Alternative energy: is the end of the hydrocarbon era near?

One of the topics of the XX St. Petersburg International Economic Forum is alternative energy and the prospects for its development. RANEPA expert Ivan Kapitonov presented his vision of this problem to TASS.

The mainstream of the last decade has been the greening of energy throughout the world, including in Russia. The pessimistic hypothesis of the 80-90s. XX century on a critical reduction in hydrocarbon reserves and a global shortage of petroleum products, a sharp jump in energy prices at the beginning of the 21st century, a general increase in anthropogenic and anthropogenic environmental pressure, climate change was reflected in the change in the development priorities of the world energy in the direction of increasing the importance of renewable energy sources (RES), production of alternative fuels and accelerated growth in energy efficiency.

Back in 2011, Eurostat experts identified renewable energy as a sector at the stage of implementation and with an average level of competitiveness. At the same time, the global demand for renewable energy is showing steady growth. It is expected that by 2050 their share in the global energy balance will reach 35%, which is perhaps the most optimistic forecast for renewable energy sources available.

Overboard the “green revolution”? {{ 1}} It’s not a secret for anyone that in the majority of developed countries of the world programs related to alternative energy are being developed and implemented. The key advantages of renewable energy sources – inexhaustibility and environmental friendliness – serve as the basis for the dynamic development of green energy.

According to American environmental scientist Woodrow Clarke, with the proliferation of renewable energy sources, a green transformation of energy markets can be seen in the EU, Asia and China. At the same time, if the United States is at the initial stage of the life cycle of RES development, then Russia is moving more actively towards green industrial processing of renewable energy sources.

At the same time, another expert is a member of the Energy Law Forum Anatole Booth from the University of Aberdeen – noted that as of 2014, Russia still has not developed an effective system to stimulate the development of clean energy.

In his opinion, this could lead to the fact that that Russia will be left behind the “green revolution” and will lag significantly behind the developed countries and other BRIC countries in the development of environmentally friendly technologies.

In the current Energy Strategy of Russia for the period up to 2030, (ES-2030), adopted in 2009, it is noted that at the time of the development of the strategy, the Russian Federation was “practically not represented on the world energy market based on renewable energy sources.”

At the same time further n The development forecast was based on the hypothesis of mitigating the disproportions associated with the dominance of hydrocarbon fuels in the structure of consumption of fuel and energy resources and the low specific weight of non-fuel energy resources (energy of nuclear power plants, renewable energy sources).

In development of the provisions of ES-2030 and not yet approved by ES-2035, the Institute for Energy Strategy has prepared a draft Concept of the Energy Strategy of Russia, which already takes a later period – 2036-2050. It is designated as “the stage of innovative development of the Russian energy sector with the transition to fundamentally different technological possibilities for the highly efficient use of traditional energy resources and non-hydrocarbon energy sources.”

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