Nick Grealy, energy consultant and proponent of shale gas, reflects on the battle for public perception of shale gas. A key problem, he says, is the speed of the change that has taken place. It has surprised many people. In fact, many people still fool themselves into thinking it can’t happen in Europe” . But according to Grealy, a European shale gas revolution is inevitable. Photo: drilling rig in Marcellus play in US (by wcn247) … [Read more...]
Europe’s unresolved energy versus climate policy dilemma
The creation of a pan-European energy market is being undermined by member states’ reluctance to align their national renewable energy policies, or to rely on their neighbours for back-up capacity, writes David Buchan, Senior Research Fellow of the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies. According to Buchan, “the Commission now has to take a very strong stand if it is to regain control over the forces of disintegration that it failed to anticipate … [Read more...]
Op-ed: BusinessEurope’s can’t do attitude
Brook Riley of the Climate Justice and Energy Team of Friends of the Earth Europe sent us a letter on what he regards as BusinessEurope's dragging-its-feet attitude towards EU climate policy. He suspects its BusinessEurope’s goal "to obstruct, to delay and to create doubt in the minds of policymakers about the need to address global warming". Climate change is truly a life-and-death challenge for all of us. With such high stakes, it’s … [Read more...]
End of Nabucco – end of Southern Gas Corridor?
Now that the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) was (apparently) chosen to be the preferred route to carry gas from the Shah Deniz II field in Azerbaijan to Europe, the EU flagship pipeline project Nabucco has effectively been killed. Agata Loskot-Strachota, Energy Policy Expert at the Centre for Eastern Studies (OSW) in Warsaw and Janek Lasocki, Advocacy Coordinator at the European Council on Foreign Relations in London, discuss – in five … [Read more...]
The internal energy market must be linked with global competitiveness
Companies in the EU face significantly higher energy prices than their competitors and the situation is getting worse, writes Fernand Felzinger, President of the International Federation of Industrial Energy Consumers (IFIEC) Europe. Felzinger argues that increasing the carbon price would be a disaster for Europe’s energy-intensive industries at a time when it needs to re-industrialise. Photo: Aluminum concrete forms in Hong Kong … [Read more...]
Two decades behind schedule, we need to re-think the single energy market
The EU has made progress in integrating its markets, but there is still a long way to go, argues Jorge Vasconcelos, founder of the Council of European Energy Regulators and Member of the Energy Roadmap 2050 ad hoc Advisory Group. Europe needs a reinvented energy market and technological developments can help that to happen. “Strong wind and sunshine can literally blow conventional electricity markets to pieces if high penetration rates of wind … [Read more...]
Energy Post Reviews (I)
In this space we will regularly review new publications – to keep you abreast of what is going in energy markets – and hopefully save you some time. This first installment of our Review Service discusses four recent reports that deal with the manifold problems in the (European) electricity sector. They even offer some advice – but not much. Photo: azza bazoo … [Read more...]
ENTSOG’s big plan for the European gas market
European transmission system operators are building the network for the gas flows of the future – but will there be any gas flowing in Europe ten years from now? At a workshop in Riga in March 2013 organised by ENTSOG (the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Gas), representatives from the gas industry discussed the implications of ENTSOG’s Ten-Year Network Development Plan (TYNDP), which was adopted in February. The participants … [Read more...]
Interview Marcin Korolec, Polish Minister: “We will fight for climate agreement”
Last year at the UN Climate Conference in Doha, Poland surprised everyone by proposing to host the next Conference of the Parties (COP). As president of COP19 in Warsaw in November of this year, Polish Environment Minister Marcin Korolec will play a key role in paving the way for a worldwide agreement on climate action. A sharp contrast to the Polish position in Brussels, where the country is often perceived as “sabotaging” EU climate policy. How … [Read more...]
EU gets powerful mandate to regulate shale gas
The EU has received its strongest endorsement yet to push ahead and issue legislative proposals to control the extraction of shale gas: an official 3-month public consultation shows that “a large majority” of citizens believe Europe lacks adequate legislation on this front and that the EU should do something about it. The surprisingly strong support for enhanced EU oversight comes despite the fact that half the respondents come from Europe’s … [Read more...]
CCS: why the high hopes cannot be fulfilled
The only way to stimulate investment in industry while staying in line with CO2 reduction targets is to end coal plant construction in favour of renewable energies, argues independent energy consultant Jeffrey Michel. Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is just not going to deliver the goods. It is too costly and too risky. Photo: carbon dioxide sequestered in basalt (PNNL) … [Read more...]
Reflections on a ravaged EU energy sector (plus some boardroom tips)
The CEO’s of Europe’s major energy companies seem to be in an unenviable position. They complain that they are facing a ‘perfect storm’ and warn policymakers that policies need to be drastically reformed or European security of supply might go under. In his first post for Energy Post, our chief editor Karel Beckman wonders if things are really that bad – and has some tips to offer to our beleaguered energy executives how they might withstand the … [Read more...]
What is behind France’s call for a “European energy community”
France’s sudden interest in a common EU “energy community” signals an important policy change that has everything to do with the country’s troubled domestic energy outlook. The French government seems to be pursuing more European cooperation to make it possible to push through unpopular reforms at home and to prepare France for a less nuclear future, writes Iana Dreyer, a Paris-based energy and trade economist. Photo: Cattenom Nuclear Power … [Read more...]
How to compete with China in renewables
Professor John Mathews of LUISS Guido Carli University, Rome, argues that, ultimately, there is only one effective response to the serious competitive threat posed by China’s strong support for renewables — and that is equally strong support for innovation and market expansion by Western countries. Photo: Solar hot water in Beijing (Photo: Popolon) … [Read more...]
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