Interview with Reinier de Graaf

AMO's director discusses the principles and ideas developed by the group over the last few years to launch a new sustainable energy policy in Europe.

This article was originally published in the special supplement Green Energy that accompanies Domus 950/September 2011

Reinier de Graaf became director of AMO, the think tank of OMA, in 2002, after joining OMA in 1996. He is in charge of AMO's increasing involvement in sustainability and renewable energy planning, including the publication in 2010 of Roadmap 2050: A Practical Guide to a Prosperous, Low-Carbon Europe, and most recently in the WWF Energy Report (February 2011) with the European Climate Foundation. As a partner of OMA, he is currently working on the Stadskantoor Town Hall, Coolsingel mixed-use buildings in Rotterdam, the new G-Star Headquarters in Amsterdam, and the Commonwealth Institute redevelopment in London.

Lucy Bullivant: What are your chief priorities for AMO's growing involvement with sustainability and energy plans?
Reinier de Graaf:
Ever since the first UN Conference on Human Environment in 1972, global awareness of climate change and the need for a sustainable solution has increased exponentially. Political groups like the Club of Rome led to the formation of intergovernmental panels and international climate forums, and eventually formalised standards such as LEED and BREEAM in the building industry. However, we've increasingly watched as the fragmented nature of our current system—the nation state coupled with the opportunism of the market economy—prevents the collective response needed to tackle climate change. Both systems are based on an organising principle whereby partial interests seek a competitive advantage over each other.
In such systems, the recognition of an opportunity inspires a race to action, while the identification of a risk seems to produce a collective paralysis, where each party waits for the next to make the first move. In this context, a "leap of faith" is often the hardest move to make, even if it promises ample economic rewards. The conservatism that results from these systems also manifests itself in architecture. Even with the growing awareness and subsequent "sustainable" requirements, "green" solutions are typically meagre green walls or green roofs, with little or no macro impact. To address the need for sustainable solutions at such a small scale is simply not enough. AMO is therefore interested in addressing sustainability at a scale which can have an impact: using the scale of the city, the country, and even the continent to transcend national interests through unified interest in a sustainable future. AMO's infrastructure proposals and renewable energy master plans exploit the added benefits of collaboration to illustrate an alternative future.
Top image and above: from Zeekracht, OMA’s infrastructure master plan for the five nations facing the North Sea. The solution for sustainable energy is identified in a ring of offshore wind farms located in sites that are independent of national borders. © OMA.
Top image and above: from Zeekracht, OMA’s infrastructure master plan for the five nations facing the North Sea. The solution for sustainable energy is identified in a ring of offshore wind farms located in sites that are independent of national borders. © OMA.
How does your Zeekracht project exemplify that?
Zeekracht (2008) was our first infrastructure master plan that garnered additional energy provision simply by crossing national borders. The master plan proposes a ring of offshore wind farms in the five territorial waters of the North Sea. The proposal uses the climatic advantages of the vast North Sea (shallow waters, high wind speeds) to supply these countries with "clean" energy, but in the process it exemplifies the added benefits of collaboration through its provisions for ecological remediation, offshore transport fuelling, and research and development institutions.
From Zeekracht, OMA’s infrastructure master plan for the five nations facing the North Sea. © OMA.
From Zeekracht, OMA’s infrastructure master plan for the five nations facing the North Sea. © OMA.
What makes a master plan a truly sustainable one in energy terms? There is some scepticism around this area.
If something is to be "sustainable", it implies flexibility. Hard infrastructure, especially when fossil-fuel based, relies on a single source to produce a single product. A truly sustainable master plan takes advantage of climatic conditions and utilises natural assets to provide a reliable system of energy provision.
European nations cannot reach the goal of decarbonisation. on their own
From <i>Roadmap 2050,</i> a project initiated by the European Climate Foundation on the decarbonisation of Europe. © OMA.
From Roadmap 2050, a project initiated by the European Climate Foundation on the decarbonisation of Europe. © OMA.
What is the argument behind the Roadmap 2050 and where have you promoted it?
In 2009, European leaders committed to reducing Europe's CO2 emissions by 80 per cent by 2050, with no plan for how to do so. Roadmap 2050 is a project initiated by the European Climate Foundation in which a consortium of companies developed a practical plan to answer this commitment. In order to reach their emissions reduction goal, Europe would need to decarbonise their power sector completely, and the project outlines the method and consequences of doing so.
Due to their individual climatic and financial limitations, European nations could not reach the goal of decarbonisation on their own. In this sense, Europe's geographic and climatic diversity is the best means to help realise greater gains in grid efficiency and outage management: in the summer, the windy north can profit from the sunny south; in the winter, vice versa. This mutual dependence of energy regions will also increase the dependency of the grid when efficiently planned.
Since the project's launch in April of 2010, it has been presented to each of the European Ministers of Energy and the Environment, members of the European Commission, international political leaders, as well as representatives of industry and technology. AMO produced a graphic narrative that describes how Europe will upgrade its grid in a way that is technically feasible and economically affordable, along with what policies need to be in place to ensure its success. When leaders or corporate entities can see and understand this future, politicians can easily incorporate the project's principles into their policies, and industry can promote this future through the incorporation of their own technology, policies and efforts.
From <i>Roadmap 2050.</i> © OMA.
From Roadmap 2050. © OMA.
In your role as energy director at the new postgraduate Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture and Design in Moscow, what questions are you asking about this topic as it relates to Russia, a country with some of the most significant renewable energy potentials in the world, and what activities are you undertaking there?
At Strelka, we have been exploring Russia's energy future, notably how Russia could deal with depleting fossil-fuel reserves, which will eventually need to be replaced with a sustainable solution. Russia's energy sector is often described as opaque and impenetrable; therefore, understanding comes through anecdotes, actions and investment. In 2007, a Russian expedition claimed the Lomonosov Ridge as an extension of the Russian Federation's adjacent continental shelf, marking their claim on the oil reserves below with a rust-proof titanium Russian flag. At present, Russia goes to great lengths to secure its energy future without having to adjust course.
From <i>Roadmap 2050.</i> © OMA.
From Roadmap 2050. © OMA.
That's a pretty paradoxical position to adopt, which surely entails a growing conflict, doesn't it?
Yes. Energy supply is often viewed as a matter of national security, and unfortunately it is increasingly also a source of global insecurity. If not resolved, the conflict between Russia's short-term interests and the long-term interests of the world—and ultimately also Russia—could well lead to global collapse. While it may be easy to imagine Russia continuing to be dependent on fossil fuels, it is essential to imagine Russia beyond oil and gas, but this is not an easy task. Due to Russia's economic dependence on fossil-fuel exports, it is a challenge to predict Russia's energy future. While energy has been the driving force of Russia's development since the beginning of the 20th century, today, Russia's dependence on oil and gas limits the research and development of new technologies and ultimately also the diversification of its economy.

At Strelka, you acknowledged the limitations of such dependency and asked questions that currently do, or will, apply to other countries to a greater or lesser extent.
We asked whether a Russia no longer dependent on oil and gas could be feasible in our lifetime. What are the political, social and economic hurdles? How does this affect Russia's position in the world?

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