
Practical information
As part of the Ifri Energy Breakfast Roundtable series, a seminar with Lew Fulton, Senior Transport Energy Specialist, IEA et Thomas C. Luthy, Distributed Energy Resources Global Leader, IBM, Energy & Utilities. Chaired by William C. Ramsay, Senior Fellow and Director du Programme Ifri Energy and Jacques Lesourne, Chairman of the Scientific Committee of the Ifri Energy Program
To listen to automobile manufacturers in Geneva last month, an electric vehicle (EV) will soon be in your garage. EVs are billed as the answer to increasing dependence on “insecure” foreign oil, unsustainable inefficiencies in transportation design, growing contribution of transport to carbon emissions, urban pollution, unemployment in the sector and a host of other ills. EVs indeed appear as one path to achieve European Union longer term CO2 reduction objectives, innovation and competitiveness. The European Commission will soon present an action plan on “clean and energy efficient cars”. Before research budgets, state aids, supporting/enabling legislation and new infrastructures are planned by policy makers, it is opportune to assess how real, beneficial and accessible this technology is.
Are EVs just another technology flavor of the hour or will they truly contribute to these virtuous policy goals? How do small scale demonstrations of the technologies and infrastructure scale up? Will battery technology, infrastructure and cost restrain deployment? Do consumers really want to drive electric vehicles? What will be the source of electricity to recharge the batteries? On April 29, we hope at least to frame many of these issues and perhaps dispel a few doubts
Other events

The Future of Space Cooperation: Challenges and Opportunities in the Trump II Era
The policy orientations of the Trump II administration profoundly challenge the foundations of international cooperation in space science and exploration. This shift reflects a broader trend of strategic disengagement and weakening of multilateral mechanisms in the space domain.

Strategic Autonomy and Asia amid Rising Geoeconomic Competition
Amid growing strategic and geopolitical uncertainty, Europe is grappling with the notion of its strategic autonomy. For Europe’s partners in Asia, the concept is also becoming increasingly salient as the world enters an era of structural transformation.
The New Nuclear Instabilities on the Korean Peninsula
From the growing size and diversification of the North Korean nuclear arsenal, and an open rhetoric in favor of nuclear proliferation in the South because of the loss of credibility of U.S. extended deterrence, the Peninsula is facing raising nuclear tensions.