Fossil fuels and other extractable resources are critical to the existing energy system, and understanding these resources is important to understanding the future of energy systems. Shale gas development, global oil market uncertainty, unburnable carbon and the increasing environmental imperative to develop carbon capture and storage (CCS) are all contemporary topics that highlight the importance of energy resources to the transitioning global energy system. ICEPT conducts a range of research into fossil fuel and energy resources, fulfilling the need for rigorous academic research and creating an evidence base to inform the decisions on the future design of our energy system. A significant part of that research effort is in communicating this research to a policymaker audience.

ICEPT has a wide range of energy resource expertise and has conducted a number of high impact and internationally relevant research projects on fossil fuels and other energy resources:

• Could retaining old coal lead to a policy own goal? (PDF) a report for WWF
• A number of ongoing CCS projects including: FP7 project CO2QUEST; the EPSRC/UKCCSRC project BECCS-IL; EPSRC project MESMERISE-CCS
• “Unconventional Gas: Potential Energy Market Impacts in the European Union” a report for the European Commission (EC) Joint Research Centre (JRC)
• “Global Oil Depletion” a report on the future of global conventional oil supply for the UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC)
• "Materials Availability for Low Carbon Technologies” a report for the UKERC

ICEPT is an interdisciplinary research group, applying a number of different approaches and methodologies to energy policy research. ICEPT’s fossil fuel and energy resources research methods include: Systematic review of energy resource evidence; Multi-scale integrated energy system modelling; Cost-optimised energy system modelling; System dynamics modelling.

ICEPT research on fossil fuels and resources for energy systems has engaged with a number of external partners, including:

• UKERC
• UCL
• UN
• JRC
• DECC
• WWF
• IEA