European Commission – Page 2

The European Commission issued its Strategic Energy Review yesterday, proposing energy efficiency investments, a shift to alternative fuel vehicles to end oil dependence in transport, and more aggressive deployment of renewable energy and carbon capture and storage to “decarbonise” the EU electricity supply. Figuring prominantly among its first six “priorities essential for the EU’s energy security” are the North Sea offshore electric power supergrid that Energywise covered in September and the Mediterranean Ring electric interconnection of Europe and North Africa that I’ve been harping on this week.

The EC energy strategy not only endorses the MedRing, but views it as a component of a future supergrid traversing Europe and stretching beyond the Mediterranean to Iraq, the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa.

How would this new vision (and $100/barrel oil) alter the complexion of European energy consumption? The energy review projects that by 2020 total energy demand drops from the equivalent of 1811 metric tons of oil in 2005 to 1672 MTOE in 2020. Demand met by renewables such as wind, solar and hydro more than doubles in real terms from 123 to 274 MTOE, while their share of total demand leaps from 6.8% to 16.4%. Imported renewables – with the MedRing delivering North African wind and solar power – jump 10-fold from 0.8% in 2005 to 8.8% in 2020.

Oil, gas, coal and nuclear, meanwhile, all see a diminished role, both in real terms and as a share of European energy demand. Interestingly the role of natural gas – the low-carbon fossil fuel – drops the most, from 25% to 21%, reflecting EU concern over dependence on gas imports from Russia. Nuclear’s share drops the least, from just slightly over to slightly under 14% of demand; this assumes that nuclear phaseout plans, particularly Germany’s, are followed through.

How to make it all come true? Accompanying the EC review is a ‘green paper‘ (the EU’s unbleached alternative terminology for what we’d call a ‘white paper’) outlining a variety of new regulatory and financial mechanisms. The EU is already a world leader in terms of incentives for lower carbon energy with strong price supports for solar and wind and a carbon cap and trade program up and running (though still lacking teeth as my Energywise colleague Bill Sweet notes). However, the energy review warns that the primarily national-level financing that drives energy projects today are inadequate to drive infrastructure that is pan-European or larger. A perfect example is the massive investment in high-voltage dc lines needed to turn the MedRing into a bulk power mover (see the second half of our feature on MedRing: “Closing the Circuit”).

Even less viable under existing financing mechanisms are those projects that entail considerable “non-commercial risks” such as threats of political instability or terrorism. Did someone say North Africa?

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This post was created for Energywise, IEEE Spectrum’s blog on green power, cars and climate

November 14, 2008April 18, 2024 by pfairley

Carbon sequestration — the notion that carbon dioxide from coal-fired power stations and other major greenhouse gas emitters can be captured and stored underground — is taking a lot of hits from environmental activists bent on banning coal outright. For a taste, check out this recent post on the Gristmill green blog by Joseph Romm, a most articulate carbon capture critic. Political leaders, in contrast, appear far more supportive, and it’s not just American presidential candidates wooing coal-country voters. Last week European parliamentarians voted to finance largescale sequestration demo projects with a generous €10-billion fund and, better still, approved what they called a ‘Schwarzenegger Clause’ to mandate carbon capture for new generating stations from 2015. Like an existing requirement approved by California’s governor the clause sets a 500 gram CO2 per kilowatt-hour emissions limit that coal-fired plants can beat only with carbon capture.

The U.K.’s Environment Agency had already recommended a ban new coal-fired power plants that don’t use carbon capture and storage (CCS) the week before.

Part of the European motivation, as French and British leaders have made clear, is that CCS is more than a key to meeting agressive climate change action goals. They are also a critical means of keeping coal in the mix and thus limiting Europe’s dependence on imported oil and gas from Russia and the Middle East.

In the U.S., meanwhile, Al Gore is calling for civil disobediance to force adoption of the same CCS mandate. In fact, there are already steps in this direction even in North America beyond Schwarzenegger’s innovations:A panel appointed by Arkansas’ governor recommended last month the state approve no new coal plants until CCS is ready; the Canadian government floated a plan this spring to require CCS at new bitumen-to-oil plants in Alberta’s tarsands from 2012; and last fall British Columbia decreed a no-new CO2 from coal policy that stalled two proposed coal-fired plants (one may go forward as a biomass plant to burn trees killed by a warming-enabled infestation of beetles).

A wildcard to watch: weakening political resolve in the face of the global finance crisis. According to this report from Agence France Press yesterday, a few European leaders are wavering on greenhouse gas emissions as energy-intensive industries face tough times ahead.

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October 13, 2008October 23, 2008 by pfairley

Peter Fairley

Tag: European Commission

Nukes, Gas, Oil and Coal All Losers in EU Energy Strategy

The EuroParliament’s Schwarzenegger Clause and CCS