Europe remapped: What the energy utopia “Eneropa” would look like in 2050
Imagine it’s 2050 and the old countries of Europe are gone. In their place are entities based not on history, language, or ethnicity, but on the type of renewable energy they’re best at producing. A centralized power grid redistributes these variously sourced types of energy throughout the continent to even out temporary gaps and seasonal imbalances.
Welcome to Eneropa, Europe’s hypothetical energy utopia, where the power supply is stable, sustainable, and locally sourced. There’s no need to depend on shady suppliers of dirty hydrocarbons, such as Russia or sellers in the Middle East.
Eneropa is the whimsical illustration of a serious proposal. In 2010, the Office of Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) founded by Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas published Roadmap 2050: a practical guide to a prosperous, low-carbon Europe.
The study, commissioned by the European Climate Foundation, aimed to demonstrate how Europe could cut its carbon emissions by 80% by 2050, in line with the ambitions of the EU at the time. Europe could do this by radically reorienting its energy industry toward sustainable sources, such as wind and solar, the study argued.
