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Energy is central to addressing major challenges of the 21st Century, challenges like climate change, economic and social development, human well-being, sustainable development, and global security. In 2005, Prof. Bert Bolin, the founding Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), with other eminent scientists and policy-makers, identified that a comprehensive, science-based assessment of the global energy system was needed if these challenges were to be realistically addressed. The Global Energy Assessment (GEA) is the result of this shared vision. Since the establishment of the GEA in 2006 by governing Council of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), 500 independent experts (about 300 authors and 200 anonymous reviewers) from academia, business, government, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations from all the regions of the world have contributed to GEA in a process similar to that adopted by the IPCC. The final GEA report examines: (a) the major global challenges and their linkages to energy; (b) the technologies and resources available for providing adequate, modern and affordable forms of energy; (c) the plausible structure of future energy systems most suited to addressing the century's challenges; and (d) the policies and measures, institutions and capacities needed to realize sustainable energy futures.

In this article the environmental and socio-economical impacts of the production of ethanol from sugarcane in the state of São Paulo (Brazil) are evaluated. Subsequently, an attempt is made to determine to what extent these impacts are a bottleneck for a sustainable and certified ethanol production. Seventeen environmental and socio-economic areas of concern are analysed. Four parameters are used to evaluate if an area of concern is a bottleneck: (1) the importance of the area of concern, based on the severity of the impact and the frequency of which an aspect is mentioned in the literature as an area of concern, (2) the availability of indicators and criteria, (3) the necessity of improvement strategies to reach compliance with Brazilian and/or (inter) national legislation, standards, guidelines and sustainability criteria, and (4) the impact of these improvement strategies on the costs and potential of ethanol production. Fourteen areas of concern are classified as a minor or medium bottleneck. For 7 areas of concern the additional costs to avoid or reduce undesirable effects have been calculated at +10% for each area of concern. Due to higher yields and overlapping costs the total additional production costs of compliance with various environmental and socio-economic criteria are about +36%. This study also shows that the energy input to output ratio can be increased and the greenhouse gas emissions reduced by increasing the ethanol production per tonne cane and by increasing the use of sugarcane waste for electricity production. A major bottleneck for a sustainable and certified production is the increase in cane production and the possible impacts on biodiversity and the competition with food production. Genetically modified cane is presently being developed, but is at this moment not (yet) applied. Both a ban on and the allowance of the use of genetically modified cane could become a major bottleneck considering the potentially large benefits and disadvantages, that are both highly uncertain at this ...

The objective of this article is to examine the consequences of technological developments on the market diffusion of different renewable electricity technologies in the EU-25 until 2020, using a market simulation model (ADMIRE REBUS). It is assumed that from 2012 a harmonized trading system will be implemented, and a target of 24% renewable electricity (RES-E) in 2020 is set and met. By comparing optimistic and pessimistic endogenous technological learning scenarios, it is found that diffusion of onshore wind energy is relatively robust, regardless of technological development, but diffusion rates of offshore wind energy and biomass gasification greatly depend on their technological development. Competition between these two options and (existing) biomass combustion options largely determines the overall costs of electricity from renewables and the choice of technologies for the individual member countries. In the optimistic scenario, in 2020 the market price for RES-E is 1 €ct/kWh lower than in the pessimistic scenario (about 7 vs. 8 €ct/kWh). As a result, total RES-E production costs are 19% lower, and total governmental expenditures for RES-market stimulation are 30% lower in the optimistic scenario.