Editorial

摘要

'What is the best answer? It all depends on what you want to be best at. The pages of energy publications are full of claims that someone has found the best way of solving the world's energy problems. For some, it is all about providing the cheapest energy to the world's most prosperous countries; for others, the emphasis is on national energy security, rather than cost; and for others still, it about the most affordable way of providing energy to the world's poor. Many people are driven by tackling climate change and are looking for the lowest-carbon solution, while those with the related, but different, agenda of conserving the earth's resources will say renewables are 'best'. The discipline of optimisation theory says that you have to start by defining the objective function to be optimised and the constraints that you are prepared to accept. This issue of Energy comes at the question in three different ways.