ISEA - a positive Step towards the Sustainable Energy Breakthrough

Despite the frustrating Bali negotiations for the World Summit on Sustainable Development at Johannesburg, where reactionary energy lobbies were trying very hard to put the renewable energy issue again under the table, as they did in Rio, there is a star of hope rising on the horizon: the International Sustainable Energy Agency ISEA.

ISEA is also urgently needed to overcome the endless quarrels about the Kyoto Protocol, which does not really solve the problem of fossil fuel depletion and damages to the health, environment, climate and the worsening balances of payment. This issue explains why and how ISEA will have to be created on a fast track to solve the serious energy dilemma of the new Millennium.

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The urgent need for ISEA - the International Sustainable Energy Agency

The lost ten years since Rio for clean, sustainable energy showed clearly that the energy problem of the new Millennium could not be solved fast enough, neither by the private sector, which continues to be dominated by unecological, risky energy technologies, nor by the hundreds of energy and environment NGOs, nor by the scattered energy research and UN activities, such as the biased DESA-CSD and other special non-energy agencies, which cannot be implemented fast enough by the industry, because of unfair price competition from unsustainable energy sources.

Already before the Rio Conference in 1992, the internationally renowned energy expert Gustav R.Grob and hismany allies in governments, academia, industry and NGOs proclaimed at the 1st World Clean Energy Conference in Geneva with the Global Energy Charter for Sustainable Development, that a new special agency is needed to manage the transition from finite, risky and polluting energy to benign, clean systems. Absurdly, the International Atomic Energy Agency IAEA in Vienna is the only special energy agency of the United Nations, which - without any doubt - is an expensive necessity, to enable humanity to cope with the grave dangers of nuclear bombs and fission power, but it represents merely a few percent of total energy production in the world !

 

The enormous energy task of the 21st Century can be seen in the graph on the left, where the top black line represents a conservative estimate of the future world-wide energy demand over the next 50 years, with all conceivable energy efficiency measures already discounted.

There is no doubt - even among the fossil fuel producers - about the red bottom depletion curve, with the minimal effect of the Kyoto Protocol, resulting in only a few percent CO2 decrease, i.e. fossil fuel reduction, if this treaty is really enforced in the first ten years.

Most politicians and energy experts still have illusions about the resultant green middle curve, representing the needed renewable energy supply with a minimum average annual growth rate of 5 % over the next 50 years on the basis of an estimated 20 % renewables share in the year 2000.

5 % annual renewable energy growth means an initial increase of 1 PWh moving to an annual increase of about 12 PWh in 2049. Hence, 5 % average annual growth means initially 1'000'000'000'000 more kWh annually in the form of electricity, heat and clean fuels from sustainable sources, or annually about 150 kWh more per inhabitant. This means about 1000 GW mixed extra power capacity per year, assuming an average full production period of 1000 hours or still 500 GW with an annual productivity of 2000 hours (solar, hydro, geo, wind & bio energy mix).
Assuming an average investment of 1000 to 2000 € per kW this enormous task amounts initially to about 1 Trillion € per year, which does not differ much from the present investment figure spent on finite, unsustainable energy resources and supply systems; it will advance to about 12 Trillion € to become probably the largest investment sector in the world economy by 2050 …. and there is no way around it, unless humankind wants to reduce its present standard of living and deprive poorer developing nations of the comforts, mobility and IT intelligence of modernized life.

The important Tasks of ISEA and its Principles of Operation

In order to fulfill its task efficiently, speedily and with a minimum overhead, ISEA applies following principles.

1. Enforcement of a complete energy statistics and forecasting methodology in cooperation with ISO/TC203

2. Establishment of a world-wide network of competence centers in following areas
- Hydropower (small, medium, large)
- Wind Power, wind pumping, sailing
- Biomass (solid, liquid, gaseous, energy from waste)
- Geothermal (heat, power)
- Solar (PV, heat, drying, solar architecture, solar air con, solar pumping, sterling systems)
- Ocean Power (OTEC, waves, tidal)
- Hydrogen production, storage and applications (stationary and mobile)
- Heat pumps, co-generation
- Muscle energy (animal, human, cycling, walking)
- Sustainable transport (road, off-road, rail, water, air)
- Efficiency measures (insulation, lighting, vehicles, car pooling, economic drives etc.)
- Education, human behavior, awareness creation etc.

For each competence center a qualified coordinator will form an international team of experts.

3. The website www.unisea.org will be the main platform for the communication and dissemination of information. A professional IT team will direct, format and update the website to the benefit of all.

4. Conferences bring together the stakeholders and coordinators for the exchange of views and discussion of geographic particularities. Action-oriented recommendations will be elaborated in working groups.

5. Regional conferences on specific subjects must be well coordinated by member states, NGOs and academia to avoid the wasteful duplications of such energy events and exhibitions up to now.

6. A financial task force coordinates the financing of local and regional projects by enhancing capital sourcing from all possible investors and lenders like the World Bank Group, GEF and other Funds, Private Sector Banks, Foundations, Donors, Government Subsidies and other Financial Mechanisms.

7 An international, interdisciplinary ethics committee is supervising the translations, applications and revisions of the Global Energy Charter for Sustainable Development, which serves a the basis for the integral implementation of the goals of ISEA: the complete transition to clean, sustainable energy.

8 To avoid a heavy personnel infrastructure with the inherent bureaucracy at the Head Office and in order to have the ISEA staff as closely as possible near the energy production and application, ISEA shall be decentralized to the maximum extent and equipped with the most efficient IT equipment.

All viable sustainable energy know-how sources from governments, communities, NGOs, industry and academia shall be linked South-South, North-South, East-West and vice versa to assure a complete, world-wide information exchange to the benefit of all and for rapid, most economic implementation.

ISEA will improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the United Nations System, since many suitable coordinators exist already in the UN organization, who may be seconded or transferred to ISEA (energy efficiency in UNEP, ECE and ESCAP, wind power in UNEP, various sustainable energy experts in DESA-CSD and UNDP, biomass in FAO, solar energy in UNESCO (World Solar Commission), as well as in IEA, Paris and many specialized NGOs on hydro, wind, solar, biomass, geothermal and ocean-thermal energy etc

All governments are called upon to support this crucially important UN special agency and vote for it at the respective General Assembly of the United Nations. Sponsors are also called upon to help with an initial Trust Fund. Everybody in the world will benefit from ISEA's efficient cross-fertilization of technologies, suppliers, research and financial instruments. We owe this effort to the future generations on planet Earth !

Further enquiries about ISEA and its Trust Fund can be addressed to the provisional ISEA office at the address below or by e-mail to info@unisea.org.

See http://www.cmdc.net for more information on the statute and the Johannesburg strategy.