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A REVIEW OF EUROPE’S TRANSITION FROM FOSSIL FUELS TO RENEWABLE ENERGY USING CIRCULAR ECONOMY PRINCIPLES
Authors: Nicolae Pintilie
Number of views: 131
More and more public and private organizations are trying to integrate the concept of circular economy into their
daily operations. Given the existing pressures related to climate change, there are various debates in the literature
on how to reduce the impact, and one of these debates is the use of renewable energy to the detriment of fossil
fuels. This paper aims to create an image of the link between circular economy and the transition from fossil fuels
to renewable energy through specialized papers published between 2000 and 2020 and through statistics
published by International Agencies such as Eurostat. In this way, this paper is based on the study and analysis of
the updated databases regarding the mentioned indicators. Moreover, the paper also discusses different
possibilities of circular economy use and how they can be integrated into the European body, with a positive effect
on the society and environment. The study found that European Union energy supply is increasingly based on
renewable resources, the use of fossil fuels being limited from one year to another. At the same time, even if in the
last decades the European Union has been characterized by industrialization and urbanization, there can be seen
a growing efficiency of the energy system in the conditions in which the GDP per capita had a fulminant growth of
over 50%. Moving forward, one of the most interesting result of the paper is related to a massive concentration of
works in the last two years of the period considered in the analysis. In other words, there is a great opportunity for
more scientific research in the field. Despite this, researchers agree that the principles of the circular economy
contribute to the conversion of the energy system, with positive effects on society, ensuring sustainability,
productivity and efficient waste management. At the end, in order to support the energy transition, a number of
institutions such as the European Investment Bank are supporting initiatives that aim to invest in objectives such
as new technologies which could adopt circular economy. The paper also presents possible limits of the research,
but also future directions of its development.