On May 26-28, 2009 the European Commission organised a tree day conference on “Sustainable Development, a challenge for European Research”. In his opening speach, EU Research Commissioner Janez Potočnik indicated that in the first two years of the EU’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7), 44% of the budget for collaborative research has been allocated to research supporting the EU’s renewed sustainable development strategy. For instance, as part of the EU economic recovery plan, FP7 will support the “greening” of the EU automotive, manufacturing and construction sectors through three public-private R&D partnerships. He also mentioned specifically  two Joint Technology Initiatives (JTIs), “Clean Sky” and the “Hydrogen and Fuel Cells” JTI that he presented as clearly linked to the key challenges of the renewed sustainable strategy.  Eco-Industries turnover in the EU is estimated to be €227 billion per year or around 2.2% of GDP and the turnover of EU eco-industries grew by around 7% between 1999 and 2004. In 2004 these industries provided EU citizens with an estimated 3.4 million jobs.
On Day 1 the EHA joined a session on “Car electrification: on the path towards sustainable road transport? Presentations included:
– battery recycling issues (Umicore): Lithium production is in the hands of a small amount of producers, curerent production needs to increase, recycling cna facilitate less supply dependencies:
– and the impact of vehcile battery recharging on the eletricity net (ECN): the current eletricity nets are only able to support controlled recharging. All presentations are available on the Conference website.