Title: Renewable Energies and the path towards Sustainable Development
Speaker: Dr Manuel Collares Pereira
Moderator: João Pedro Conde, INESC MN

Date: January 14, 2022 @ 16h00 Lisbon time
Hybrid seminar: Auditorium/Room 9 @ INESC and virtual (registration: https://tinyurl.com/4up464jb)

SHORT BIO: Manuel Collares Pereira has extensive research work in Solar Energy, as specialist in Optics and Thermodynamics. He was Full Professor at the University of Évora until 2019. In 2012 he was Founder and is Director of IPES - Instituto Português de Energia Solar. Author of "Energias Renováveis - a Opção Inadiável", of "Jeremias e o Desenvolvimento Sustentável", co-author and editor of other books, author of more than 260 scientific papers and over a dozen patents. Up to 2006, Collares Pereira was Coordinator Researcher at INETI-LNEG, simultaneously pursuing a University career. Also Founder and twice President of Centro para a Conservação de Energia, now ADENE and of SPES - Sociedade Portuguesa de Energia Solar and President of ACTD - Associação para a Ciência, Tecnologia e Desenvolvimento. He represented the Portuguese Government in high level Steering Committees for European Union Renewables. He is member of the Academia de Engenharia (Portugal), honorary member of the Mexican Academy of Energy and member of the Lisbon Academy of Sciences. He has received the Heating and Cooling Award for Lifetime Achievement by the International Energy Agency (IEA) in 2008 and ADENE award in the EDUCAR category in 2021.

ABSTRACT: The presentation starts by defining Sustainable Development and introduces the subject of Climatic Change as being the clearest manifestation of the deep lack of sustainability caused by the way we live. The use of fossil fuels based energy is shown as being directly responsible for Climate Change, implying the need for their substitution by alternative and renewable energy forms, a change that must happen to get us on a path towards sustainable development. The relevance of electricity in the transition is explained, as well as how it can be produced from renewable energies. Other topics, like energy sufficiency and energy efficiency are discussed. It is noted that the solution to the problem is not just technological but requires a new culture, since there is an important cultural dimension in any behavioral change. And a behavioral change (individual and collective) is a necessary condition for a sustainable future. In the course of the presentation the main targets of the National and European Energy targets are presented and commented, in particular in their alignment with climate change/mitigation objectives.

You can find the Flyer here: https://tinyurl.com/2tz8kv6u