What is Europe’s Energy Future?

To keep the lights on Europe needs a trillion Euros of energy investments in the next decade alone. See where all that money will go, according to Philip Lowe, head of the European Commission’s energy department.

Europe’s energy future hangs in the balance. Fossil fuel resources are becoming scarce, nuclear power is more controversial than ever, the renewables revolution is slow to materialize, yet Europe claims to be committed to a low-carbon future.

Philip Lowe, Director General, Energy DG, European Commission, is the man charged with drawing up Europe’s energy infrastructure blueprint, and so when Allianz Knowledge attended The Economist Conferences UK Energy Summit 2011 we asked him for his vision of Europe’s energy future.

“There is a very great challenge as far as the integration of renewable energy into the system is concerned.”

“Nuclear generation…is part of the answer to a low-carbon economy in Europe.”

“You just can’t get the alternatives to pipeline gas from Russia which we need. Europe needs a choice.”

Allianz