The 21 century will be the era to discuss energy issues from global aspects. The abundance of energy resources on the Earth has been a key factor for the rapid development of the world economy and science technology for the past two centuries. But, the over-consumption of energy resources and environmental damage are exaggerating since then. Although much work has been done on them, there is still no sign of relieving the seriousness of the problems.
As a result, the economic, social, and environmental factors of every region in the world are going to be more interactive. Now, the energy as well as environmental issues are not regional but global. As a result of the impacts from the freeing up of world trade and the strict international environmental treaties, such as the Kyoto Protocol, the 3-E (energy/environment/economy) problems have long become a major policy concern for government officials in Taiwan.
In the past, the energy forecasting system (EnFore) was aimed at the local energy policy, but in order to cope with the new challenges faced by decision makers, there is a need to learn more about the world energy 3-E policies and modeling. By initiating an international academic energy conference would clearly be one effective way of promoting the research achievements as a whole, as well as collecting valuable modeling and policy information at one convenience site. The 28th Annual IAEE International Conference is one of the targets in the present project that aimed at inviting experts, officials, scholars, and all professionals to discuss research works and exchange experiences on global energy related issues. At the conference, discussions on global energy issues and problems can be carried out from different perspectives, such as world energy markets, technology development, energy policies, world and regional economics, effective energy consumptions, and energy sustainability. The Conference has been planned to hold in 2005 at Taipei city.
The key research work of EnFore for 2004 will be as follows: (i) the reinforcement of the 3-E policy simulation capability so as to reduce user costs in dealing with the regional energy problem; (ii) the provision of Energy Balance type of energy forecasting under the consideration of national economy and environmental protection; (iii) the initiation of an international energy conference to promote and exchange research experience in 3-E energy modeling; and (iv) the maintenance of the EnFore database and system so as to provide a reasonable baseline for forecasting of energy and CO2 emissions in Taiwan.