BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Europe will this week launch a campaign to triple funding for energy research to 8 billion euros ($11.7 billion) a year in a technology race with Japan and the United States, a draft document shows.

Solar power should get 16 billion euros over the next decade and up to 30 energy-sipping “Smart Cities” should be built with the backing of around 11 billion euros, added the report by the European Union’s executive, the European Commission.

In total, at least 50 billion euros of additional funding is seen over the next 10 years to ensure a wide range of technology emerges to help the EU meet its goal of cutting greenhouse gases by 80 percent by 2050.

“We need to stimulate our best brains to push back the frontiers of science in materials, in chemistry and physics, in nanotechnology and biotechnology, to find new and better ways of producing and consuming energy,” says the draft obtained by Reuters ahead of the launch on Wednesday.

“We can not sit back and wait for such potentially game changing breakthroughs to emerge from laboratories and make the often long and arduous journey to market,” it adds.

The report looks at how much funding is needed, rather than how businesses and the EU’s 27 member countries would find the money as they emerge from the biggest downturn since the second world war.

But earlier Commission proposals for funding energy projects, such as the 4 billion euros “European Economic Recovery Plan” have made swift progress this year and are now in the later stages of debate by EU ambassadors.

Companies ranging from Germany’s E.ON to Spain’s Gamesa look set to benefit.

Wind energy research should get 6 billion euros over the next decade, nuclear research should get 7 billion euros and energy from biomass and other waste 9 billion.

There should also be 13 billion euros for innovative “carbon capture and storage” technology to trap carbon dioxide from power stations and bury it underground.

JOB CREATION

The money, from both public and private sources, will be backed with a major push to coordinate research and reverse a tradition of duplication and wasted academic effort among the EU’s 27 nations.

The strategy is aimed at slashing output of gases blamed for climate change, but it also is to wean the EU off its dependency on costly oil and gas for 80 percent of its energy needs.

“We know that low-carbon technology will one day become cost-competitive with fossil fuels, and the question then is whether the EU will be an importer or an exporter of that technology,” said an EU official. “We have to be in pole position.”

The switch to green energy is also expected to create significant employment. The report sees 250,000 jobs created over the next decade as wind power shifts its focus to the seas, where wind is more plentiful and the public less critical.

Over 200,000 skilled jobs could be created in the solar energy sector, and the same number in bioenergy plants to generate energy from burning household and agricultural waste.

The so-called Strategic Energy Technology Plan (SET Plan) also envisions significant investment in hi-tech areas that are too risky to attract traditional sources of research funding.

“Motor fuels direct from sunlight, digital light sources that last for decades, batteries that store electricity at 10 times the current density — these are some of the technologies of the future,” says the draft.

“To master them we have to explore new levels of complexity in the physical and chemical phenomena that control how materials perform and interact,” it adds.

The demise of retail giant Filene’s Basement may have a positive effect on proponents of vertical urban farming and algae biofuels alike. Since 2007, the developers of a Filene’s site in downtown Boston have been unable to find funding to move the project forward. But now Höweler + Yoon Architecture and their partner Squared have put forth a proposal to erect a temporary vertical, modular, algae bioreactor high-rise in its place.

Called the Eco-Pod (pdf), the project leaders intend it to immediately stimulate “the economy and the ecology” of downtown Boston simultaneously. Eco-pod is a temporary modular structure made of individual pods that can be disassembled if and when the Filene’s project actually gets funded. According to the developers of Eco-Pod, each pod will produce biofuel and act as an incubator for scientists and companies to do research on growing algae and producing biofuel. The structure will also have open common areas to form a network of public parks and gardens.

Taking advantage of the fact that algae can be grown vertically on non-arable land, the Eco-Pod expands on the idea of urban vertical farming and takes it one step further with a vision to make fuel locally in an urban setting. By placing the structure in the middle of a city, the developers hope to stimulate public interest in algae biofuels as well as create an interaction between the public and researchers.

The Eco-Pod’s modules can be reconfigured as necessary to meet the changing demands of the structure by means of a “robotic armature powered by the algae biofuel.” If the Filene’s project ever takes off, the modules can be taken down by the robotic arm and redistributed to other parts of the city to infill other empty sites.

And now for a little dose of reality: As with most projects of this type, this one seems designed by people who have little practical experience with the needs of scientists and the viability and profitability of making algae biofuels with current technology. While I appreciate the creativity of the venture, I think it is a bit too pie-in-the-sky to ever see the light of day. Sure it could be done, but it would likely be a money-losing venture—far from the economic stimulus that the developers envision.

Source: Biofuels Digest