Several years ago we started to develop a World Energy Forum under The Commons as a place for people and groups around the

Click to World Energy Futures Forum                   (in process)

planet to share ideas, information and, when needed, peer support for energy innovations and demonstrations with strong sustainability potential. That site was until recently neglected, but in the last weeks has been revived in the wake of the considerable enthusiasm and level of participation and interest before and in the wake of the World Energy Technologies Summit that was convened in Paris from 10-11 February 2004

This page highlights one of the most interesting and from a hard policy perspective I think useful of a cycle of energy projects that I have been involved with over the years. My work in the

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energy field over the years has followed a basic pattern: I have never worked alone as a specialist 'energy expert' but rather have participated, usually as a senior team member and author, in team projects, all of which involve peering into the future in an attempt to find some kind of handle for public policy or private business purposes. Likewise all these projects looked hard at the potential for technology change in the sector and its prospects for the future, and in parallel systematically scrutinized the whole issue of pricing and the economics of our energy system. This last has been a consistent theme since it turns out that energy pricing holds one of the keys to a better, a more sustainable energy future.

In addition to the important European Commission policy project selected for highlighting here, I have variously directed or been involved in survey and analysis of the performance,

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advantages/downsides and prospects of alternative motors (Sterling Cycle, Rankin Cycle, inertial energy systems, electric, hydrogen, adaptations of ICEs, hybrids, combined cycles, multi-fuel engines, etc.), and of alternative fuels/sources (pretty much the full range, with heavy emphasis generally on policies to support renewables), in both mobile and fixed installations. I also have participated in global sector policy reviews for the OECD's Environment Unit and with the Ministry of Energy of Argentina (Long Term Energy Plan for Argentina, 1985, contributor). In all cases, my role was essentially that of a supporting generalist, broadly able to follow the technology and modelling aspects, but primarily responsible in the earliest stages for the process design underlying the research project. In addition I contributed ongoing critical reviews and fine-tuning recommendations as the project advanced, and in the final stages to the global analysis and writing of the working documents and final reports (always in close working partnership with the technical teams and main project leaders).

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  Choosing Europe's Energy Future

This project came out of my long term collaboration work with a team headed by Dr. Hans Holger Rogner, formerly Head of the Energy Department of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Laxenburg Austria, and today Head of the Planning and Economic Studies of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna (IAEA). It was an important piece of analytic and policy work for the European Commission, and if you have the time to peruse it more than a decade later, you will I am confident find that many of its points are as germane in 2004 as they were in the opening years of the nineties (and just about as unaddressed).

More than a decade later, it is not that easy to recall how a piece of work as important as this was actually produced.

Report Objectives & Methodology

What I do recall clearly is that Hans-Holger Rogner and his modelling team from IIASA did all of the hard technical work, and at its core the complex modelling analysis. I say complex not so much because of the choice of models and their significant tailoring for our purposes, coming up with the data to feed it, and then the oversight, modification, reruns and ultimately the careful jiggling of the results to ensure that we had a truthful unbiased view of the futures that we had set out to investigate. Our cross check for bias and eventual producing of the final results resided in the fact that we made this as open a process as we could, leaving everything ex-licit and checkable. The model itself was made available to the European Commission for their internal verification and reworking processes for their own uses.

The project was regarded as a major contrition at the time, and the Commission gave the final report high publicity at the time of the policy discussions at that important time with the Wall coming down and a new Europe fast emerging.

My contribution was primarily as four levels. First at that of the intitial structuring and negotiation of the report and the international collaborative, open research and analytic process behind it, in close cooperation with my coauthor, Holger Rogner and Kevin Leydon (who was the Commission's leading coordinator in their overall energy program and the person behind this project). Second, in accompanying the modeling team through the entire process, giving them an independent critical eye and feedback on assumptions and the various results of

Click here for Full EC Report

Click for Executive Summary

the model runs. Then in the drafting of the report and the various accompanying working papers (always in close collaboration with H-H Rogner). And finally in the process of interim review, adjustment and turnover of the final report to the client group.

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  Future Projects and Senior Colleagues

I intend to do more work in the energy field , and am presently brainstorming with a select group of real experts in the field about possible next steps and new project collaboration. Contact information on a small handful of my long term partners in my work and contributions in this field follows.

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Subsequent to the considerable enthusiasm and level of participation and interest before and in the wake of the World Energy Technologies Summit that was convened in Paris from 10-11 February 2004, the decision has been taken to start today to update and extend this website, at least in part to offer an intermediate tool of information gathering, presentation and discussion in the months immediately ahead.

Click to go to World Energy Futures Forum

We will be continuing our work on this site in the months ahead and as a first step are beginning by loading in a certain number of documents and reports to the Public Library here. In addition we intend to gradual develop the collection of linked sites and programs, which you can already begin to see if you click the "Links & Media" hotlink just to your left. Finally, we invite you to go to the Group Calendar and pop in your events and key dates so that all can see and benefit from. Back to top

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