Should nuclear power and carbon capture & storage be a part of a future energy plan?

The theme for the first day of the Energy Crossroads summit focused on how to make the transition from the current mix of energy sources which rely heavily on fossil fuels and to a greener more CO2-friendly energy plan.

The keynote speaker of the day was Professor Jaqueline McGlade who is executive director of the European Environment Agency and gave an enthusiastic speech on the consequences of the current use of energy. She told that more and more people come up to her worried about the future and wondering if it's too late to change the infrastructure for energy use. People who desperately need positive answers. And she could deliver. First off she pointed out some of the reasons for the problems such as the fact, that people have been making money from money instead of selling real products, ever increasing over consumption, ignoring early warnings and the capital destruction.

But the financial crisis actually has become part of the solution because many of the rescue packets employed by European governments include new infrastructure for green energy. This is important because with the current rate of production and reliance on fossil fuels as the primary source of energy production, we will experience higher temperatures which causes more species to extinct, the water exploitation increases and the marine food stocks are in danger. In McGlades opinion the solution is renewable energy which is cheap, all over the place and there's plenty of it.

After Max Stern Dahl introduced his intelligent designed social platform Intelliplat specially fitted for any group of people to work towards a goal in decentralized and geographically dispersed groups, it was time for the daily panel debate. Martin Lidegaard had the difficult task of moderator and Tuesday's question was "How do we manage the transition to a clean energy future?". The panel debaters were Charles Nielsen, Chief of R & D, Dong Energy, Professor Jim Skea, Director of UK Energy Research Center, and Marianne Bender, chairman of NGO OVE. After a short introduction round where the participants presented their vision of a sustainable future energy plan, it was time for some highly interesting remarks and questions from the participants.

One of the big issues was whether or not to take carbon capture & storage (CCS) in use. Marianne Bender only saw it as damage control and emphasized that the strategy should be to focus on 100 % sustainable energy such as wind, solar, wave and geothermic energy. Nielsen on the other hand said it was absolutely necessary to use CCS as part of the solution because it takes time to make the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources only. It was questioned by one of the participants whether there was enough room in the soil to store the carbon, but according to the investigations Nielsen knows of there should be enough storage capacity in The North Sea to store the CO2 for all of Europe in 100 years.

Another big issue was nuclear power which has been demonstrated against since the 1970's, but is unlike fossil fuels CO2-friendly. Bender didn't want it as a part of a future energy strategy because there's still the problem with waste from the nuclear plants and the plants are insecure. But it seems that the opinions is moving in this area as Skea told that the head of Greenpeace in England, who used to be a big opponent of nuclear power, now have changed his stand on this topic.

Although CCS, nuclear power and sustainable energy all could or should be a part of the solution for cutting down the CO2 emissions of the EU, Skea pointed out that a change in people's behaviour and awareness of how they spend energy daily is most important to solving the energy solutions of tomorrow and unfortunately also the hardest thing to change.

After these enlightening speeches and discussions the participants took part in a fun bicycle demonstration with police escort to move to the Faculty of Life Sciences, where they had lunch before the energetic participants engaged in the energy- and climate game especially developed for the summit. Because of the enthusiasm, the time schedule were overrun. So much that only one group finished the first part of the game. It's a thrill to see that the participants look like they are enjoying themselves and engage in the game fully hearted.