A. Clerici – WEC RT 5 1 WEC Round Table 5 – Energy Technologies for the 21 st Century 18 th...

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WEC Round Table 5 – Energy Technologies for the 21st Century

18th World Energy Congress

Buenos Aires, Argentina October 2001

Round Table 5

“Energy Technologies for the 21st Century

Chairman: A. Clerici

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Robert N. Schock

Energy Technologies for the Markets of the 21st Century

Deborah Lynn Bleviss

The role for sustainable energy - Energy efficiency, renewable energy and clean urban transportation

Hiroshi Urano

Building Technology bridges to a renewable energy future: the potential of natural gas as an energy protagonist for the 21st centrury

Bruce Sampson

Hydrogen: the path to sustainable transportation

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WEC has a Study Group just on Energy Technologies

for the 21st Century under the chairmanship of Dr.

Robert Schock. The Task 1 report of the Study Group

“Energy RD&D expenditures 1985-2000” : an

international comparison” has been implemented and

edited by WEC in August to have it in time for this World

Energy Congress.

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The study group launched in 1999 was a result of the feelings emanating from the 1998 World Energy Congress in Houston; that is:

Need of new technology innovations with relevant rapid applications

Perception that commitments to technology research and development both by governments and private companies was weakening

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With reference to the changing environment, we have before our

eyes the sudden rise and the sudden collapse of the so-called “new

economy”; this has given us the opportunity to discover again with

new eyes what has been called up to a few time ago “old economy”.

Personally, I do not believe that there is an “old” and a “new”

economy but only “one next economy” which has to live in a world

characterised by more and more frequent changes and where it is

mandatory to make the best use of the new technologies which are a

valuable and an indispensable tool (and I would like to underline the

word “tool” and not a separate reality).

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We must be:

Faster and more flexible to react to changes

More creative to understand the emergent needs

More capable to interact with the various players of the large global market

More organized to exploit at the best and in a new way the knowledge and competences we have acquired

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It is important to remember that in a complex world it is mandatory:

To act experimentally as “explorers”

To change the decision making and taking process (it must be split into different subsequent and adaptive steps to reach progressively the changing objectives)

To accept mistakes, to learn from them, to consider them as vital opportunities to better understand the complexity

To search all kinds of possible co-operations (which still exist in a very competitive environment) when we have to define shared goals in the energy sector

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The key factors are (not in order of priority):

GlobalisationPrivatisation processesLiberalisation processes

TechnologyHealth and EnvironmentThe increasing North/South gapFanaticism/terrorism

triumph of free marketideology

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Starting from the bottom of this list, that is from:

North / South gap

Fanaticism

I would like to mention that about 2 billion persons are not yet connected to a commercial energy supply. If we want to start to minimize the North-South gap we have to think about simple/cheap systems to meet initial low-level requirements for availability of supply without imposing the industrialized world high cost/ high reliability standards.

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Looking now at environment, it is impressive the increased concern on a sustainable development and how the environmental issues are becoming more and more important from the design-conception stage, to the “cradle” and manufacturing, to the use and to the “grave” and “resurrection” through reuse of every product/system.

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Coming now to the first three factors I have mentioned before:

Globalisation

Privatisation

Liberalisation

triumph of free marketideology

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The main effects have been:

To raise dramatically competition (and this is not negative)

To stimulate the formation of few large actors.

To revise the concept of “national industry”

To revise the concept of “national R&D policy

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As a consequence of fierce competition:

Price reduction

Increase product/system performance

Increase expectations from the final clients

Concentration on clients and their fidelization

Due to the above mentioned topics, the major efforts of companies have been /are being concentrated on strong cost reduction policies.

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Profit is increasingly seen as what’s left after costs are subtracted, not something that is added on top.

In addition, the “company value” is mainly/only seen today as the share value in the stock market with a focus on sending out “impressive” goals or actions (see personnel cutting) to the financial analysts (and alas to speculators).

The ability/activity of communication seems sometimes to exceed the ability/activity to perform/to do.

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The considered returns on investments are always

shorter and combined with the above mentioned cost

reduction policies they are having a drastic effect on R,

D&D (Research, Development and Demonstration), in

participation of people from industries and governmental

entities to cultural activities such as those of WEC.

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To be successful in WEC goals, we have to continue to be creative, flexible but strong, open to accept mistakes and to learn from them, open to act with other cultural associations in a revamping of a real technical and humanistic renaissance.

I would like to end up with a sentence of Henry Ford: “coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success”.

A. Clerici – WEC RT 5 1 WEC Round Table 5 – Energy Technologies for the 21 st Century 18 th...

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