Jacek KIJEŃSKI ? Industrial Chemistry Research Institute, Warsaw; Marta KIJEŃSKA ?Institute of Environmental Protection, Warsaw, Poland

Please cite as: CHEMIK 2013, 67, 3, 206-207

It is triple ?not? which, in the light of global energy deficit faced today and urgent need to enlarge global resources? base, proves to determine the contemporary world politics. These are: not real viewpoint concerning human impact on temperature in the environment (greenhouse effect), not clear forecast of fossil fuels? and energy resources? depletion, and finally, common public opinion, which is not willing to support development of nuclear power engineering. The aforementioned determinants have enforced the abandonment of natural technological progress of our civilization, which started in the 17th century and which was based on thermodynamic analysis, and have superseded it by so called sustainable development. The concept of sustainable development, which lacks common and coherent strategy, aims to fight growing crisis, rather than to provide rapidly growing human population with (secure) access to energy and resources. The said concept suggests that global problems can be solved by means of initiatives, which prove to be unreal today and which have uncertain future application, such as mass consumption of solar energy, wind energy, or development of integrated waste management technologies for maximising material and energy recovery. Conceptual gap between distant (and quite unreal) future and current problems of malfunctioning global economy (such as requirement to reduce emission of CO2, which we generate ourselves) must be urgently filled with development strategy which will make use of the present state of the art, technological and technical tradition, and above all ? of common sense, instead of under-developed future solutions. This strategy must rest on real capabilities of using all resources? reserves which can be found on the Earth, including renewable sources, and increased efficiency of using fissile materials. Regardless of the strategy scale, whether for a sector, national economy or larger economic organisation, it is important that its principles must be based on objective analyses and assessments of natural environment and its natural resources, as well as on the present state of technological and technical art; as a consequence, realistic employment of techniques and technologies will provide efficient and safe using of natural environment and its resources. The most important rationales for formulating development strategies are as follows:

? Anthropogenic impact on climate change must be considered as fictional, and verification of so called greenhouse effect, which considerably hampers development of alternative sources of energy (hydrogen, syngas), is only a matter of not-too-distant future; therefore, while considering temporary low-emission technological processes, it should be decided to resign from capital-intensive (even during research study) CCS (Carbon Capture and Storage) process

• It is not possible to construct closed generation system which ignores the second law of thermodynamics; it is also not possible to reduce amount of commune wastes, as their generation is a consequence of civilisation development and increased quality of life
• Even if we accept that forecasts of depletion of global oil and gas deposits are much exaggerated, black coal will be major fossil source of energy used in the long-run
• Use of black coal, whose share in global generation of electric energy reaches several dozen per cents, will not be reduced in a short-time; however, even today, when costs of CO2 reduction are similar, old coal-fired boilers used in energy sector will be replaced with gas-fed installations
• This provides for poly-generation i.e. simultaneous generation of energy, its sources (fuel) and chemicals
• High caloric gases used for these processes can be generated not only from different types of coal, but also from renewable sources e.g. waste and natural biomass, or commune waste, during thermal decomposition, gasification, or combination of these processes
• Products generated during gasification and indirect coal liquefaction processes, which are used in the existing technological processes with high level of excellence, prove to be reliable base for alternative petrochemical processes (above all thanks to methanol production flow diagrams and Fischer?Tropsch synthesis)
• Biomass must be regarded as valuable supplementary resource, rather than core energy source in the future, as its possible use in technological processes is limited due to competition with food industry over areas of land necessary to grow plants, and not over the plants
• Innovative or refreshed solutions, which in great part have not been verified (ethanol from cellulose, energy oil and hydrogen from algae, coal gasification in the deposit, etc.), cannot be considered as important elements of prospective generation of energy and chemicals.

The aforementioned rationales were supported by descriptions of the present state of the art and results of adequate analyses.

Jacek KIJEŃSKI ? (Sc.D., Eng) Full Professor, outstanding expert in chemistry and chemical technology and in the field of tendencies and strategies of chemical industry development, catalysis, industrial organic synthesis and recycling of plastic waste. Full Professor at the Warsaw University of Technology. Head of the Department of Pro-ecological Modernisation of Technology at the Industrial Chemistry Research Institute. Since 2002 he has been holding for a third term the office of the President of the General Board of the Polish Association of Chemical Engineers. A member of the Presidium of the Committee of Chemistry at the Polish Academy of Science. The Chairman of the Consortium Board of the Centre of Advance Technologies Chemistry for Economy – CHEMCAT. A member of the Standing Committee of Chemical Technology Congresses, the Association of Inventors and Rationalisators, the Polish Plastics Converters Association, and of the programme boards of the following journals: ?Przemysł Chemiczny? (Chairman of the Board), ?Chemik?, ?Polimery?, ?Wiadomości Chemiczne? (until 2007), ?Rynek Chemiczny? and ?Ochrona przed Korozją?. He is a member of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC), the German Society for Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology DECHEMA, American Chemical Society, Network for Industrial Catalysis In Europe (NICE) and European Federation of Chemical Engineering (EFCE). Professor Jacek Kijeński is the author and co-author over 180 publications, more than 200 conference papers, 8 monographs and 40 patents. Having recognised achievements as an engineer and a scientist, Professor Jacek Kijeński is also an outstanding specialist in the arts, polymath, expert on literature, the arts and history of civilisation.

Marta KIJEŃSKA ? Ph.D., graduated from the Faculty of Chemistry at the University of Warsaw in 2004, and completed the studies on biotechnology at the Faculty of Biotechnology at the University of Warsaw in 2005. In 2010, she defended her doctoral thesis on Chemical Technology at the Faculty of Chemistry, the Warsaw University of Technology. In the years 2005-2012, she was working in the Professor Ignacy Mościcki Industrial Chemistry Research Institute. Since 2012 she has been working in the Institute of Environmental Protection ? National Research Institute in Warsaw. Her research interests involve chemical application of plant materials and a strategy for using renewable raw materials in energetics and industry. She is also involved in works on the accumulation of chemical compounds by plants and evaluating risk related to the application of chemical compounds in various in various branches of economy.