There are various and somewhat complementary reasons to foster the growth of renewable energy sources in Europe. A major incentive for renewable energy sources policies in the past two decades has been to reduce the environmental impact of energy use both locally (e.g., pollutant emission reduction) and globally (e.g., greenhouse gas and carbon emissions reduction). In some countries, concerns about the safety of nuclear power generation have motivated the search for renewable energy sources. Another motivation for replacing foreign fossil and nuclear fuels with domestic renewable energy sources relates to security issues and Europe’s growing dependency on foreign energy sources. (more…)

The continuous availability and affordability of energy and, in particular, electricity supply is an indispensable condition for the working of a well-functioning modern society. This is especially true for advanced industrial or post-industrial societies, where electricity generation provides the services essential for production, communication and exchange. Unsurprisingly, governments of OECD countries are thus concerned with understanding the factors influencing the security of energy and electricity supplies and seek to develop policy frameworks and strategies to enhance them. (more…)

Geopolitical risk refers almost always to primary energy carriers (oil, gas, coal, uranium or renewable energy) since their location depends on the vagaries of geology and climate. Production and energy consumption are thus often physically far apart and take place in countries and regions with different histories, cultures and values. Apart from oil & gas exploration and production, all other steps of the energy chain such as refinement or enrichment, energy conversion and distribution can be moved physically closer to the final customer or are, like consumption, directly under the latter’s control. (more…)

Public acceptance (PA) clusters are defined by a number of rather intangible commonalties dealing with social values and public preferences. Societal values influencing the public acceptance of energy technologies include the following:

The internalization of environmental external costs. In this respect, all energy technologies with high SO2 emission intensities form the acidification cluster; (more…)

Biomass has been a main energy sources in the world since the beginning of civilization. It has been important in development processes, including early stages of industrialization in several countries. In Sweden, for example, the first concerns about preservation date from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, resulting from the recognition of the central role played by forests in energy provision. Biomass was also essential in the initial development of the iron industry in Sweden and, later on, the same happened in Brazil, where charcoal is still largely utilized in iron reduction. Biomass remains a major source of energy in many countries. (more…)