Permanent Monitoring Panel - Energy

Energy supply and use affects economic growth, security, pollution, climate change and political tensions among nations. 

• Almost 20% of the world’s population (1.3 billion people) still lack electricity and basic energy services, without which, education, economic progress and political self-realization are barely possible. 
• While most OECD countries have vastly improved energy’s environmental footprint, energy production and use remain the major source of air and water pollution in many countries, severely compromising health and well-being. 
• The burning of fossil fuels is the primary anthropogenic contributor to increased greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations.  Fortunately, technological progress has provided cost-effective alternatives to burning fossil fuels and ways to use energy more efficiently.  However, the policy agenda to take advantage of these opportunities is not well developed on a world-wide basis.  Recently, governments have stepped up commitments to achieve sharply reduced GHG emissions from the energy sector.
• The extent of new energy infrastructure required to replace fossil fuel production and use, as well as to supply the growing world-wide growth in energy service demand, require that unprecedented technological and financial challenges be solved by governments, industry and consumers.
• Oil price volatility has, in the past, caused worldwide economic disruptions.  Economic risks can continue to be a factor in today’s volatile energy markets.  While there have been diminished concerns about supply security, sharply reduced investments in oil production could bring back brittle oil markets and the economic risks of oil supply disruptions.  
• As governments and the energy sector move to clean energy technologies to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, maintaining stability in oil and natural gas markets should be an important priority in order to avoid economic dislocations.

All of these factors and concerns keep energy policy a front-burner policy issue for the world’s economy, environment and wellbeing of the world’s population.

 

Priorities in dealing with the Emergency

 

The PMP monitors scientific and technical results and contributes to the formulation of policy on the following subjects:

• Technologies and policies to limit greenhouse gas emissions
• Policies to reduce energy-sector greenhouse gas emissions
• Energy efficiency technologies and policies
• Renewable energy technologies and policies
• Nuclear power technologies and policies
• International oil and gas markets
• Energy security and the economy
• Energy services for the poor & “energy empowerment” for Sub Saharan Africa
• Energy and cities

 

Energy PMP Sponsored Sessions & WFS Webinars

Erice Seminars on Planetary Emergencies

 

2023

The Oil Market and the Energy Transition

Progress on Small Modular Reactors

 

2022

WFS Webinar: Europe Energy

Erice Seminars not held.

 

2021

Erice Seminars not held.

 

2020

WFS-IICEC Webinar: Nuclear Power in a Carbon Constrained World

Erice Seminars not held.

 

2019

Nuclear Power at the Crossroads

HBO’s Chernobyl: Separating Fact from Fiction

Energy Poverty

 

2018

Bright Lights Energy Poverty Project with James E. Rogers

Energy and Nuclear Waste

 

2017

Control Planetary Emergencies Using the Science of Complex Networks

The Nuclear Safety Center [Published in Energy Policy, volume 119, 2018]

The Bio-Economy and Transition Towards a Circular Economy

Upgraded Pyrolysis for Organic Wastes Treatment

 

2016

The Nuclear Safety Center

Science of Complex Networks

 

2015

Renewable and Nuclear Energy [Published as a Special Issue of Energy Policy, Volume 96, 2016 (7 papers)]

Energy for the Poor

 

2014

Seminar not held.

 

2013

Why Energy is an Economic Planetary Emergency

Nuclear Power

Energy – Key to the Evolution of Cities

 

2012

Global Nuclear Energy Issues

Energy and Sustainability in Cities

 

2011

Nuclear Power After Fukushima

Unconventional Natural Gas Development*

Energy Efficiency

 

2010

Science for Sustainable Energy Systems

Passive Safety in Nuclear Power Plants

Oil Spills and Deep Water Drilling*

 

2009

Essential Technologies for Moderating Climate Change and Improving Energy Security

Advanced Technologies and Strategies in China

 

2008

Food and Energy: Sustainability of Biofuels

Nuclear Power: Present and Future

Nuclear Waste: On the Road to Sustainability*

 

*Co-sponsored with the Pollution PMP