European Future Energy Forum – Day Two, 10th June 2009

Today’s focus was on the transport industry and how it is far to slow in catching up to adequate levels to mitigate climate change, Former UK Minister for Transport Steven Norris chaired an extremely interesting debate which he hopes will influence UK and European policy to be much tougher on Transportation and Energy companies to invest in renewable and fossil fuel free technologies to turn the transport industry into a sustainable one. Contrasting against Bianca Jaggers statement that we have 10 years left, the transport industry heads pessimistically say it will take 35 years to implement policy change.

Round table discussions involved talking about Masdar new PRT (public Rapid Transport) tram system which will be a public transport system that will completely replace cars in Masdar city relying solely on electricity generated from the solar power, currently the technology transports the entire container traffic around Rotterdam port and Masdar wish to change this into public transport that can transport 6 people from one destination to the next without stopping and picking up other passengers, it will have 3000 PRTs running underneath the ground in Masdar when it is finished!