European Energy Futures 2030: Technology and Social Visions from the European Energy Delphi Survey

ISBN-13: 9783642088667 / Angielski / Miękka / 2010 / 232 str.

Timon Wehnert; Juan Pedro Lopez Araguas; Oliviero Bernardini

Opis

Foresight is a vital prerequisite in order to bring our current energy system onto the path of sustainable development. Which technologies may be available in 25 years from now? Which technologies will be needed in the future? The European Energy Delphi project EurEnDel aimed at bri- ing orienting knowledge to these two questions. Trying to show a glimpse of European Energy Futures in the year 2030. This book contains the main results of the EurEnDel project. It includes the findings of the European Energy Delphi survey and the resulting recommendations for R&D policy. In comparison to other industry sectors, energy has two very remarkable features: For one, transformations are very slow. Life-times of power plants are 30 years and longer. Thus the decisions we take today will still have impacts 30 to 50 years from now which makes sound foresight so important. On the other hand, the energy system is strongly dependent on national political decisions. Priority setting may change quite drastically with new parties coming to power, at least for individual country. This is one of the reasons, why predictions in the energy field can be extremely difficult. Combining these two characteristics it becomes evident why foresight in the energy field must not be restricted to an analysis of what the future could be like, but must always assess what the future should be like. This book tries to weave together these two traces which were inh- ent in the EurEnDel project."

Spis treści

Outline of the Report.- Methodological Approach of EurEnDel.- Main Survey Results.- Comparison of Social and Technological Perspectives.- EurEnDel Scenarios.- Policy Recommendations.- References.- Annex A — Evaluation of former foresight studies.- Annex B — Tables with Results from 1st and 2nd Survey Round.- Annex C — Country Specific Analysis.- Annex D — Correspondence Factors.- Annex E — Graphs on Delphi results.- Annex F — Description of Societal Visions.- Annex G — Evaluation of Comments.- Annex H — Statement list — short term descriptions.

O autorze

Timon Wehnert graduated as physicist from Berlin Technical University and gained six years of professional experience in research and consultancy on energy and environmental topics, especially on energy technology foresight and energy research policy. Presently he is working as a researcher at the Institute for Futures Studies and Technology Assessment (IZT), Berlin, Germany where he was the coordinator of the EurEnDel study on which the present book is based and which was carried out in co-operation with four other European Research Institutions.

Blurb

The book summarizes the results of the first Europe-wide Delphi study on future developments in the energy sector. With a time horizon of 2030, this expert survey not only provides a useful perspective on long-term developments of energy technologies, but also evaluates these technologies against different sets of social values or "visions".

In the comprehensive analysis following the Delphi survey itself, special attention was given to faithfully translating the trends and needs identified by the survey participants into recommendations for R&D and energy policies. In this respect the EurEnDel findings provide a twofold contribution to the analysis of Europe's energy policies:

- They corroborate the conflicting attitudes and paradigms prevalent among energy experts, with valuable new dimensions for the on going energy debate;
- They offer genuine new insight on energy issues, with added value for decision makers.