Inspired, I will start out with some numbers by myself: The return journey from where I live to the spot where I parked my car in Utrecht is about 60 kilometres. The Volvo I drove guzzles about 1 litre to displace me 15 kilometres. With petrol prices at roughly €1.50 per litre (I exaggerate, but only by 6 cents), I'm spending ten cents per kilometre. Note that parking costs were zero since I know where to park for free (I know the city well enough to know where I can park for free within 5 minutes walking distance from the old city centre). Even with high taxes on petrol and an exaggerated price, this still outweighs the charges demanded by the National Railways (a monopoly company) for a smaller distance: €7.50 for a return ticket, or 12.5 cents per kilometre. From the train station it's a stiff walk of 15 minutes to the venue of my interest: the Louis Hartlooper Complex.

One of the initiators of the earliest Earth Day event, Dennis Hayes, had been flown over from the States by an airplane without kerosene taxation and presumably he wants to be flown back in one with kerosene taxation.  He was given the honour to open an afternoon of lectures and documentaries by recapping for half an hour on energy production today, future projections of energy demand and how on earth we will manage to live our modern lifestyle with only hydrocarbon replacements.

The debate that took place after Hayes was between various speakers, from different backgrounds, led by a sometimes stridently Green chairwoman, Natasja van den Berg. Interactions with the public, where many more experts were gathered, also took place, especially in the latter half hour.

A brief introduction on the speakers:

Donald Pols
Campaign leader on Energy and Climate for the Dutch branch of Friends of the Earth, Milieudefensie.

Wim Sinke
Working both at ECN (Energy research Centre of the Netherlands) and the Utrecht University.

Ewald Breunesse
Business manager from Shell Netherlands, was (is?) part of Hydrogen development at Shell.

Jan Staman
Director of the the Rathenau Institute.

Wijnand Duijvendak
Former squatter-activist in the eighties, former director of Milieudefensie and presently member of Parliament for the Greens.

Numbers, numbers, if my notes are correct. In the Netherlands, we use 6 kWh per capita, ranking us shamefully at the 7th place of countries with the largest energy use per head. Predictably, the USA ranks first on this list with an estimated 10 kWh per head. The global average is about 2 - 3 Wh per capita. For the Netherlands, it means that we produce 13 tonnes of CO2 per head, whereas 2 tonnes of CO2 per head is estimated to be an acceptable value. Total value of global energy used today is estimated 15 TeraWatts, which is an insanely large number (1 TeraW = 10 to the power of 12). Future projection of global energy demand: 30 TeraWatts.

Hayes himself expressed little confidence in boosting either hydro or wind or tidal energy to levels which would take the largest portion of 30 TeraW. He used current hydropower outputs as an example: with every major river dammed at present, and yet forming about 0.8 TeraWatts from the 15 TeraW pie, he sees little space for output growth in the future. Efficiency increase (that is, conservation) brings you only so far and does not solve increase in demand. He also wondered whether it should be a wise choice to invest our money in nuclear energy as long as the waste product problem isn't sufficiently solved. Note: I think he left out specifically nuclear fusion, and focussed only on nuclear fission. He had similar doubts about biofuels, and used the argument of limited arable parts on this planet. He clearly expressed his preference in solar energy and hinted on very real large-scale solar plants to be built in, for instance, the Sahara.

When I reflect on Hayes and his solar plants in the African deserts, three thoughts came immediately to the fore:

1. It would be interesting to have devastatingly poor desert countries at present going to hold power over the largest energy source of our planet and it would certainly give an interesting twist to neo-colonialism.
   
2. Solutions to the transport problems were not addressed. As many know, long distance transmission of electricity is extremely ineffective; it's often a lot cheaper to transport the material (gas, coal) to the power plant nearby. With solar energy, that seems to me a bit of a challenge. Slightly to my astonishment, the public responded with complete dismissal to the inefficiency of electricity transport and someone even shouted "Nonsense!" The truth of the matter nevertheless remains: how do we transport solar generated energy to the places that need it? I suspect a similar problem exists for wind energy, as the best locations to place turbines are not in the vicinity of urban centres.
   
3. Mass capturing of solar energy at a large scale might ultimately cost-effective but once again would replace the very urgent need of the individual awareness to the energy dynamics. I suspect that self-sustainability and energy-awareness would be once more victim to the easier plug-in mentality of today.

The panel further discussed a range of topics: Peak Oil was touched upon, but I felt irritated to the definitions that were given. I've heard them better here. Pols, from Milieudefensie, reflected that with increasing oil prices the advantages of durable energy starts outweighing hydrocarbons and that we're getting there. Sinke, from ECN, cautioned that a sudden jump in the energy sector triggered by Peak Oil could very well result in inefficient solutions or will even worsen the problem of energy shortage in the long run. The one man smiling at the table was Breunesse from Shell, who should be given props to enter the lion's den, but made himself very unbelievable to me by hinting on the "we don't know what we don't know" strategy: energy giants such as Shell and Exxon still don't know what's left of the oil reservoir underneath the ground. We still could get lower oil prices by finding larger reservoirs! (Perhaps he reads The Economist?) Breunesse also mentioned that investments in renewables remained an investment risk for Shell and others as long as it was uncertain which renewable would ultimately "win". In a room soaked with the idea that renewable energy comes as a portfolio, this "winner takes all" mentality seemed virtually unnoticed. Shell, BTW, clearly puts money on Hydrogen.

The next topic circled around investments in renewables. The role of Shell was now openly assaulted and, much to the bafflement of the audience, it turned out that of the billions of profit, Shell attributes a mere 200 million euros per year to a government committee for investments in R&D on durable energy. Sadly, it later turned out that this group largely suffers from Innovation Impotence (as I've dubbed it), a recurring problem in the relation between scientists and governmental we-know-better-than-thee agencies responsible for providing the money.

Duyvendak pointed here out once again that shareholders can practically hold companies hostage and demand short term profits over long term strategy, all too similar to politics. He stressed, once again, that the role of regulation and the government is crucial in this - a point he received applause for.

After a short reprieve on the returning debate on nuclear energy, the discussion settled on "Energising the Masses". Duyvendak remarked that the debate on climate change is gaining more and more traction and is part of the recurring interests in energy policy. Sinke noted that the debate on energy has been eclipsed the past years by the cultural and political ruminations in the Netherlands but is now on a comeback, also because of the sense of impending energy crises. The Gazprom tensions of early this year were footnoted as such an example.

The panel was divided on what topic would have the largest immediate impact, yet two clearly stood out: Traffic and building conservation. Duyvendak opted for traffic, as it had historically run faster out of control - he quoted a 40 percent increase in (car?) exhaust since 1990. Sinke disagreed and said that citizens could have a far larger and immediate role in adapting their houses than they could do with their cars, since car manufacturers have herein full control. There was a sense that (again) government regulation and stimulation could be the pebble to set off the landslide to cheaper durable products. Breunesse had earlier told about Pura, a more environmentally friendly petrol (whatever that is) but that was 4 cents more expensive than ordinary petrol and was thus almost completely ignored by Shell customers. (Well, duh. Changing to durable lifestyle when it costs money is only for the 5-10 percent of the converted.) It seemed to suggest (to me) that if the government had sponsored Pura for a while to artificially lower the price below ordinary Petrol, increased consuming might have automatically decreased the "real" price further. A similar scheme, I later learned, had once been executed to switch people from leaded to unleaded petrol - with success.

Finally, some entrepreneurs were allowed to the mike to give some free advertisement for their products, but I need to do some further homework on that.

All in all, a highly educated debate, which left me with the impression that one of the largest weaknesses in the portfolio of endurable energy lies in its fragmentation and in its invisibility, or lack of public exposure. The representative of Shell sadly confirmed all my ideas about their future strategies: they don't intend to start working on the problem yet and prefer to keep cashing in on the oil dollars. And finally, political will remains divided, and even where there is consensus, the monstrous apparatus of bureaucracy smothers implementation and goodwill. What's left, I guess, is the impetus of the masses to wrought change. Which is at least one good reason to post my personal summary as a diary here.

Energizing Europe still has a long way to go...