Energy

The Pacific Alliance–an innovative pact among Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru–has unprecedented opportunity to capitalize on political changes in Brazil and Argentina and move the region into a new era of regional integration. A new publication by the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center and the Bertelsmann Foundation, released just weeks ahead of the Alliance’s Sixth Presidential Summit in Chile, says that now is the moment for the Alliance to deepen engagement with Mercosur and build on efforts to strengthen financial market, energy, trade, and foreign policy coordination.

Questions about the reliability, affordability and sustainability of our energy future often boil down to questions about investment. But are investors ready to commit capital in a fast-changing energy world? This special report in the World Energy Outlook series takes up this question in a full and comprehensive update of the energy investment picture to 2035 – a first full update since the 2003 World Energy Investment Outlook. With benchmark data on past investment trends and updated projections for investment at regional and global level, the report provides insights into:
- The structure of ownership and models for financing investment in different parts of the energy sector.
- The continued importance of oil investment in the Middle East to meet demand, and the consequences of delay in such investment.
- The dynamics and costs of LNG investment and how this can shape the future of global gas supply.
- Where investment in the power sector might fall short of what is required, with important findings on the reliability of electricity supply in Europe and in India.
- The outlook for investment in low-carbon technologies, including renewables, and energy efficiency and the barriers to their realisation.
- How global investment and financing requirements change if governments take stronger action to address climate change.

On August 3, 2015, the Environmental Protection Agency released the final Clean Power Plan (CPP), a regulatory action under the Clean Air Act that establishes guidelines for states to limit carbon dioxide emissions from existing power-generation units. The plan differs in a number of important ways from a draft version released in June 2014. This research note, the first in a series on the final CPP from CSIS and Rhodium Group, outlines the key changes between the draft and final rules and analyzes the impact of those changes in terms of stringency—that is, the emission reductions required by the rule.

The Atlantic Council’s 2012 report Envisioning 2030: US Strategy in a Post-Western World, written as a companion piece with the US National Intelligence Council’s Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds, stated, “the keystone of national power remains US economic strength and innovation.” Building upon this statement, this year’s Envisioning 2030: US Strategy for the Coming Technology Revolution, edited by Strategic Foresight Initiative Director Mathew J. Burrows, explores the consequences of major disruptions that will be caused by emerging technologies and recommends that the United States must prepare now if it wants to remain competitive on the global stage.

The World Energy Technology Outlook report (WETO-H2) provides a coherent framework to analyse the drivers and constraints in world energy to 2050, energy development and CO2 emissions. WETO-H2 presents three different scenarios for the future world energy system up to 2050: the Reference case, the Carbon constraint case and the Hydrogen case. The report highlights the main future energy, environmental and technological challenges that Europe will have to face in order to stay competitive while promoting new clean energy technologies.

The world energy, technology and climate policy outlook (WETO) positions Europe in a global context. It provides a coherent framework to analyse the energy, technology and environment trends and issues over the period from now to 2030. In this way, it supports long-term European policy-making particularly considering the questions related to (1) the security of energy supply; (2) the European research area; (3) Kyoto targets and beyond. Using the POLES energy model and starting from a set of clear key assumptions on economic activity, population and hydrocarbon resources, WETO describes in detail the evolution of world and European energy systems, taking into account the impacts of climate change policies. The reference scenario encompasses international energy prices, primary fuel supply (oil, gas and coal), energy demand (global, regional and sectoral), power generation technologies and carbon dioxide emissions trends. To face uncertainties, WETO presents alternative scenarios corresponding to different assumptions on availability of oil and gas resources (low/high cases) and on technological progress (gas, coal, nuclear and renewable cases). Two major policy issues are addressed: (1) the outlook of the European Union gas market in a world perspective (impressive growth in gas demand and increasing dependence on energy imports); (2) the impacts of greenhouse gas emission reduction policies on the world energy system and on progress in power generation technologies. The rigorous analysis of long-term scenarios, with particular attention to the European Union in a global context, will enable policy-makers to define better energy, technology and environmental policies for a sustainable future.

This publication aims to give an overview of the methods and results concerning the future challenges in energy. Using various tools for energy foresight – quantitative models, Delphi survey and back-casting approach – Energy futures analyses Europe in a world context. It also highlights the importance of research in the energy field. Finally, it presents EU projects in this field at the cross roads of technology and socio-economy.

The European Union is concerned by the competitiveness, security and sustainability of its energy system. This publication presents the main results of the ENCOURAGED project that assessed the potential energy corridors between the EU and its neighbouring countries addressing in particular the issues on natural gas, electricity and hydrogen. The EU neighbouring countries are the main suppliers and transit countries of oil and natural gas. The dependency of the EU on imported gas supplies is largely increasing in the next years. Therefore, the role of neighbouring countries will grow significantly in the next decades and will probably extend to electricity exchanges and perhaps, in the next decades, to hydrogen supply. Three main points are of particular importance for the integration of the energy markets of the EU and neighbouring countries: to get compatible interconnections, compatible market framework and compatible environmental policies.

Since the food riots of 2007‐2008, global food security has been the subject of renewed attention and has become a hot topic in forward looking activities, thereby inducing a change of perspective: if food security and sustainable agriculture have always been interlinked then, since the riots, the importance of the composition of diets and economic access to food are more worthy of consideration than ever. Conversely, it is striking that in the forward looking literature, there are no studies that deal directly with the bio‐economy. The bio‐economy is addressed as a transversal concept that can be appreciated under economic and technological variables.

Delivering both economic growth and GHG emissions reductions is essential to avoiding dangerous climate change, with its associated economic, social and environmental costs. Keeping the global temperature rise below 2°C represents a major challenge, particularly while ensuring decarbonisation is cost-effective and maintaining security of supply and competiveness. A number of policies have been implemented throughout the EU to reach its 2020 targets; the next challenge is to look ahead to 2030.
To continue the process of transforming to a low carbon economy and set the next waypoint towards the EU’s 2050 objective of reducing GHG emissions by 80-95%, the European Commission has released its proposal for an EU 2030 framework for climate and energy policies. Pursuant to this, the UK’s Department of Energy and Climate Change commissioned a set of detailed quantified scenarios for GHG emissions and the energy sector, in order to look at the costs and benefits to individual Member States and the EU as a whole from different potential EU policies and objectives for 2030.
Significant potential exists within the EU to reduce GHG emissions at reasonable costs, both in the short and long term. The 20% reduction of emissions by 2020 will likely be overachieved despite the current low ETS price; indeed, even with the existing surplus of EUAs, this will probably be the case without further policy intervention. The Commission’s
Low Carbon Roadmap suggests that a tighter cap and target would put the EU on a more cost effective pathway to 2050.