This year’s major annual sustainability event organised by New York based Capital Link attracted record participation with more than 300 delegates present at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Athens where the event was held last Tuesday, September 27. (see www.capitallink.com) As usual all the key aspects of sustainability were discussed at length by well selected experts and senior executives from Greece and abroad.This year’s major annual sustainability event organised by New York based Capital Link attracted record participation with more than 300 delegates present at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Athens where the event was held last Tuesday, September 27. (see www.capitallink.com) As usual all the key aspects of sustainability were discussed at length by well selected experts and senior executives from Greece and abroad.
In view of the current energy crisis of particular interest proved to be the session which covered energy issues and as panelists included some of the top names from Greece’s energy sector. Mrs. Alexandra Sdoukou, Secretary General of the Ministry of Environment and Energy lead the discussion followed by Ms. Helena Athousaki, Head of ESG at the Motor Oil group,Dr.John Margaris, Deputy Chairman and Head of Technology at IPTO and Mr. Achilles Ioakimidis,Director for Sustainable Development at PPC. Costis Stambolis, IENE’s Chairman and Executive Director, participated as the last speaker in this panel contributing some timely comments and critique on the currently pursued energy policies in Europe and Greece.
Costis Stambolis was especially critical on the lack of action and initiatives on the part of the EU and member states on the very issue of indigenous gas production which he sees as the most effective way for Europe to emerge out of this spiralling crisis. As Stambolis argued, “ what we witness today is in effect a resource shortage crisis since there is not enough gas to go around globally and particularly in Europe. With EU’s rush to get rid of Russian gas Europe is now short of gas which cannot be easily replaced by LNG imports. Neither the infrastructure or the commodity is there resulting in abnormally high prices”
IENE’s chairman further noted that, “ Plans to replace gas with renewables cannot possibly work in the short to medium term because we are lacking adequate electricity grids and installed capacity but even if we had all the necessary capacity gas and nuclear would still be needed to cover critical base load, while energy storage from pumped hydro or batteries is still not developed to the level capable of shouldering Europe’s huge demand needs” To read the full text of Costis Stambolis intervention you may visit http://csringreece.gr/forum/2022/handbook.pdf
