Elissa Sterry, Manager Economics & Energy, Exxon Mobil Corporation, gave a keynote address at a high-level international workshop ‘Europe’s Energy Outlook: Finding the Environment – Energy Balance’ organised by Forum Europe and ExxonMobil in Brussels in September.

Her fellow keynote speakers for this first session of a day-long debate were Loyola de Palacio, EU Commissioner for Transport & Energy and Dr. Pieter Boot representing the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs. Their session was entitled ‘Towards a more ambitious EU energy strategy’.

Ms. Sterry explained that ExxonMobil projects energy demand through 2030 growing by more than 50% in absolute terms. The energy mix will become more diversified but “fossil fuels remain the only forms of energy having the scale and versatility to address the world’s energy demands.” By 2030, Sterry sees oil demand holding steady but its share of total energy in decline (even so, the EU will be importing 90% of its oil needs by 2030), nuclear power and coal in decline and gas continuing to grow strongly.  Biomass, wind and solar are growing strongly but “are not likely to contribute more than around 6% of Europe’s total energy requirements.”

To meet this mix of challenges, Ms. Sterry outlined the need for accelerated gains in energy efficiency and ExxonMobil’s belief in and commitment to new technologies. In transportation, improved efficiency of the conventional internal combustion engine offers opportunity short term. Hybrid vehicles, which today are already twice as efficient as their traditional ICE counterparts, also show promise.  In the future, emerging technologies combining the efficiency of a diesel engine and the lower emissions of a gasoline engine, can stretch these improvements even further.

To read Elissa Sterry’s speech in full, click here.
To read the 2004 World Economic and Energy Outlook presentation,
click here .

The invited audience was a mix of decision-makers from EU and national governments, industry, press and NGOs. Nations as diverse as Azerbaijan, Rumania, Malawi, Japan, Russia, Honduras and the US attended, while many EU Member States sent officials from their Economics, Trade or Energy Ministries. A range of energy industries was present, from producers in the nuclear, solar and petroleum sectors to users in heating oil and national grids. Friends of the Earth Europe, Greenpeace Europe and the WWF were among the NGO representatives.