Nautilus is pleased to announce the “Asian Energy Security Workshop 2005”, to be held in Beijing, China, from the 13th to 16th of May, 2005, with an additional Scenarios event on the 18th and 19th of May. This workshop is being organized by the Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainability of San Francisco, California in collaboration with the Energy and Environmental Technology Center (EETC) at Tsinghua University.

The main theme of the May 13th to 16th workshop, and of the Asian Energy Security (AES) Project as a whole, is collaborative research, involving groups from each of the countries of Northeast Asia (including, the DPRK, the ROK, the Russian Far East, China, Japan, and Mongolia) on different paths to address energy security issues in the region. Collaborative research under the AES project looks at on both national and regional approaches to energy security concerns. The specific focus of the AES2005 workshop will be on energy efficiency measures and policy options, district heating systems and options for improvement of existing district heating systems, and storage of fuels and the use and sharing of fuel stores in emergencies. Workshop participants will discuss ways in which the countries of the region might collaborate on energy efficiency, district heating, and emergency fuel storage and sharing so as to improve energy security in the region as a whole. The modeling of these types of measures in national energy paths, in a more detailed way than has been possible to date, will also be a main topic of discussion. Given, as in previous AES workshops, that participants from all of the Northeast Asian nations, as well as from Australia and the United States, are expected, the Workshop will provide an excellent opportunity for an informal exchange of views.

The workshop will start with a day of focusing, for the countries of Northeast Asia, on the analysis of current national energy sector developments, national energy policy developments, and their implications for energy security. The first day will also include reporting on the continuation of collaborative project activities from previous workshops, and reports from each country working group on their progress on quantitative modeling of energy paths. The second day of the workshop will be largely devoted to expert presentations on energy efficiency measures and policies, district heating systems, and emergency fuel storage and sharing, as well as discussions about project achievements to date and activities for the coming year. The final two days of the workshop will consist of a “hands-on” working session as a group with the LEAP energy/environmental analysis software tool. This work will draw and build upon work in previous Asian Energy Security (AES) and East Asia Energy Futures (EAEF) project workshops held in Beijing (co-hosted by the Energy and Environmental Technology Center at Tsinghua University), in Canada (Co-hosted by the University of British Columbia’s Liu Institute for Global Issues) and at Nautilus Institute in California. This workshop will provide training and experience in applying the latest version of the LEAP software, as well as an opportunity to discuss important regional energy issues and plan future project activities.

A two-day “Scenarios” workshop will follow the main AES workshop. This small-group exercise will be devoted to exploration of important issues in global sustainable development and energy security.