Global Energy and HSE ISSEK Foresight Centre: key energy technologies 2040
Winners of the international Global Energy Prize and members of the GEP International Award Committee identified key products and technologies whose development and commercialisation would facilitate intensive growth of global energy industry. That was accomplished in the course of a Foresight session with participation of HSE ISSEK Foresight Centre experts, held a day before the GEP award ceremony.
“Foresight is not about trying to guess or predict the future. It’s about shaping it using advanced analytical tools, and involving key experts in the process”, noted Alexander Chulok, deputy director of the HSE ISSEK Foresight Centre. “We come well-prepared to this Foresight session with leading world authorities in the energy field: we’ve analysed hundreds of international Foresight studies, took into account results of the Russian S&T Foresight 2030 approved by the Russian Prime Minister, drafted an extended list of prospective technologies based on this data, and together with our colleagues did our “homework”. So in the little time we had, we were able to place key accents and identify S&T development areas which would be particularly important to the global energy industry in the next 20-30 years”.
According to the experts, the planet’s population keeps growing; energy consumption also grows, mostly in developed nations (US and Europe) and emerging countries (China, India). In 2015 1.2 billion people in the world didn’t have access to electricity, and 2.6 billion – to “green” fuel sources for cooking. By 2030 the share of rural population without access to electricity will be six times larger than in urban areas. Accordingly, one of the UN sustainable development goals is to provide universal access to inexpensive, reliable, and advanced energy services by 2030.
“Initiatives aimed at increasing energy efficiency in developed and developing countries will help to contain energy consumption growth in the world. However, we must not forget about the need to solve the “energy famine” problem, and do so with a minimum damage to the environment. This is the challenge and the objective the humankind has to meet, among other things with the help of new energy technologies”, noted Rodney John Allam, Nobel Prize laureate and head of the Committee.
According to the International Award Committee members, another equally important challenge is climate change, consequences of which are already evident in certain countries and regions: droughts, floods, and other extreme weather phenomena. To reduce consequences of these irreversible changes, many countries adopt adjustment plans, while the global community is trying to find solutions based on reducing atmospheric emissions of hothouse gases.
According to the experts, the most promising solutions for meeting the above challenges include decentralising the energy industry, eliminating unnecessary middlemen between producers and consumers, and stepping up competition in the sector. Energy consumers – households and industrial companies – would play an increasingly active role in shaping the energy industry of the future, setting specific requirements and limitations. Distributed energy generation from renewable sources is going to develop (sun, wind, etc., or their combinations), for consumption by households (townships), farms, or production facilities. The costs of such technologies will keep dropping while their accessibility will increase, so they may turn out to be instrumental for supplying electricity in remote areas.
Decentralised “smart” systems for balancing demand for and supply of different kinds of energy (heat, gas, electricity) allow to integrate all municipal systems and reduce the costs of relevant services, while making them more efficient and convenient.
“In the next 15-20 years the biggest breakthrough will happen not so much in energy production and consumption technologies as in managing and combining them. I’m talking about innovative management and control systems, in line with the so-called Industrial Revolution 4.0”, noted Tatiana Mitrova, member of the GEP International Award Committee and head of the Russian and Global Oil and Gas Complex section at the RAS Energy Research Institute.
Among key products and technologies the GEP laureates and International Award Committee members also noted innovative electricity conductive and insulating materials which allow to transmit energy at large distances with low losses.
Inexpensive and high-capacity electric car batteries which would reduce the cars’ costs and contribute to accelerated replacement of conventional internal combustion engine cars also came to the experts’ attention.
According to the Global Energy experts, another prospective technology development area is hydrogen energy and fuel cells, provided hydrogen production costs will be reduced and relevant infrastructure put in place.
Nuclear energy technologies including nuclear fusion may keep their position in the future if the costs and environmental damage are reduced, and safety increased. The experts believed modular low-power reactors will be in demand.
“Last year we started working together with leading Russian long-term Foresight experts from the HSE ISSEK Foresight Centre, and conducted the first Foresight session during the meeting of the Global Energy Prize International Award Committee. The objective was to make a forecast of the global fuel-and-energy balance until 2050. Following the session we decided to make Foresight studies a part of the Global Energy. Our experts will continue to participate in the Foresight study of the global energy industry, remotely”, concluded Igor Lobovsky, president of the Global Energy Non-Profit Partnership.
About the Global Energy International Energy Prize
The Global Energy Prize is an independent international award for outstanding research and S&T development in the field of energy, contributing to efficient utilisation of energy resources and environmental safety on Earth, for the benefit of all humankind.
The prize was established in 2002. Annual prize fund is 33 million roubles. Traditionally the prize is presented each year at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum by the President of the Russian Federation. Since 2003 the prize was awarded to 31 outstanding scientists from the UK, Germany, Iceland, Canada, Russia, the USA, France, Ukraine, Japan, and Sweden.
In 2016 the prize was awarded to the Russian scientist Valentin Parmon, academic advisor of the SB RAS Institute of Catalysis, “For a breakthrough development of new catalysts in the area of petroleum refining and the renewable sources of energy as a principal contribution into the energy of the future”. In 1995-2015 Valentin Parmon headed this institute.