Europe Ups the Stakes in Global Cleantech Race

Europe plans to triple annual funding for energy research to $11.7 billion in an effort to compete with Japan and the United States, which have both invested vast sums for new energy and technology research, according to the Strategic Energy Technology Plan (SET Plan) by the European Commission reported by Reuters yesterday.  Ultimately, the EU will add more than 50 billion euros of new funding for research over the next 10 years to ensure a wide range of technology emerges to help the EU meet its goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050.

Solar energy research is set to receive 16 billion euros over the next decade while as many as 30 ultra energy-efficient “Smart Cities“ are scheduled be built with a price tag of 11 billion euros.  Wind energy research should get 6 billion euros over the next decade, nuclear research should get 7 billion euros and energy from biomass and other waste 9 billion.  There should also be 13 billion euros for research on “carbon capture and storage” systems, which aim to sequester carbon dioxide from power stations in geological formations buried deep underground.

“We can not sit back and wait for such potentially game changing breakthroughs to emerge from laboratories and make the often long and arduous journey to market,” the report says.

The strategy is aimed at slashing output of gases blamed for climate change, but it also is to wean the EU off its dependency on costly oil and gas for 80 percent of its energy needs.  In the meantime, the spending will likely be a major boon for cleantech companies in Europe.

The report also predicts the investment in cleantech will create an estimated 250,000 jobs over the next decade as wind power shifts its focus to the seas.  Over 200,000 skilled jobs could be created in the solar energy sector, and the same number in bioenergy plants to generate energy from burning household and agricultural waste.

“Motor fuels direct from sunlight, digital light sources that last for decades, batteries that store electricity at 10 times the current density — these are some of the technologies of the future . . . ,” says the draft.  “To master them we have to explore new levels of complexity in the physical and chemical phenomena that control how materials perform and interact.”