricité deFrance (EDF), has applied to the European Commission for technological research funding. This isa sign of its potential.”

DOWNVInD

17 partners – 6 countries (UK-DE-DK-FR-NL-SE)

www.downvind.com

Wineur

5 partners – 3 countries (FR-NL-UK)

www.urban-wind.org

EWEA

www.ewea.org

Humans have been exploiting thepower of water for thousands ofyears, in the form of tides orwater courses. The use of dams

to convert water into electricity, which beganin the 19th century, offers a renewable andcontrolled form of energy. What is more, withhydroelectricity it is possible to gear electrici-ty production to demand. For instance, theGrand’Maison Dam in the French Alps candeliver a whopping 1 800 MW of power in onlytwo minutes. According to the InternationalEnergy Agency (IEA), dams supply approxi-mately 16% of the world’s electricity production,placing hydroelectric power in top positionamong the renewables.

However hydroelectric plants require a spe-cific type of terrain and large expanses of land,which is problematic in environmental, eco-nomic and social terms, not to say alarming inthe case of China’s planned Three Gorges Dam.In addition to the indirect impact on the

ecosystem of slowing down water courses, theperformance of dams in terms of the green-house-gas effect is undermined by the largeamounts of methane generated by plantdecomposition in the flooded areas.

It is highly unlikely that Europe will embarkon large-scale hydro projects in the future,as research will focus instead on mini-hydropower plants. These are turbines thatgenerate less than 1 MW, situated along riversand their tributaries, which require only a two-metre difference in height. Well suited todecentralised energy production, mini-hydro -power plants will have only a limited impacton Europe’s electricity production becausethey have a maximum potential of onlyaround 1.5 GW.

Prospects for geothermal energyThe reverse is true of geothermal energy, as

there is plenty of potential for exploiting it.Not only on the Earth’s surface, where heat

pumps can be used to recover a portion of thesolar radiation absorbed by the ground, butmore important, at depth. In fact, under ourvery feet there is a real boiler fuelled by the nat-ural disintegration of the radioactive elements inrocks (uranium, thorium, potassium) and, to a lesser extent, by the primitive heat accumu-lated during the Earth’s accretion phase.

More often than not, surface geothermalenergy is used as additional heating fordomestic circuits or heating and hot-waterunits. The heat is simply recovered by a fluidcontained in a heat exchange system buried a few metres deep.

To channel enough power to produce elec-tricity, we need to turn to deep geothermalenergy. The further we go beneath theEarth’s crust, the higher the temperature. Infact it increases by an average of 3 °C everyhectometre, with wide local variations. Thetechniques used depend on both the depth ofthe bore hole, which can descend as much asfive kilometres below the surface, and thetype of geology. Sometimes hot springs canbe used, otherwise cold water is injectedinto cracks in rocks. Once heated, pressurecauses the water to rise and it is used todrive turbines (1).

M.L.

(1) Geothermal energy will be the subject of an upcomingresearch*eu special issue on earth science.


PRIMARY ENERGIES

Water and fire Although wind energy is subject to the vagariesof the wind and solar energy to those of the Sun,the Earth has always offered two blue-chip energysources: the water that flows continuously on its surface and the ‘fire’ in its belly. Although the exploitation of water for hydroelectric power is starting to reach its limit, fire still offers huge potential.

Three Gorges Dam

Under construction since 1994, thisgrandiose piece of civil engineering spanning the Yangtze River, with its power

station exceeding 22 000 MW in capacity, isexpected to supply China with nearly 90 Tera -watt/h of electricity as from 2009. However, theproject has exacted a price: at least 1.2 milliondisplaced people and 600 km2 of farming landand forest flooded by the artificial lake (the sur-face area of the retaining reservoir spanning morethan 600 km of river could total 58 000 km2).According to the Ecological Society of America,Chinese biologists estimate that the reservoir areapresently harbours 6 400 plant species, 3 500 insectspecies, 350 fish species and 500 species of terres-trial vertebrate, one-fifth of which are mammals.

A large number of the threatened species areendemic, such as the Chinese sturgeon and theYangtze dolphin.

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The Itaipu Dam – the world’s most powerful dam – suppliesnearly one quarter of Brazil’s electric power. Such massive solutions cannot be envisaged in Europe, where the trend is to create mini-hydropower plants.


The “big” energiesWhat should we do with nuclear energy? The debate centres on two contrasting views of the threat posed. Some view the risk in terms of our ability to control it. Others view it in terms of the price we will pay if we fail to control it.

Research is focusing on the means for eliminating allthe hazards: fission in upcoming fourth generationsystems, hypothetical fusion in the distant future andwaste management. This is because no prospectivescenario manages to remove nuclear from the energyequation. We simply need electricity too much.

Now electricity is materialising before our eyes: it is being converted into hydrogen, which can bestored and transported, then reconverted into electricity in a fuel cell, with water as its only wasteproduct. This huge potential means that electric carsare just around the corner. And the big advantage is that hydrogen, which is being hailed as tomorrow’snumber-one energy carrier, can be produced simplyusing the Sun and water.

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Nuclear energy has come back intofavour after two difficult decades:in late 2007, the AREVA industrialgroup met with the French and

Chinese presidents to sign a contract to supplyChina with two European pressurised waterreactors (EPR). Another order from the worldnuclear energy leader has led to the construc-tion of the first pressurised reactor in Finland,which is expected to come into service in 2011after a two-year delay and a further injectionof funding.

EPR is the third generation of nuclear reac-tors. Although it has been improved, it burnsuranium 235 and is incapable of mass-recyclingthe uranium from its spent fuel, meaning thatit does not resolve the problem of limited fuelresources. “We know for certain that if nuclearenergy continues to be developed using thecurrent pressurised water reactors, which burnuranium 235 (representing less than 1% of thetotal content of natural uranium), three-quartersof known resources will have been committedby around the middle of the 21st century,” saysFrank Carré, Deputy Director of the FrenchAtomic Energy Commission’s Nuclear Deve -lopment and Innovation Division.

Burning all the uraniumThe current technology uses water both as

a moderator to reduce the velocity of nuclearreactions in the core of the reactor and as a heat-transfer fluid, transferring heat to theexchangers that generate the steam to drive a turbogenerator. This technology does not allowthe 99% of uranium 238 in natural uranium tobe burned for fuel. In the case of pressurisedwater reactors, which predominate at present,the uranium needs to be enriched with 3–5%of uranium 235 to make it suitable for burning.

However, the sustainable developmentchallenge demands more: it calls for a fourthgeneration of fast-neutron nuclear reactorscapable of burning all the uranium by con-verting it into plutonium. A number of initia-tives testify to renewed interest in thistechnology, which has led to the creation ofseveral prototypes since the 1960s. Apart fromnational projects in India, China and Russia,there is the Generation IV International Forumof leading nuclear technology nations, theInternational Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)International Project on Innovative NuclearReactors and Fuel Cycles (INPRO), the UnitedStates Global Nuclear Energy Partnership(GNEP), and the European Union SustainableNuclear Energy Platform.

France, the United States and Japan are plan-ning to build prototypes of sodium-cooled

reactors in around 2025. Sodium is anotherheat-transfer medium that has been subject tointensive research. Sodium does not moderatethe neutrons, allowing their velocity to convertnatural uranium into plutonium (itself a nuclearfuel) and even to regenerate it efficiently,allowing the plutonium to be recycled roughly10 times. This saves on uranium and reducesthe amount of waste. A further advantage isthat the large stocks of depleted uranium fromexisting nuclear power stations (220 000 tonnesin France) can be used as a fuel reserve.

Cooperation not competitionHowever, for the time being the excessive

cost of this hypothetical technology limits itscommercial viability, unless pressure on theuranium market makes it competitive soon.“Russia, India, Japan and China continued todevelop these reactors after the United Statesstopped in the late 1970s and Europe stoppedin 1998 when it closed down its Superphenixfast breeder reactor in France. In 2010, India isset to launch a prototype to generate 500 MWof electricity” (1). China is also in the worldfast-neutron race with an experimental reactorplanned for 2010.

At the moment, the technological challengesare so great that the rivals of tomorrow are join-ing forces. This has led to the Generation IVinternational forum, which includes the United


NUCLEAR

Generation four: fisThe nuclear energy sector – which produces 35% of the European Union’s electricity – offers real potentialfor reducing hydrocarbon use. Although nuclear energyis neutral in terms of its greenhouse effect and is capableof generating a large amount of power, it also burnsa limited resource, produces bulky waste and poses anenormous risk. How can these failings be mitigatedand the nuclear industry’s economic competitivenessincreased? This is the challenge which the fourth generation of reactors intends to take up.©

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3D virtual image of the third-generation EPR reactorThe first one is under construction in Finland.

States, France, Japan, South Korea, South Africa,Brazil, Argentina, the United Kingdom, Canada,Switzerland, the European nuclear powernations (EURATOM) as well as, most recently,China and Russia. Between 2000 and 2002,experts worked to select six potentially impor-tant systems for the 21st century. Groupedunder the title “Generation IV nuclear energysystems”, they have not all reached the samedegree of maturity.

Six potential technologiesApart from sodium-cooled fast reactors,

there is also renewed interested in very-high-temperature reactors. “The international effortin very-high-temperature technology has beenrevived by projects for the Pebble Bed ModularReactor (PBMR) in South Africa (planned for2014) and the Next Generation Nuclear Plant(NGNP) in the United States (planned foraround 2020).” This technology could extendnuclear power applications to include industrial-heat generation, in particular for the productionof hydrogen, synthetic fuels and seawaterdesalination to produce drinking water, all ofwhich are key resources for the future.

Two other innovative technologies involvedeveloping new heat-transfer mediums for fast-

fuel cycle centres offering their services tocountries operating reactors (supplying fueland taking back spent fuel). Although thiswould spare such countries from equippingthemselves with potentially hazardous tech-nologies, it would also create an imbalancewith nations that control the entire technologychain, in itself posing a geopolitical risk.

The advent of generation IV nuclear energysystems, which are set to play a key role in theworld energy balance, appears to be heavilydependent on technology developmentprospects, environmental concerns and eco-nomic strategies. Their future exploration willalso need to take into account rival non-nuclear energies and society’s acceptance ofsuch energies.

Axel Meunier(1) All quotes are from Frank Carré.


NUCLEAR

sion reinvented

What about fusion?

Just like today’s reactors, fourth generationsystems are still based on the fission princi-ple, where a very heavy nucleus (uranium or

plutonium) is struck by a neutron to split it intotwo lighter nuclei. The result is energy and theneutrons that allow the reaction to continue.

Conversely, nuclear fusion, for which the ITERfacility currently under construction at Cadarachein France represents an important demonstra-tion phase, relies on the fusion of two lightnuclei (deuterium and tritium in a first phase)into a heavier nucleus (helium). The result isenergy and a neutron that plays an essentialrole in regenerating tritium. However, the fusionreaction can only occur in plasma at a tempera-ture of some 100 million degrees, and ITER mustdemonstrate that it can be controlled in thepresence of nuclear reactions. The expectednext phase, in around 2040, is the constructionof a demonstration reactor (DEMO) that willgenerate electricity and regenerate the tritiumconsumed. By that date, fourth-generationfission systems are expected to already be incommercial operation.©

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Virtual image of the primary circuit in the EPR reactor.It comprises mainly the reactor vessel,steam generators, pressuriser and reactorcoolant pumps.

neutron, lead and helium gas systems. “As gasis not such a good heat-transfer medium assodium, gas-cooled fast reactors call for thedevelopment of refractory fuels that are able towithstand cooling accidents. On the other hand,compared to liquid-metal-cooled reactors(sodium and lead), they offer the advantage ofa monophasic, chemically inert heat-transfermedium and easier access for in-service inspec-tion and repairs.”

The last two technologies, molten-salt reac-tors and supercritical-water-cooled reactors, areseen as longer-term solutions for which theprototype-building phase is still a long way off.

The risksAll these systems will need to satisfy safety

requirements, which have been stepped upmarkedly since the Chernobyl accident in 1986and the attack on the World Trade Center in2001. The systems will rely on robust contain-ment envelopes and an accident-managementsystem that minimises the need for humanintervention – in particular for evacuating thereactor’s shut-down power. The risk of prolif-eration would be managed by a combinationof IAEA controls, recycling methods deterringthe diversion of nuclear material and regional

Radioactive waste is extremely bulky.Although, according to FrenchAtomic Energy Commission figures,it represents less than one kilogram

per inhabitant per year in France (the countrywith the highest nuclear-electricity share in theworld), the planet as a whole produces a massive12 000 tons of high-level radioactive waste everyyear, mainly in the form of spent nuclear fuelfrom the reactor core. Finland’s definitive solu-tion is to bury spent fuel 500 metres belowground level, in the deep geological formationof crystalline rocks in the Baltic Shield, whichis reputedly free of seismic activity. The site is

in western Finland, close to the Olkiluotonuclear power station. Work started in 2004with the construction of a rock characterisationlaboratory to verify the underground rock’sproperties and behaviour.

“The nuclear fuel rods will be placed insidesix-metre-tall copper containers measuring onemetre in diameter, coated in a 35-centimetrelayer of bentonite, a natural type of clay. Afterthe storage facility comes into service in 2020,it will be filled gradually over a period of 100–120 years”, explains Tero Varjoranta, Directorof the Nuclear Waste and Material RegulationDepartment of the Finnish Radiation andNuclear Safety Authority (STUK). The facilitywill be the final resting place for spent fuelfrom Finland’s two existing power stations,Olkiluoto and Loviisa, as well as from thefuture European pressurised water reactorplanned for 2011.

In 2001, virtually the entire Finnish parliamentendorsed the decision in principle to constructthe site, bringing to an end a debate that hadbegun in 1983. “The 1994 Nuclear Energy Actstipulates that all nuclear waste produced in

Finland shall be stored in the country. Thecompany Posiva, project manager of theworks, was created in 1995 jointly by TVO andFortum, the firms that manage Finland’s twoFinnish nuclear power stations. It is thereforethe industries producing the waste that financelong-term waste management, according tothe polluter-pays principle.”(1)

The basic principle for the permanent dis-posal of irradiated nuclear fuel is to isolate itfor an unbelievably long time: “When spentfuel leaves the power station, it is four milliontimes more radioactive than natural uranium.It only returns to the background level ofradioactivity after 250 000 years.” Safety willbe maintained entirely passively, withouthuman intervention. “The copper, bentoniteand uranium used for storage are naturallyoccurring materials; we know how they havebehaved for millions of years. It would beproblematic for us to integrate artificial titani-um structures, as it is still too soon to assesstheir safety.”

Advocates of this technology see it as a sortof return to nature. Since it is not possible topredict the evolution of human society so farahead, the odds are that the very existence ofthe site will be forgotten. In any case, theknowledge of its whereabouts will be pre-served for the first 350 years, during whichtime the radioactivity level will be monitoredfrom the Earth’s surface. Does this complywith the ethic of sustainability, which requiresthat the planet should be left clean for futuregenerations?

In any case, the Finnish initiative has createda precedent and is ahead of other more futur-istic solutions such as transmuting long-livedwaste into short-lived elements. This newalchemy will perhaps come to supplementanother type of transformation: convertingtoday’s waste into the fuel of tomorrow for thefourth-generation reactors that are expectedto spring up in the 21st century.

A.M.

(1) All quotes are from Tero Varjoranta.


NUCLEAR

Finland buries its wasteDoes the disposal of radioactive materials in geological formations really enable them to be stored safely for several hundred thousandyears? Two countries have taken the plunge: the United States, with its Yucca MountainRepository, and Finland, which is generally considered to be the world’s geological-storagepioneer.

The work currently under way to excavateFinland’s Onkalo underground storage facilitywill have reached a depth of 300 metres in 2008,that is to say, three-quarters of the planned depthfor the disposal of radioactive waste. The final studies on the safety of geological containmentwill then be conducted in situ before the facility is allowed to enter into operation.

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With one electron and one pro-ton, hydrogen is the simplestand most abundant chemicalelement in the Universe, of

which it is estimated to represent more than75% of the elemental mass. The Sun and mostof the stars are composed mainly of hydrogen.What is more, the energy emitted by thesestars comes from the thermonuclear fusion ofhydrogen. Traces of hydrogen, a colourless,odourless, tasteless diatomic gas with themolecular formula H2, can be found in theatmosphere. As it is highly reactive, it bondseasily with other elements to form compoundssuch as water, sugar, proteins and even hydro-carbons.

At present, H2 is used mainly by the petro-chemical industry to produce ammonia.However, in the future it is planned to usehydrogen as an energy carrier like electricity,with the enormous advantage that it is easierto store than electricity.

Cells come up trumps In a bid to escape the era of fossil energies,

especially in the transport sector, all eyes areturned to the electric car. However, conven-tional storage batteries have serious draw-backs. Apart from being rather bulky andhaving very limited autonomy, they tend to

age prematurely and their components arepolluting both to manufacture and recycle. In this impasse, hydrogen is opening up anew opportunity – the hydrogen fuel cell. Thefuel cell combines oxygen in the ambient airwith the hydrogen contained in a storage tankto produce electricity and heat, without emit-ting either greenhouse gases or noise, and theonly waste product is… a small amount ofwater. This ‘miracle’ is produced in the electro -

chemical cell, where two electrodes arebrought into contact with an ion-conductingmedium, the electrolyte.

The oxygen on the cathode attracts thehydrogen atoms on the anode. However, toreach the oxygen, the hydrogen atoms areforced to divide because the electrolyte blocksthe electrons. The electrons then travel throughan external circuit, generating a current, where-as the H+ ions cross the electrolyte


TRANSPORT

When will the hydrogen age arrive?Everywhere and yet nowhere, hydrogen abounds in theUniverse and in the media, where it promises to power thefuel cells of tomorrow’s cars. Hydrogen is highly reactive and virtually impossible to find on Earth in a molecularstate. However, since it can be isolated, stored and transported, hydrogen is set to become the number-one clean energy carrier of the future.

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Development of newcatalysts for fuel cells.

to join the oxygen. As this is a highlyexothermic reaction and yields an energy effi-ciency of up to 60% (compared with 20–30%for conventional combustion engines), it canbe envisaged for a range of highly attractiveapplications, especially cars.

The fuel cell concept was discovered byWilliam R. Grove in 1839 but lay in a drawergathering dust until the 1960s, when NASAretrieved it for the Gemini and Apollo spaceprogrammes. After that, the prospects for thefuel cell grew, and several cell variantsemerged, either using different types of elec-trolyte, different operating temperatures or‘fuels’ other than hydrogen (1). In the 1990s,the car industry released its first high-perfor-mance prototypes. Their proton exchangemembrane fuel cells (PEMFC) use a platinumcatalyst to reduce the reaction temperature tobetween 80°C and 100°C. At present, researchersare also investigating less expensive catalystmaterials.

However, numerous obstacles stand in theway of creating a real hydrogen fuel chain inthe transport sector: unlike oil, the ‘fuel’ infuel cells does not actually exist on the planet,and the reactivity of this volatile gas raisessafety issues for storage, transportation anddistribution.

Snags with hydrogen productionAt present, hydrogen is produced by its

main consumers – that is to say, oil refineriesand fertiliser factories. It is produced usingone of three techniques for decomposinghydrocarbon: steam reforming, partial oxida-tion and autothermal reforming. Steamreforming involves dissociating carbonaceousmolecules in the presence of steam and heat.Although steam reforming offers high energyefficiency of 40%, it is an endothermic tech-nique. Partial oxidation is a reaction from thecombustion of hydrocarbons. Although it hasthe advantage of being exothermic, partialoxidation produces less hydrogen. Autothermalreforming is a combination of the latter twotechniques: the heat released by partial oxida-tion is fed back into the steam-reformingprocess to enhance energy efficiency.

However, not only do these techniques relyon a dwindling supply of hydrocarbons, theyalso produce greenhouse gases. In order to setourselves on the path to clean and sustainable

transport systems, it is therefore crucial to usealternative hydrogen-production techniques.

Hydro-alternativeOne such alternative is hydrolysis – the

electrolysis of water. When the H2O moleculeis subjected to a direct electric current, its H and O components are isolated. The baseelements – water and electricity – are availablejust about everywhere, at least in industri-alised countries. However, it requires a lot ofelectricity to divide one of the world’s moststable molecules at ambient temperature. If theelectricity has to come from conventionalpower stations, the environmental advantageis lost. And, economically speaking, division isnot yet cost-effective enough compared withhydrocarbon-based reactions.

This makes high-temperature electrolysis(HTE) a more interesting alternative. At hightemperature, the heat provides part of theenergy required for the reaction, increasingenergy efficiency. HTE consumes less electricity

and presents real economic advantages, pro-vided that the heat comes from a naturalresource like the Sun.

The challenge of HydroSOLWould it be possible to produce hydrogen

without using electricity at all? This is the chal-lenge that European research has beenendeavouring to meet since 2002 with theHydroSOL project, which is 50% financed bythe European Commission. The project iscoordinated by the Laboratory of Aerosol andParticle Technology of the Chemical ProcessEngineering Research Institute at the Centre forResearch and Technology-Hellas (CPERI/CERTH)in Greece. Project researchers are developingan innovative thermochemical reactor thatproduces hydrogen using solar energy alone.HydroSOL was awarded the European UnionDescartes Prize for Research in 2007, as wellas the International Partnership for HydrogenEconomy (IPHE) inaugural 2006 TechnicalAchievement Award.


TRANSPORT

Grain of hydride (hydrogen sponge)seen under a scanning microscope,showing the fracturing of the intermetallic compound after

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Carbon nanohorns, forming structures 80–100 nm in diameter,which could offer a solution for the safe and efficient storage of hydrogen.

“The theoretical concept is very simple”, ex -plains Athanasios Konstandopoulos, HydroSOLcoordinator and director of CERTH. “Con -centrated solar radiation is used to heat waterand the resulting steam traverses the reactor,where the hydrogen and oxygen are separatedat high temperature by oxidation-reduction.The economic gains are enormous: the reagentsare inexpensive and the sunny regions suited tohosting the solar tower power plants for thisclean hydrogen-production met hod tend to beeconomically depressed areas.”

The reactor is a refractory-ceramic mono-lith capable of absorbing solar radiation andreaching a temperature of 1 100°C. The steamtravels through the reactor’s honeycomb struc-ture with its many tiny parallel channels. Eachchannel is coated with active nanoparticleswhich absorb and trap oxygen, leaving thehydrogen to continue on it way. In a secondphase, solar heat releases the oxygen from thenanomaterial to regenerate it, allowing a newcycle to commence.


TRANSPORT

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Solid oxide fuel cellsready for testing.Researchers have

succeeded in reducingtheir operating

temperature by 100 °C.

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Fuel cells in cities

In 2006, the first major experiment using hydrogen transport vehiclesended in success. The CUTE (Clean Urban Transport for Europe) project,in which nine European cities participated, involved running 27 buses

on fuel cells. More than half of the hydrogen contained in the cells wasproduced using renewable energy. More than 4 million passengers weretransported without a single incident and, more importantly, without anypolluting emissions.

The CUTE partners were surprised at the efficiency, life span andreliability of the cells and decided to extend the experiment withHyFLEET:CUTE. The new project involves 31 participants around theworld, including Iceland, Australia and China, and has been endowedwith a budget of €43 million (€19 million of which comes from theEuropean Commission) for operating some 47 hydrogen-powered buses.“Cooperation with other continents brings great benefits”, explains theproject’s coordinator, Monika Kentzler. “It enables us to test the designsunder a wide variety of conditions, whilst at the same time showcasingEuropean technology and know-how.”

HyFLEET:CUTE aims to develop not only hydrogen-powered vehicles,but also hydrogen-production and refuelling techniques. The citiesinvolved will each set up their own refuelling system. Other techniques arebeing tested too. For instance, Berlin is operating 14 internal-combustion-engine buses powered directly by hydrogen.

“The two technologies are close to being marketed”, assures MonikaKentzler. “Although production capacities are still too small to meet thepartners’ requirements, we expect to be able to satisfy them by 2015–20.A significant research effort is also required in the area of infrastructure,to ensure quick, easy and reliable refuelling. In addition, we must develop

renewable hydrogen-production methods, to reduce this new fuel’senvironmental and energy footprint to a minimum, whilst reducing thecosts of the hydrogen fuel chain as a whole.”

inserting hydrogen. Research is being conductedinto using this material for the hydrogen tank in fuel cells.

“In order to test the reactor, weintegrated it into a small pilot concentratedsolar power station”, explains AthanasiosKonstandopoulos. It was used to producehydrogen continuously in 40 cycles over thespace of two days. This successful project iscontinuing with HydroSOL-2, launched in 2005,again with European Commission funding. A 100 kW power station was inaugurated on 31 March 2008 on the site of the Almeria SolarPlatform in Spain. The project aims to cut pro-duction costs to arrive at a selling price of 6 euro cents/kWh. “After two years of research,we ought then to design, or even build, a 1 MW-capacity pilot power station, which is a scalethat is of interest to investors. We want tomass-produce hydrogen at a competitive pricein the next 5–10 years”, says the coordinator.

Storing H2

Problems of storage and transportation arealso holding back the introduction of hydro-gen fuel. 14 times lighter than air, weight forweight, hydrogen contains more than twicethe energy of natural gas and nearly threetimes that of oil. However, the memory of thefire that destroyed the Hindenburg zeppelinnear New York in 1937 serves to remind usthat this gas raises safety issues, being highlyflammable in the presence of oxygen.

Hydrogen can be compressed (250–700 bars)in gas bottles or underground tanks – the mostcommon form of storage. However, it requiresenergy to place gas under pressure and thestorage tanks needed are still too large.Although liquefaction (at a temperature of -253°C at atmospheric pressure) provides a solution to the volume problem of storinghydrogen, cryogenic techniques are also ener-gy-consuming and require highly insulatingstorage materials (a field where lighter com-posites are increasingly supplanting steel).

However, in the future, hydrogen couldwell be stored in a solid state: a hydride canbe made by filling the fractures in light metalalloys with hydrogen ions. Since this absorptionreaction is exothermic, the host material thenneeds to be heated to release the hydrogen.D.K. Ross, from the University of Salford (UK),is coordinating the European projectHyTRAIN (2), a research training network thatalso provides a multidisciplinary forum toidentify new candidate materials for hydrogen

storage, as well as methods of synthesisingthem. “Solid-state hydrogen storage would avoidthe risks of high-pressure storage, provided thatthe absorption/release reactions take place at anacceptable rate, which can be achieved at a moderate temperature”, explains Ross.

A Swiss–Norwegian team participating inthe HyTRAIN project recently discovered anunstable form of LiBH4, which could be a usefulcandidate for solid storage. “However, thesematerials are still very difficult to handle”, cau-tions D.K. Ross. “The HyTRAIN project is alsopaving the way for hybrid tank designs thatcombine the solid storage and pressurised gasmethods. The potential for solid hydrogen willbe enormous if hydrogen energy takes off.Nanostructured materials could be bulk storedfor use in refuelling stations, for example.”

When will the hydrogen economy arrive?A total of €470 million from the budget of

the European Union's Seventh FrameworkProgramme for 2007–13 (FP7) has been ear-marked for research into hydrogen and fuelcells. According to several estimates, this newclean-energy carrier will start to replace hydro-carbons in the transport sector and stationaryapplications as from 2020. By then, Europeexpects to be using hydrogen to cover 5% ofenergy requirements for its transport sector.This would appear to be a fairly modestobjective. Could implementation be speededup? 17 governments and the EuropeanCommission have been working in the IPHEsince 2003 to hasten the transition to the

hydrogen economy by coordinating invest-ments more effectively.

Hydrogen has the potential to meet ourenergy needs. However, the technology andinfrastructure needed to use hydrogen on amass scale will not be operational for severaldecades. And in an energy market that harbours powerful interests, it is not necessarilya top priority to develop hydrogen power.Mean while, combustion engines will keep onrunning…

Delphine d’Hoop

(1) A cell using methanol for fuel, the direct methanol fuel cell(DMFC), is likely to introduce fuel cells into everyday life,to power telephones, portable computers and multimediadevices. These cells avoid a number of problems associatedwith hydrogen fuel and are already performing five timesbetter than their lithium-ion counterparts.

(2) HYdrogen Storage Research TRAINing Network.


TRANSPORT

HydroSOL

4 partners – 4 countries (GR, DE, DK, UK)

www.certh.gr

HydroSOL-2

5 partners – 5 countries (ES, GR, DE, DK, UK)

http://www.certh.gr

HyTRAIN

17 partners, 11 countries (BE, CH, DE, ES, FR,

IT, LT, NW, PL, SE, UK)

www.salford.ac.uk

Other resources

h2euro.org/

hfpeurope.org

h2mobility.org

h2moves.eu

Electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution by cobalt complexes.

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What when the oil runs out?Could we live off the planet’s yield alone, instead of raiding its capital as we are now doing with fossilenergies? While the leading institutions are aimingto reassure, foreseeing a gradual process of changeto which our societies will slowly adapt, otherthinkers are sounding the alarm and predicting huge upheavals unless there is a radical break fromthe old ways.

There are some momentous questions to beanswered. Can agriculture produce energy while also feeding the entire planet? Can we just leavethings up to governments or should individuals get organised to deal with the new energy order?And what will be the role of research, which someaccuse of subservience to political ideology? Three questions, limitless answers…

Those who are relying on research torescue us from the oil age will haveto wait a while longer because, inthe short term, research could keep

us there. “The oil age is far from over”, warnsAntonio Pflüger, Head of the Energy TechnologyCollaboration Division of the InternationalEnergy Agency (IEA). “There are still numerouspotentially exploitable resources across theworld. R&D investments aimed at developingnew modes for extracting hydrocarbons andnew methods for generating them will mostlikely increase reserves over the comingdecades. Non-conventional oil deposits, suchas offshore wells in the Arctic Ocean that cannotbe exploited using current technology, or oilshales that still cost too much to convert intooil, will almost certainly provide reserves inthe near future.”

The IEA is also banking on improving energyefficiency. “This is a crucial strategy because itenables us to not only save resources but alsoreduce carbon dioxide emissions.”

These measures should allow us to put offan evil day for which Antonio Pflüger warnsus we must already start preparing, especiallyin the area of transport, which consumessome 60% of the world’s oil. “There is nodoubt that research on electric and hybrid cars

and on new fuels such as hydrogen and bio-mass heralds the future.”

Business as usual?However, not everybody agrees with the

IEA’s recommended R&D investment strategy.Some people are worried about concen-

trating too much research effort on as-yetunexploited fossil resources because thiswould only mean prolonging an already obso-lete model that does not allow our societies toescape their dependency on oil.

According to Hermann Scheer, Chairman ofthe World Council for Renewable Energy(WCRE) and of the Eurosolar association, con-tinuing to invest in fossil energies permanentlyundermines our prospects for a sustainablefuture. In his latest book, Hermann Scheerwarns that if we fail to go over to renewableenergies in the next two decades, we canexpect our world to be rocked by violent con-flicts over the control of resources. To shiftfrom one mode of energy to another, not onlymust we continue to develop renewable ener-gies, we must also end the need for fossil andnuclear energies. This means we have toembark on one type of energy while at thesame time quitting another. We therefore have tostop wasting thousands of billions on building

new thermal and nuclear power plants, whichwill only serve to entrench conventional energy-supply structures for decades to come.Renewable energies must be deployed bothqualitatively and quantitatively much faster thancurrent government programmes foresee –especially since most governments’ overall planand means of deployment will not even enablethem to achieve the stated objectives”(1).

As for energy efficiency measures, DavidStrahan, consultant for the Oil Depletion AnalysisCentre (ODAC) and journalist specialising inpeak oil issues, doubts that they will lead to realsavings in oil. “We have been investing in energyefficiency since the first oil crisis in 1974.However, these improvements have servedonly to cut the cost of energy, which in theend has led to increased consumption. It is nouse improving efficiency if we do not adopt a parallel strategy of rationalising energy use.”

Carrie Pottinger, IEA Energy TechnologyCoordinator, accepts this argument, addingthat there is no single solution for supplyingenergy. “The key issue is not what will be thepredominant energy source. The real issue atstake is whether governments are prepared toimplement appropriate policies to allowreplacement solutions to become cost-effectiveand be deployed on a large scale. Such solu-tions should play a key role in our energymarkets right now if we are to avoid supplyproblems in the future. Judging by current oilprice rises and the way certain geopoliticalissues are evolving, it is a future that might becloser than any of us suppose.”

Independence at stakeHow, then, should we direct the research

that will shape tomorrow’s innovations? Vitalissues are at stake, because peak oil could welltrigger an economic crisis of unprecedentedproportions. Such a crisis, compounded by theexpected impact of global warming, couldwell form an explosive social cocktail. Canscience therefore support the politicians’R&D investment strategy by developing


ENERGY REVOLUTION

Star billing for scienceAs it is an innovation creator, science is bound to play a key role in the comingenergy revolution. It has gradually takenon an advisory position in the politicalworld, a trend reflected by theIntergovernmental Panel on ClimateChange (IPCC), which has increasinglycome to be considered – by the media at least – as the leading authority on the matter.

future scenarios that would help us to take theright decisions?

In any event, the rise of the IPCC in recentyears seems to have led the scientific world togradually adopt a political advisory role. It issomething that IPCC Chairman, RajendraPachauri, welcomes. “The fact that the world’sleaders and opinion-makers have been so pro-foundly influenced by the IPCC conclusions is,in my view, a tremendous advance, whichcould be adopted in all political spheres. Weare now entering a knowledge age. If we real-ly wish to develop the world sustainably, thenknowledge must guide efforts to this end.”

As for the independence of science – sodear to researchers precisely because it guar-antees their credibility – the IPCC Chairman isreassuring. “Knowledge cannot be controlledor geared to the wishes of the public authori-ties. We must do our utmost to prevent politicsfrom interfering with scientific results. Our

duty is precisely to disseminate all scientificallyestablished knowledge to the public. It is a dutythat I heartily endorse.”

Although the IPCC brings together theviews of many researchers whom it is hard toimagine all subscribing to a common ideology,the fact remains that their conclusions (whichhave been ‘re-examined’ by decision-makers)are based on a compromise, which is normallymore the reserve of cabinets than of labo -ratories. And since the media quickly turnsa compromise into consensus, then into fact,it is more difficult for some people’s reserva-tions to receive media coverage, particularlythose who contest the human-induced originof global warming. Of course these globalwarming sceptics – who have even beendescribed as revisionists – often discredit theirown case with their aggressive rhetoric denoun -cing a widespread environmentalist plot, or theirinvolvement with politicians – a White House

special adviser here, a scientist-cum-ministerthere. But if a serious scientist were investi-gating an alternative origin for global warming(such as the action of the Sun), could theyreceive funding for their research in the currentcontext? Let’s hope that humans are indeedthe culprits, if all investigations are beingfocused entirely in this direction.

The IPCC could herald a fundamentalchange in the role of science in the comingcentury, especially in its relations with politi-cians and with civil society, mainly throughthe media where its voice is increasinglyimportant but rarely challenged. More thanever, this calls for caution and critical thinking.

Jean-Pierre Geets, Julie Van Rossom

(1) Hermann SCHEER, Energy autonomy: the economic, social and technological case for renewable energy,Earthscan/James & James, 2007.


ENERGY REVOLUTION

“In the West, approximately 10 calo-ries of hydrocarbons are requiredto produce one calorie of food. Inshort, we convert oil into food via

the Earth. It is as though we were eating oil”,says David Strahan(1) wryly.

The green revolution that began in the 1940shas significantly increased the world’s agricul-tural yield through the introduction of newintensive production techniques. These havetriggered unprecedented demographic growth,doubling the world’s population over the pastfive decades. It is a situation that bodes ill forworld food security in the years following peakoil. Indeed, without oil, not only would it beimpossible to run farming machinery or totransport products or raw materials, worse still,it would also be impossible to synthesise agri-cultural inputs from the petrochemical industry(fertilisers, herbicides and pesticides).

“Under these circumstances, the EuropeanUnion’s biofuel policy is totally idiotic andcounter-productive”, exclaims Strahan. Althoughan oil shortage would jeopardise the world’saccess to the vital resource of food, our politi-cians are planning to deprive the food industryof a portion of agricultural production in

favour of transport. What is more, this wouldachieve rather mixed results: “Based on IEAstatistics published in 2004, 20% of Europe’scultivable area would need to be given over tobiofuel crops to produce barely 5% of our fuelneeds. Even if we were to devote all our agri-cultural land to biofuel production, this wouldallow us to satisfy only 25% of our transportneeds and we would starve in the process.”

Back to basicsGiving over a portion of Europe’s farmland

to biofuels could compound an already criti-cal problem: how to feed ourselves withoutthe aid of petrochemicals. Using tried and testedancestral farming methods, without inputs andwithout agricultural machinery, in short, with-out a single drop of oil? “In fact, the only meansfor ensuring world food security without oilmay well be organic farming”, says DavidStrahan. “However, such a transition raises afundamental question: can the current yieldbe maintained?” Some people believe that,although organic farming would produce a lowyield in the initial years, in the long term it couldachieve the same yield as intensive farming.“That being so, it does make me wonder why


ENERGY REVOLUTION

In a world withouthydrocarbons, it is possible to imagineno longer taking a plane, abandoning the car, forgettingabout synthetic clothingand using wood forheating. But could we stop eating?

End of oil

our farmers spend so much money on pesticides,fertilisers and energy for driving machinery.”

In spite of his doubts, David Strahan is opti-mistic. “Solutions already exist, especially forproducing locally the energy needed to runbasic agricultural machinery. For example, wecould use biogas (methane) generated by fer-menting farm waste, or else batteries chargedby wind or solar energy. However, even iforganic farming were to provide an equivalentyield, transporting farm produce to the con-sumer’s plate remains a crucial problem. Thismeans that the farming of the future will morethan likely be locally-based.”

Homo energetisVandana Shiva, symbolic figurehead of the

alterglobalisation movement and Director ofNavdanya and India’s Research Foundation forScience, Technology and Ecology, goes a stepfurther. She advocates quite simply returning toancestral farming techniques. She placesphysical labour (animal but especially human)at the top of the green energy list. “State sub-sidies really must promote a return to tradi-tional agriculture to put a stop not only todependence on long-distance food supply

chains, which are far too costly energy-wise,but also to the disastrous consequences ofindustrial farming on the climate. Industrialfarming and the accompanying food trade areresponsible for 25% of the world’s carbondioxide emissions”, explains Shiva. “The trueenergy of the future is human energy.”

That is, provided that human energy isavailable. “People would probably start mov-ing back into rural areas because of therenewed need for labour”, believes DavidStrahan. “However, this will not signal the endof cities. They are too highly populated.Transferring the entire urban population tothe countryside would destroy the countrywholesale. City-dwellers will most probablystart growing food in their gardens or onrooftops to offset soaring world food costs. Inmy view, this will be a spontaneous move-ment: city-dwellers will take matters into theirown hands to counter the food crisisunleashed by peak oil. One thing is certain,urban food will need to be produced in oraround the city simply to save energy.”

J.P.G., J.V.R.(1) David Strahan, investigative journalist and author

of “The Last Oil Shock: A Survival Guide to the ImminentExtinction of Petroleum Man”.

“We have reached a human-induced impasse”, ex -plains David Wasdell,international coordinator

of the Meridian programme and IPCC report-reviser specialising in the dynamics of climatechange. “On the one hand, the age of unlimitedenergy is coming to an end. Demand isincreasing while energy sources are becomingdepleted and oil-extraction methods areincreasingly costly. On the other hand, we areemitting too much CO2, precisely because wefavour hydrocarbons as our main energysource. It is high time to acknowledge the truenature of hydrocarbons. They are toxic and haveno future, so we should no longer considerthem as a limited resource to be shared, but asa real threat to humanity.”

Heading for disasterSo what if the price of energy increases?

Is that so worrying? “Perhaps one day wewill look back nostalgically to the time wepaid US$100 a barrel, because the price is verylikely to rise to US$200”, predicts DavidStrahan. He believes that soaring petrolprices could trigger a drastic rise in all prices,

followed by job losses, a collapse in buyingpower and stagnant production. This wouldplunge the economy into an extremely dark age.

But surely ‘the market’ is there to regulateprices, say some? “Ultimately demand can onlydecrease because nobody will be able toafford to buy oil, which will cause prices tofall. But it will probably be too late by thenbecause massive job losses are likely to be ofmuch more concern to civil society than petrolprices. We must stop fixating on the oil priceand concentrate instead on the consequencesof its total depletion”, warns Strahan. In hisview, a scarcity of oil is likely to cause a totalcollapse of our economy, so much has thisresource seeped into every aspect of humanactivity, including trade, industrial productionand even the travel of individuals to and fromtheir places of work. “Oil is rooted so deeplyin our societies that an oil shortage will triggera serious recession.”

Structural myopiaWill our leaders be able to anticipate this

threat and prepare the ground for a smoothtransition to a hydrocarbon-free society?The IEA is pragmatic. “There are


ENERGY REVOLUTION

Tomorrow is another day We know that our leaders are struggling to set in place effective preparatory measures today to pave the way for the energy transition of tomorrow. But what if they don’t succeed?

three prerequisites for catalysing inno-vation nationally”, says Carrie Pottinger (1).“The first is a robust academic environment.The second is increased transfer of R&Dresults from academia to the private sector.Financing specifically targeted research willspeed up the technological breakthroughsneeded for innovations to emerge. The thirdprerequisite is a clear and consistent long-term government policy.” The length of timerequired for catalysing innovation extendsconsiderably beyond the pro tempore mandateof our political leaders. “Which poses a realchallenge, given the nature of our democraciesas well as changing priorities and people”,adds Carrie Pottinger.

Perhaps, by their very nature, our democraciestake too short-term a view to grasp such long-term issues. Some people believe that the verybasis of the democratic system hinders theintroduction of coherent measures. “Politiciansare incapable of really adopting an effectivelong-term view. This stems chiefly from thenature of the electoral system itself”, believesSimon Cooper, founder member of TheConverging World, a British association thatfunds green energy projects in developingcountries. “No politician would jeopardise theirre-election prospects by imposing unpopularmeasures. As long-term action is hardly enticing,the public authorities systematically focus onshort-term issues.”

This is something that even some politi-cians acknowledge. “Problems such as peakoil and global warming, which require a planned response over the very long term,frighten leaders so much that they do notknow how to react”, says Jonathan Porritt,Chairman of the United Kingdom’s SustainableDevelopment Commission. “Politicians will onlytake action if there is a crisis, if the supply ofoil suddenly shrinks and triggers a spectacularprice rise.”

According to some, such an economic implo-sion could awaken collective awareness andtrigger a radical change to a more sustainablelifestyle. “I think that this is a bit of a simplisticargument”, replies Strahan, “because, apart fromoil, there is still gas and coal, the consumptionof which will increase and, with it, greenhousegas emissions, which will compound the prob-lem. And if peak oil were to precipitate theanticipated economic crash, then capital and

be enough? Jonathan Porritt has his doubts.“In my view, the social movements emergingat local level can have only a very marginalinfluence.” Strahan concedes that the comingsituation is rather worrying. “But I am never-theless hoping that peak oil will engendersocial movements at local level to enable peopleto take their future in their own hands incooperation with their neighbours.”

One thing is certain: peak oil and, in thelonger term, global warming will radically alterthe face of our world. It is up to us to prepare forthis unprecedented transition as best we can.This is how David Wasdell summarises the situa-tion: “Two caterpillars on a cabbage leaf see abutterfly pass by. One of the caterpillars says tothe other: you’ll never catch me on one of thosethings! I believe that the world of tomorrow willbe as different from our own as caterpillars arefrom butterflies.”

J.P.G., J.V.R.

(1) Carrie Pottinger, Energy Technology Coordinator, IEA Energy Technology Collaboration Division.


ENERGY REVOLUTION

Public Consultation of the European

Commission’s Directorate-General for

Energy and Transport

ec.europa.eu/energy/

wealth would shrink before our very eyes.Where, then, would we find the necessaryinvestment to build all the new energy infra-structure that we would need?”

Resourcefulness? Such a state of affairs could undermine

democracy itself. “From the macroeconomicstandpoint, I do not think that peak oil is ben-eficial for the democratic system. In fact thedemocratic system is a poor framework for thechanges needed to counter the effects of thiscrisis, which explains the failure of all policieson the matter. A whole array of scenarios cantherefore be envisaged, from greater local-community activism to the emergence of a formof authoritarianism within central government.One could even imagine a combination of thetwo”.

Will the solution come from civil society, then?According to Simon Cooper, “political action isnot enough; only individual initiatives agreedand promoted at community level will engenderreal solutions.” For example, his association isable to finance its projects in developingcountries with financial support from privatecompanies in rich countries. Cooper believesthat only individual action is capable of bridgingthe gaps in political decision-making. Will it


TO FIND OUT MORE

PUBLICATIONSInternational Energy Agency (IEA)www.iea.org/journalists/index.asp Made up entirely of OECD members,the IEA was created following the 1973oil crisis. Now the mandate of the IEA’s190 officials is to balance energy policy-making worldwide by means of the ‘three E’s’: energy security, economic development and environmental protection.

World News Network: Renewable Energywww.renewableenergy.comThe renewable energy section ofWorld News Network, a news websitesupplied by a host of news media and agencies, provides all the latestinformation on the renewable energysector.

Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas (ASPO)www.peakoil.netThis informal network of scientistswas created by Colin J. Campbell, the famous geologist and expert onpeak-oil issues. ASPO International is an organisation of many differentnational ASPO organisations. Its aimis to express independent views in a bid to determine the date andimpact of the peak and decline of the world’s oil and gas production.

European Wind EnergyAssociation (EWEA)www.ewea.org The European Wind Energy Associationis a non-profit non-governmentalorganisation made up of nationalassociations and wind-energy companies. Its aim is to promotewind energy among the general public and decision-makers.

International Partnership for the Hydrogen Economy (IPHE)www.iphe.netThe IPHE was created in 2003 and has 17 members, including the

The post-oil era for the uninitiated

La face cachée du pétroleÉric Laurent – Plon (2006). How long will it be before the world’soil reserves start running out? Éric Laurent has scoured the worldfrom Saudi Arabia to China to theUnited States seeking answers to this tricky question. His book dissectsthe host of geopolitical issues surrounding black gold, from the1973 oil crisis to the collapse of theUSSR to the 11 September 2001attacks and America’s invasion of Iraq.

Energy Autonomy: the economic,social and technological case for renewable energyHermann Scheer – Earthscan/James& James, ISBN 1-84407 (2006)Hermann Scheer, German MP andChairman of the World Council for Renewable Energy, explains howthe world could achieve energy self-sufficiency.

L’énergie à l’heure des choixPierre Papon – Belin (2007) This exhaustive analysis of the potential of the major non-hydrocarbon energy sectors critically appraises technology scenarios up to the year 2050.

Oil crisisColin J. Campbell – Multi SciencePublishing (2005)After demonstrating, more than adecade ago, that the oil crisis wasimminent (Coming Oil Crisis, 1997),controversial geologist, C.J. Campbell,is back on the attack, proving thatthis much-feared crisis has indeedarrived and that the world will behard-pressed to cope with its historicimpact. The only hope is renewableenergy, especially hydrogen.

Towards a post-carbon societyEuropean Commission (2007)European research on economicincentives and social behaviour. This publication reports on the resultsand conclusions of a conference heldin Brussels on 24 October 2007,which was attended by more than500 stakeholders from the public and private sectors. ec.europa.eu/research/social-sciences/pdf/towards_post_carbon_society_en.pdf

Energy for the experts

World Energy Outlook 2007 –China and India InsightsIEA (2007)www.worldenergyoutlook.orgEvery year, World Energy Outlook, the International Energy Agency’sflagship publication, extensivelyanalyses medium- and long-termprospects for the world energy market. The 2007 edition undertakesan exhaustive review of the emergingmarkets of China and India. What impact will their energy choiceshave on the rest of the world?

World Energy TechnologyOutlook 2050 (WETO H2)Directorate-General for Research,European Commission (2006)ec.europa.eu/research/energy/pdf/weto-h2_en.pdfThis European study conducts a detailed analysis of the world’senergy and environmental challengesin the coming 40 years. Based on twodifferent scenarios developed usingthe POLES simulator, WETO H2examines the long-term impact of investment in new energy sources and of measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

European Union and the UnitedStates. Its aim is to hasten the emergence of the hydrogen societyby means of hydrogen-technologyresearch, demonstrations and commercialisation.

Directorate-General for Energy and Transporthttp://ec.europa.eu/dgs/energy_transport/index_en.htmlWhat European legislation exists onenergy? What research is theEuropean Union funding? All theanswers can be found on the websiteof the European Commission’sDirectorate-General for Energy andTransport, together with a mine ofother energy-related information.

Solar Electric Power Associationwww.solarelectricpower.orgAll you need to know about the production of electricity from solarenergy. This site is packed with information on photovoltaics andconcentrated solar thermal energy.

World Council for Renewable Energy (WCRE)www.wcre.de/enIn spite of widespread public supportfor renewable energies, current levelsof investment and interest in fossilfuels and nuclear energy are a majorbarrier to their introduction. This wasthe reason for creating the WCRE in 2001 as an international lobbyorganisation for green energies.

EIA Kid’s Pagewww.eia.doe.gov/kids/energyfacts/Where does oil come from? What aregeothermics? How is electricity produced? The Kid’s Page site of theUnited States Government EnergyInformation Administration (EIA) ispacked with energy-related quizzes,games and information sheets.Although it is aimed at children andteachers, it is sure to be of interest toa wider public too. In English only.

WEBSITES

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The Realmonte salt mine in Sicily, Italy. The sodium chloride

(rock salt) appears as white layers and the potassium salts as beige.

These vertical layers were formed at the time of the Messinian Salinity

Crisis – a geological event that occurred around five million years ago

during the late Miocene Epoch, when the Strait of Gibraltar was

temporarily closed, causing the Mediterranean Sea to dry up.

These layers give us an idea of the diapiric traps of the same age buried

within the Earth’s mantle (domes or anticlinal folds in which the dense

overlying rocks have been ruptured by the squeezing out of less dense,

plastic salt rock). Salt diapirs are a type of geological formation that

can trap large concentrations of hydrocarbons (oil or gas).

Oil traps

researcheu - ani

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