Two young Russians begin world journey to research global energy trends

BRUSSELS, Belgium – Two young Russians kicked-off their round-the-world quest on Monday to explore how the most challenging energy problems are being dealt with in different parts of the world.

Maria Khromova, a young Muscovite trained in the power industry, and Egor Goloshov, an aspiring economist from Zlatoust, began their journey in Berlin, Germany as the first stop on their tour, which will take them to different regions of the world over roughly three months.

Ms. Khromova, 24, and Mr. Goloshov, 21, were selected in May out of a competitive pool of 49,000 applicants from across Russia as part of the Energy of Adventure project launched by the non-profit partnership Global Energy based in Moscow.

The aim of the project is to highlight the world’s various energy challenges, from coping with limited energy resource supplies to mitigating climate change, in various countries and to showcase how these challenges are being confronted.

Ms. Khromova and Mr. Goloshov will meet with an array of energy experts over their journey, including scientists and academics, and visit a variety of companies and organizations, like the German Energy Agency. They are also scheduled to visit China, France, Iceland, Israel, Italy, Kazakhstan, and South Korea in the first weeks of their trip.

“It is important that the world’s energy challenges are discussed by the younger generations. We need to encourage more participation of the young in the discussion about how the world will meet its growing energy demands while improving its efficient use thereby also mitigating the effects of climate change,” said Professor Klaus Riedle, Board Member of the Association of German Engineers and a Global Energy Prize Laureate.

“The energy world should back more of these types of projects that the Global Energy Prize has sponsored,” said Mr. Riedle.

The International Energy Agency in Paris forecasts global oil demand to increase substantially from around 89 million barrels per day (mb/d) in 2011 to 99 mb/d in 2035, with much of the growth coming from the transport sector in emerging economies. The agency expects the number of passenger vehicles to double to almost 1.7 billion by 2035 from current levels.

Discussing how such demand will be met will be part of the various talking points that Ms. Khromova and Mr. Goloshov take up in their personal postings in social media outlets like Twitter and Facebook. Ms. Khromova and Mr. Goloshov will report about their findings, discussions, and observations over the course of their tour in hopes of inspiring and triggering new thinking and ideas for addressing today’s interconnected energy challenges.

Ms. Khromova and Mr. Goloshov also plan to visit Australia, Brazil, Denmark, India, Japan, Spain, Tanzania, the UAE, and the US over the course of their tour before finishing the trip back in Moscow.

“This is a great opportunity for the younger entrants into the energy business world to see firsthand how actors across the energy supply chain and in different parts of the world are coping with their unique set of energy challenges and problems. I am very excited to be a part of this unique endeavor,” said Thorsteinn Ingi Sigfusson, Director of the Innovation Center in Iceland and a Global Energy Prize Laureate.

Ms. Khromova, who comes from a family of scientists, said she plans to take all her findings from this tour to help inform a scientific paper she will write.

“We are thrilled to be starting this trip after months of preparation and we look forward to sharing our discoveries and insights, particularly related to the power sector,” said Ms. Khromova.

Ms. Khromova has a geophysics degree from The Moscow State University and is currently pursuing a second university degree at the Moscow State Institute for Foreign Relations.

Mr. Goloshov has a special interest in renewable sources of energy such as tidal, wind and solar energy and is currently enrolled in the Moscow Higher School of Economics. “With question marks surrounding the longevity of the world’s traditional energy sources, it is important that we are adamantly exploring renewable sources of energy to see how we can scale up these technologies and increase their usage,” Mr. Goloshov said.

For further details about the tour being undertaken by Ms. Khromova and Mr. Goloshov or about the Energy of Adventure project, please contact Alena Georgobiani, Account Director at Fleishman-Hillard Vanguard, at [email protected].

You can follow Mr. Goloshov and Ms. Khromova’s journey on Twitter [ http://www.twitter.com/energyadventure] and Facebook [ http://www.fb.com/energyofadventure].