I had the pleasure of speaking about „European Future Internet Research“ at the ERIC 2010 in Braunschweig.
With much regret I arrived late and had to leave early. Due to could only attend the session I am was talking in „Digital Europe / Open Innovation“. But the session was once more a great experience.
Dr. Eddie O’Connor, Founder and Chief Executive and industry pioneer and veteran with 30 years of experience, delivered an eye-opening speech about renewable energy (offshore windfarming) in Europe and elsewhere. The sheer numbers were stunning to me (yes we know that we run out of energy / fosil fuel) but one got to see some figures to really grasp how fast. A few takeaways:
+ Onshore windfarms approach their capacity limits simply because appropriate locations are getting scarce.
+ Compared with growth of global population traditional energy generation will fail in the very near future – Eddie promotes 50% wind energy by 2050
+ But for that a „super grid“ is needed to connect the many offshore farms needed for that, this implies many new technologies that allow to transport electricity over large distances (can only happen in DC mode)
For more on that see Eddie““““s blog and Mainstream Renewable Powers (check the companies fund raising track record !)