WBA had its annual steering committee meeting, general assembly and board meeting at the African Centre for Technology Studies (ACTS) in Nairobi, Kenya on 9th June 2015.
During the meeting, Dr Benard Muok, Director of Programmes, ACTS (African Centre for Technology Studies), Kenya and Dr Tanay Sidki Uyar, Professor, Marmara University, Turkey were elected for one year as new vice presidents of WBA. They join the team of Douglas Bradley (Canada), Andrew Lang (Australia) and Sribas Bhattacharya (India) as re-elected Vice-presidents of WBA.
Dr. Muok has 20 years of experience in research and management of natural resources, with a specific focus on renewable energy, climate change, science and technology innovation, environmental conservation, sustainable development etc.
Dr. Tanay has been instrumental in the development of renewable energy in Turkey and nearby regions. He is the Head of the Energy Section of Marmara University active in World Wind Energy Association (WWEA) and European Association of Renewable Energy (EUROSOLAR) and has broad international experience in the renewables sector.
As Vice Presidents of the World Bioenergy Association, they will guide the work of the association in a voluntary function. In a first statement, they underlined the important role of renewables in the future energy supply to meet the climate targets and the importance of bioenergy in the future energy mix.
At the same meeting, Dr Heinz Kopetz has been re-elected as the President of WBA for the period 2015 – 16.
Dr. Ben Muok, new Vice President of WBA: “Modern energy services are crucial to human well-being and to a country’s economic development; and yet globally over 1.3 billion people are without access to electricity and 2.6 billion people are without clean cooking facilities. More than 95% of these people are either in sub-Saharan African or developing Asia and 84% are in rural areas. . Although investment in new energy supply (pre-dominantly electricity) is on the rise in sub-Sahara Africa, these gains are outpaced by population growth. To date more than 620 million people still live without access to electricity and nearly 730 million people use hazardous, inefficient forms of cooking, a reliance which affects women and children disproportionately.” Modern bioenergy has to play a vital role in the global energy supply, in particular in Africa. This is the case for industrialized countries; like in Sweden where bioenergy stands contributes up to 34% of the total energy use
Dr. Tanay Sidki Uyar, new Vice President of WBA: “Bioenergy has an important mission for the solution: energy end use efficiency and 100 % renewable energy. The transition from fossils fuels, expensive and polluting energy systems to clean, cheap and sustainable renewable energy systems are in progress globally and are becoming economically viable everyday. Bioenergy with its municipal, agricultural and forestry waste to energy options is decreasing the size of the energy problem at the same time contributing to the solutıon. Renewable energy resources are available free of charge and the technology is commercially available for competitive prices, we only need decision makers who are in the solution side. Renewable energy is getting cheaper as used more while fossil fuels are getting expensive as they are used more. We can create a 100% renewable energy world before the middle of this century.”
