f How to consolidate Turkish R&D for a sustainable energy policy

Fossil fuels, both liquid and gaseous but also solids, will remain the major energy resources all over the world for the coming decades. Turkey has a peculiar position in this area as it imports most of its petroleum and natural gas needs, possessing only significant lignite reserves. Furthermore, Turkey not only imports most of the major parts of energy conversion technologies but also oil and natural gas wells drilling technologies. Energy related imports, both in terms of fuels and related technologies constitute the main cause of Turkey’s commercial budget deficit which is prone to continue to increase if no drastic changes happen. In such a situation the main routes for changes are not many. One route is obviously the reduction of energy consumption, but in a developing country with increasing population this route is of limited impact. The second route is import substitution using domestic resources and also domestic technology. Finally, another route is hybridization of fossil fuel based energy conversion technologies with those based on renewable energy resources, such as solar and biomass for Turkey. In this paper we shall mainly focus on these two last routes. It is obvious that both options are heavily based on innovation and therefore on R&D and additionally on university and industry partnership. The paper is structured in two parts. The first part presents some examples of recent developments taken from France which also lacks fossil fuel resources. The second part highlights some recent developments in Turkey and proposes additional suggestions to strengthen them.