65th Annual Meeting of Ifo Institute

The 65th Annual Meeting of the Ifo Institute took place on 26 June 2014 in the Great Hall of the Ludwig Maximilian University Munich (LMU). Prior to the meeting Timo Wollmershäuser, interim Director of the Ifo Center for Business Cycle Analysis and Surveys, presented the latest economic forecast of the Ifo Institute. The public part of this year’s annual meeting, under the motto: “Safeguarding prosperity with energy – successfully structuring the magic triangle of energy supply security, cheap energy prices and a reduction in climate-damaging gases, was opened by Bernd Huber, President of the LMU, who welcomed the large number of guests present. In his presentation Ifo President Hans-Werner Sinn then asked the question of whether the double phase-out – of coal and nuclear power – can really be achieved. He primarily looked at the problem of the volatility of “green power”, which is caused by the inconstancy of wind and solar power. Both sources of energy require a technology to smooth out power production over the course of the year, which is massively expensive. In his presentation Christoph Buchal from the Forschungszentrum Jülich, the second speaker, presented the energy turnaround as a “monumental project that will take several years”. In a discussion chaired by Ulrich Schäfer, Süddeutsche Zeitung, the participants Aldo Belloni, board member of Linde AG, Jochen Homann, President of the German Federal Network Agency for Electricity, Gas, Telecommunications, Post and Railway expanded on their arguments and discussed possible approaches to solutions.