EU publishes Energy Roadmap 2050
The roadmap is based on a number of scenarios for the "main decarbonization routes" of energy efficiency, renewables, nuclear, and carbon capture and storage. Each scenario reduces energy-related carbon emissions by 85 percent although the Commission's goal is only a minimum of 80 percent by 2050.
While the EU has long harmonized just about everything, energy policy is one of the last bastions of relative national freedom – and for good reason. While Germany, Italy, and Belgium have all resolved to phase out nuclear, France remains committed to the technology. And as renewables continue to grow, international trading of power is becoming increasingly important, requiring grid planning at the EU level – with the plans to transport green power generated in Morocco to Europe being only one example.
The roadmap therefore reflects this lack of consensus within the EU; the focus is not just on efficiency and renewables, but also on nuclear and carbon sequestration and storage (CCS). Around a week ago, Swiss conglomerate Vattenfall chose to abandon its CCS plans in Germany for a lack of reliable regulations, as Renewables International reported. Nonetheless, the EU Commission under the direction of Energy Commissioner Günther Oettinger of Germany (who was not known as a friend of renewables as a politician in Germany) has not given up on CCS, though the least costly scenario has "delayed CCS… with significant penetration of nuclear," as the Executive Summary puts it (PDF).
In a press release, Oettinger is quoted saying that the roadmap will "make our system secure, competitive, and sustainable in the long-run [sic]," but the roadmap unfortunately does not state what is to be done with nuclear waste. Interestingly, the roadmap states that roughly 33 percent of energy consumption in the EU takes place in the transport sector, almost all of which is imported (Denmark is the only oil-exporting nation in the EU – see the Key Figures PDF), but the roadmap does not set forth an explicit proposal for future transportation.
In a press release, the European Renewable Energy Council (EREC) praises the Commission for showing how important renewables and efficiency will be in lowering carbon emissions, but agrees that the roadmap "needs to go beyond electricity." EREC says the roadmap fails "to merge renewables and efficiency in a joint scenario" and points out that the scenarios that focus on renewables do not lead to significantly greater costs than the other scenarios, which raises the question of why we would want to have nuclear and CCS. (Craig Morris)
