OVERVIEW PAPER
(This paper was co-authored by the NRC Office of Technology Foresight, Canada and National Metal and Materials Technology Center (MTEC), Thailand, and APEC CTF)

I BACKGROUND

The demand for energy worldwide is expected to continue to grow rapidly in the foreseeable future, as economic development becomes a more shared global goal and strategic priority for nations with the means to industrialize. The International Energy Agency (IEA) forecasts that the world will require 50 percent more energy over present consumption levels by 2020. The main fossil fuel energy sources will continue to supply 90 percent of this future demand in the near term, but global pressure is building to allocate fossil fuels more wisely and to develop ways to diminish existing dependencies and vulnerabilities.

Even those figures may understate the potential growth in global energy consumption. Demand for transport fuels could indeed intensify even further as the rapid integration of the automobile and network computer deliver a range of new mobility values to consumers. Recent high fuel price and terrorrism add to these concerns.

The Asia / Pacific region is expected to be the world’s largest consumer of fossil fuel energy by 2010. A great deal of this energy will have to be imported, likely from Middle East sources, where uncertainty and instability represent a potential threat to the development aspirations and stability prospects of most Asia-Pacific economies.

The increased use of cars and trucks in Asian countries particular China, is resulting in considerably more pressure on fossil fuel demand globally. Fossil fuels, however, are a relatively finite and increasingly expensive resource. Atmospheric greenhouse gases from fossil fuel combustion could lead to global temperature increases of 2 to 6 degrees by 2100, resulting in ever-more severe weather events and disruptions to agriculture production and urban demographics.

Conventional hydrocarbons have been used in combustion engines for both transport and electricity generation fuels and will continue to be the major source of energy supply for at least a century. As the amount of readily available oil in OPEC countries is depleting, the oil price is increasing. The conflict between price and availability will become more severe in the next 20 years, which will lead to a major shift of fuel consumption. But the use of conventional hydrocarbons may change in the future: instead of merely being converted to heat, their chemical energy may be directly changed into electricity via fuel cells.

In light of the energy uncertainties and resulting economic turbulence of the past three decades, several APEC economies are now investing in research, development, and commercialization initiatives aimed at lessening their fossil fuel dependence in future. More specifically they seek to develop alternative energy sources and industrial innovations including biofuels, better utilization of low-grade hydrocarbons including coal, compressed natural gas, dimethyl ether (DME), hydrogen, and methane hydrates.

II. PROPOSED APPROACH

Given the considerable literature and commercial availability of renewable energy technology such as photovoltaics, solar-thermal systems and wind, these will not be included in the present study. Attention will be directed to rapidly emerging technologies for fuel, which are being studied in a number of countries around the world. These future fuels are hydrogen, conventional hydrocarbons and bio-fuels. An attempt to predict their time frame of significant introduction into the pattern of energy usage is given in Figure 1

Transportation Fuels

o Fuel cells and other hydrogen-chemical portable systems
o Upgrading of conventional hydrocarbons, including gas from clean coal
o Compressed natural gas and similar mixtures
o Biofuels and blends
o New high efficiency vehicles and engines
o Hybrid vehicles and energy storage applications
o Future methane hydrate extraction and utilization

Electrical Generation

• Regular-sized plants based on innovative technologies and feedstocks including clean coal, biomass and nuclear.
• Smaller distributed systems based on fuel cells using methane produced from biomass or clean coal, natural gas or smaller scale nuclear facilities.
• Co-generation where pulp mills, integrated forest product operations and other factories converting bio-waste to electricity are able to sell surplus power back to the power grid.

The proposal is for APEC to assess the medium and longer-term issues on future fuel technologies through a two-staged approach. Stage I, to be implemented in 2004, would involve a scenario-planning workshop in Thailand that would address longer term issues, possible and plausible scenarios involving future fuel technologies and the possible disruptive impacts on these emerging future fuel technologies taking hold in the marketplace. Most importantly, it will prioritize the theme to be undertaken by the subsequent technology roadmap. Stage II, to be carried through 2005, involves the development of a technology roadmap, which is derived from the two previous scenario planning workshops. The technology roadmap, since it will draw from multiple scenarios may have several pathways that can be thought of as competing visions for plausible energy and fuels development in the region.

The success of the Stage II technology roadmap phase is directly tied to the outcomes from the Stage I scenarios.

Stage I: Scenario Planning Workshop (December 2004: Self-Funded)

The objectives for the Stage I scenario planning workshops are as follows:

• To assess the current situation of the development and potential use of future fuel technologies;
• To assess the prospective fuel demand factors and scenario roadmap inputs;
• To examine the issues raised by a transition from a fossil fuel economy to a renewable based fuel economy;
• To highlight the research and development needed together with government policies and actions to stimulate such a transition.

A 3-day Scenario Planning Workshop to be held in Krabi, Thailand in December 2004, would have three time frames: 2010, 2020 and 2030, and a three-fold focus:

• Scoping of key domains, leading questions and fuel areas
• Formulation of some broad scenario parameters and initial story lines about fuel markets evolution and technologies maturation pathways.
• Discussion on the application of technology roadmapping and its applicability to foresighting future fuel technology.

Supports are expected from various organizations for the scenario workshop. Ideally, each APEC member economy would send two representatives including one energy-industry executive and one government representative. Organizers would prepare, in consultation with industry experts, short papers in a presentation format that describe each of the future fuel’s current R&D status, major issues of uncertainty in applications and technologies on following structure.

1. The current status
2. Projected technical horizons
3. Critical market access (niches)
4. Critical barriers or constraints
5. Likely progression in penetration rates that are foreseen
6. Interdependency between various future fuels
7. Major technical or economic uncertainties
8. Regulatory framework (what kind of regulatory system will enhance or accelerate the growth of the fuel)
9. Critical cost (price) factors
10. Feedstock supply factors (availability of feedstocks from biological, technical or economic perspective)
11. State of infrastructure impacting on the fuel, i.e., is the existing infrastructure sufficient to allow the fuel to grow
12. Sense of global leadership and related issues

Stage II or the development of a technology roadmap would be derived from the scenario planning session in Thailand. The scenario workshop would provide a longer-term structure on possible and plausible scenarios based on the advice of business, academic and government experts from several APEC economies that are highly knowledgeable on each of the future fuel technologies being discussed. The resulting scenario will form a basis for the subsequent technology roadmapping.

A Technology Roadmap has the following characteristics:

• A Technology Roadmap is a practical forecasting tool whereby the industry can identify its future market and technology needs and define the strategic direction necessary to realize them
• A Technology Roadmap is a chronological representation of various technological projects underway now or in the future that will satisfy market needs
• A Technology Roadmap is an analysis framework that enables the participants to take a systematic approach to meeting market needs through select, focused and agreed upon technological development
• A Technology Roadmap leads to a more cohesive community of practice amongst the participants.

Technology roadmapping is a collaborative planning process, which brings stakeholders together to chart the course for innovative technologies and processes that will meet future market demands. Stakeholders will include, but are not limited to, industry, government, research laboratories, academia, and contribution and granting agencies.

Developing a Technology Roadmap requires three steps:

• Market requirements forecast
• Product implications forecast
• Technology implications forecast.

An implementation plan, or technology roadmap, is then developed to guide how these technologies can best be developed and to identify the resources required. In essence, technology roadmapping connects technology to strategy.

Some of the benefits of the process of technology roadmapping include:

• Building new partnerships and R&D collaborations within APEC economies
• Reducing the risk through collaboration
• Guiding technology R&D decisions
• Assisting industry to seize market opportunities
• Provision of crucial input to government policy

A consolidated final report, drawing from the two Technology Roadmapping Workshops and the earlier Scenario Workshop will be published. In late 2005 a final Wrap-Up Symposium is planned to be held in Thailand hosted by APEC CTF to present the results of the whole project to the public and policy makers both directly and through the mass media.

III PROSPECTIVE TIMETABLE

2004 – STAGE ONE: Scenario Planning

2006