BUS604: Innovation and Sustainability

The problems of perception with regard to the global energy system begin with the questions of scale. Given the differences of the three A's, the objective differences of availability combined with the subjective differences of acceptability, one consequence is the lack of a shared international vision. But it doesn't end there. "For politicians," van der Veer notes, "it is not their natural habit to think in decades".

Because energy is one of the most vital interests of a state, he says, "the political system has part ownership or full ownership" of its energy industries in most countries. Today we witness frequent protests by large crowds, celebrities, and retired politicians in Western capitals taking to the streets demanding immediate action on climate change. The European Union seeks to impose unrealistic targets on its member states. The political classes are inclined to relieve these pressures from above and below by doling out generous subsidies for renewable energy sources as a short-term political gesture, with little consideration for the physical limitations, future trends or economic viability of doing so. The priority of subsidies for current technology over investment in research and development reflects this short-term thinking.

Van der Veer goes on: "The problem is that they are in too much of a hurry to develop a certain form of renewable energy. What is the best example? Building an offshore wind industry could be attractive for a country like the Netherlands, because we have wind, we have an offshore industry and we like to do things in the sea. So we have a lot of support industry to operate there. But offshore wind is in fact very expensive today. What is our government's reaction? We put huge subsidies into it. [Former Environment Minister] Jacqueline Cramer poured €4 billion into it. Now we have the Dutch Energy Agreement for Sustainable Growth,' which has announced another €4 billion. And you don't even get that many kilowatt-hours out of it.

"So I disagree with that. People may think, 'Oh, he comes from Shell, so he will disagree with renewables'. That is nonsense. I do agree that offshore wind can be attractive for the long term. What you have to do is carry out a lot of research and development to get this form of energy to produce kilowatt- hours at a lower cost".