Summer School - Energy Security
August 3 - 10, 2013
The Department of International Relations and European Studies of the Faculty of Social Studies of Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic together with our partners are proud to present "Atlantic and Continental Approaches to Energy Security," a summer school on the topic of energy security.
The aim of this summer school is a comparison of selected energy security related questions from perspectives of the U.S. as well as of European Union states. The summer school will focus on topics related to the electric utility sector, such as the future of nuclear energy; the problem of the use of conventional resources in the transportation sector; the support of renewables; the coal industry and its environmental aspects; the future of smart grids and decentralization of electricity utility sector; etc. This summer school will analyze the differences and compliances of two different ways of dealing with specific energy security related issues.
The primary target of this event is to offer to undergraduate and graduate students of Central and Western Europe and the United States of America the possibility to study the most important and most current topics of this issue from two main perspectives: the continental (Europe) and the U.S. As long-term observation and research has pointed out, there are great differences in dealing with energy security related issues between the so-called "Atlantic" (American) approach and the so-called "Continental" (European) one.
Both the United States of America and European Union face similar problems, but they generally deal with them differently. One example could be the much different way of supporting renewables, such as the Renewable Portfolio Standard in the USA compared to Feed-In Tariffs in the EU.
Misunderstanding of differences and specifics of both regions creates unnecessary friction and leads to mutual misunderstanding and disputes in many cases. In addition to the primary goal of providing background on this important issue to students, this summer school also will make an effort to find common positions and overcome certain ideological gaps between the two approaches.
