The project was co-funded by the European Commission DG Research as part of the 6th Framework Research Programme and is undertaken by three partners, with TRT Trasporti e Territorio taking the lead and collaborating with Fraunhofer Institute Systems and Innovation research (ISI) and the Institute for Prospective Technological Studies of the European Commission JRC (IPTS). In June 2008, the activities of the project have been concluded and the project reports approved by the European Commission DG RTD.
Methodology
The HOP! approach developed along three activity lines, which were
closely related and constantly influenced each other.
- Modelling: the quantification of the impacts was performed coupling two European interlinked strategic models, the ASTRA model (designed for the long term assessment of transport policies and investments) focused on transport and macroeconomics and the POLES model (designed for simulating the interaction of energy supply and demand) focused on energy.
- Assessment: the HOP! scenarios were carefully designed to allow for identifying a well defined set of impacts; The scenarios corresponded to different sets of assumptions about fossil fuel reserves, timing of the oil price increase, energy tax level. The time horizon of the assessment was 2050.
- Scientific consensus: The model-based quantitative analysis was combined with expert opinions, which are obtained primarily through scientific events: the first workshop in November 2007 discussed the model assumptions and the project methodology, while the final conference in June 2008 provided a forum for discussing the final HOP! project results.
Scenarios
To derive a comprehensive picture of the economic impacts of high oil
prices a series of
scenarios have been defined and compared with a reference projection
of the HOP! project.
The main criteria to differentiate these scenarios is the crude oil
price achieved
in the year 2020 given in constant EUROs of the year 2000. These
prices range between 150
€2000/bbl and 800 €2000/bbl by 2020 with further increases thereafter,
while in the HOP!
Reference Scenario only moderate growth is foreseen leading to 70
€2000/bbl.
The following table provide an overview on the ten major
HOP! scenarios.
Results
The HOP scenarios have been assessed through using a selected set of
meaningful indicators.
The list of main indicators include: the share of alternative energy sources and energy consumption, the substitution levels of oil by new and clean energy technologies, the vehicle fleet (including innovative vehicles) development and fuel consumption, the passengers and freight transport demand by mode, the GDP growth and the employment, the energy imports, fuel tax revenues, the transport CO2 emissions.
You may find a complete overview of the impacts of high oil prices by consulting the deliverable 3 on “ Quantification of direct and indirect impacts of high oil prices for the EU”.
A synthesis of the results is included in the final report
deliverable 5.
