Speaking at the Balkan Energy Forum last Friday (24/5) which was successfully organised in Greece’s northern energy centre in Kozani, Macedonia (here), the chairman of the Institute Costis Stambolis had the opportunity to address some of the pressing energy issues affecting the region. Which are none other than the significant energy import dependence and the still high use of coal and ligniteSpeaking at the Balkan Energy Forum last Friday (24/5) which was successfully organised in Greece’s northern energy centre in Kozani, Macedonia (here), the chairman of the Institute Costis Stambolis had the opportunity to address some of the pressing energy issues affecting the region. Which are none other than the significant energy import dependence and the still high use of coal and lignite. “ Decarbonising SE Europe remains an important challenge as inspite of significant investments in renewables over the last 10 years or so and billions of euros spend on clean energy sources, the region’s reliance on solid fuels remains high”, noted Stambolis. In his short presentation (here) he highlighted these issues and provided some useful background data.
In his intervention the Chairman of IENE also stressed the need to employ a cascade of clean technologies such as nuclear power (Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Croatia/ Slovenia and soon Turkey are already using nuclear) geothermal energy and natural gas. Especially LNG since it emits a lot less GHGE’s compared to other fuels. In addition the SEE and the East Med region has discovered considerable n.gas deposits and could over the years exploit them to the advantage of local economies but also to supply the rest of Europe. “After all reducing GHGE’s in the long term is a complex task and necessitates the use of all different energy sources and technologies”, Costis Stambolis concluded in his short presentation.
Other panelists in the first session of the conference in which the chairman of IENE participated included the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Mr. Costas Fragoyiannis, Ms. Alexandra Sdoukou, Deputy Minister for Energy and Ms. Maria Spiraki, a Euro MP. The panel was expertly moderated by Mr. Dimitris Diamantidis, a well respected journalist from Thessaloniki.
