ITER – I applaud the progress of ITER
ITER Newsline – I applaud the progress of ITER
23 February 2012
Maria van der Hoeven took over as Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (IEA) on 1 September 2011. Previously, Ms. Van der Hoeven served as Minister of Economic Affairs of the Netherlands from February 2007 to October 2010. To many people within the fusion community she is not an unknown name as she played an important role during the Dutch presidency of the Council of the European Union when the ITER site negotiations were at a critical stage. Now—as ITER is under construction—we asked the prominent proponent of fusion about her opinion of the ITER project and its potential.
Newsline: The 2011 World Energy Outlook was published by your agency last November. What does it tell us about the energy that the next generations will use to heat their homes and prepare their meals?
Maria van der Hoeven: In the future, electricity will become an increasingly important fuel in the residential sector as developing countries switch away from less efficient sources of heating and cooking (such as traditional biomass) and as demand for electrical appliances continues to rise. Currently electricity accounts for about 20 percent of residential energy consumption, but we project that it will rise to 30 percent by 2035. The increasing electrification of our economies will raise new questions about introducing and deploying new technologies, the development and integration of power grids (and increasingly “smart” grids), efficient electricity storage, electricity security in general, and much more. However it will also create more flexibility in terms of energy input fuels and open more of the economy to power-generating technologies, including (potentially) fusion.
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