


06/2009
The future global economy is likely to consume ever more energy, especially due to the rising energy demand of developing countries such as China and India. At the same time, the tremendous risk of climate change associated with the use of fossil fuels makes supplying this energy increasingly difficult.
The problem can hardly be solved by single local solutions; rather, it requires an interconnected global portfolio of energy sources that matches regional characteristics and that can satisfy the global energy demand as efficient and carbon-free as possible. While many developing regions are abundant in potential energy sources such as coal, solar power, wind and water, state-of-the-art energy technologies are mainly developed in the industrialized countries, at least so far.