Currently, we observe an increase in global challenges for energy markets. The European Union is of the opinion that the only way to deal with these challenges is more Europeanized energy policy. For many people the problem of global warming is a political issue and not an economic or ecological one. Moreover, in this sphere, we deal with numerous myths, stereotypes, conflicting views, distortions and accuasations. What do you think about The European Union energy policy?
There is a problem if a energy policy is not a mix of the main items: social, economic, ecological, environmental and political? A real energy policy has to be inclusived
In the past decade, the European Union (EU) was importing about 80% of its oil and 60% of its gas, making it the world's leading importer of these fossil fuels. Increased consumption of fossil fuels for energy needs resulted in emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) that most scientists agree cause climate change and greater air pollution.
It was recognized that without drastic measures tackling dependency on fossil fuels, mitigating climate change would be impossible. Although the EU has evolved out of the European Coal and Steel community established after the Second World War, the concept of introducing a mandatory and comprehensive European energy policy was approved at the meeting of the European Council in 2005.
The climate and energy package developed by the EU is a set of binding legislation which aims to ensure the European Union meets its ambitious climate and energy targets for 2020. These targets, known as the "20-20-20" targets, set three key objectives for 2020, including a 20% reduction in EU greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels; raising the share of EU energy consumption produced from renewable resources to 20%; and a 20% improvement in the EU's energy efficiency (http://ec.europa.eu/clima/policies/package/index_en.htm).
Yet, there is an ongoing debate about what exactly is renewable green and sustainable, especually as EU relies mostly on biofuel.
All types of bio-generated energy involve burning of plant or algae matter and often times actually destruction of pristine habitats for planting ‘fuel forests’, as well as competing with agricultural land for production of food. Agricultural crops or plantations used for biofuel production that have taken increasingly larger proportion of originally biologically diverse land. Another source of biomass energy, mixed waste incineration, often referred to as “Waste to Energy,” “energy recovery,” “thermal treatment” or simply burning of garbage, is presently widely used within the European Union. Burning garbage to generate energy, may seem ‘green’, but it is only one step removed from the cradle–to- grave model in which valuable materials are lost (McDonough and Braungart 2002). In reality, “Waste to Energy” contributes to environmental degradation and climate change at levels far beyond the short-term benefits gained from producing secondary fuel. “Waste to Energy” is literally wasting valuable resources by exacerbating raw material shortages and intensifying the loss of CO2-capturing topsoil. It also prevents effective recycling solutions due to competition for high-caloric recyclable content (Braungart 2013).
See also http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2210670713000358
We have to more support local product of energy, indigenous energy product especialy from forest biomas.
Commenting the answer of Helen Kopnina: I agree with the debate about what kind of energy can actually be labled as "green". However burning garbage is often a better solution (also from an environmental viewpoint) compared to other garbage disposal practices. Recycling is indeed a valuable disposal practice, yet it's highly difficult and thus costly to recycle all the garbage. Also recycling of certain resources (such as Aluminium) has quite a high env. footprint. But presently, we need them both (as changing consumer behaviour to produce less garbage and decreasing garbage potential by introducing products with less wrappings for example cannot be attained in a short term).
One measure to make energy "greener" is to reduce its GHG emissions (especially during production as it's normally the stage with the highest emission rates), by introducing simple (or more complicated) technologies such as filters, catching systems etc. The modern ones can have up to 100% reduction of certain gas emission.
The sames goes for renewable energy. With renewable energy however, there is another challenge in Europe: Big white wind fans or wide areas with solar panels is often not regarded as a nice landscape; thus, where to build them? Especially now that there are discussions about using Spain, the sunny country of Europe, for the construction of wide areas with solar panels, people in Spain might (if not already do) not like the fact that they have to sacrifice their landscapes for the sake of the european energy market. How can you convince them? perhapy by compensation payments? or reduced solar energy prices? There is also the ecological aspect of building such vast areas with renewable energy construction: how badly is the local ecosystem affected? is it worth it?
Those are some examples of present and potential challenges. Hope it inspires you to think critically about it.
I think the European energy-related policy is unclear. Energy affects all the economic sectors in depth so every decision is crucial. Consequently, the fact that EU is an ideal entity made of dozens of nationalities and different interests as well as the divergent economic needs (Poland has coal mines so they want to produce coal whereas Denmark has good locations for windfarms and low population so they want to increase wind capacities at maximum, etc...) I think this is the basis of the main problem. When every single country has the right to veto, they do not look at the European level but they defend the national interest. An example of this: the debate of the Phase III for the EU-ETS 2013-2020. What was the final result (energy concerns are implicitly included due to the sectoral approach)? The price of the CO2 is still at 8€/ton and, apart from the economic crisis consequences, the amount of this pollutant is still growing. Recently, Feng et al, 2015, published in Nature an interesting article discussing quantitatively the causes of the CO2 decrease during the 2008-crisis. One conclusion: "[...] Energy–climate policies may, therefore, be necessary to lock-in the recent emissions reductions and drive further decarbonization of the energy system as the US economy recovers and grows."
http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2015/150721/ncomms8714/full/ncomms8714.html
Regards
I think the European energy-related policy is unclear. Energy affects all the economic sectors in depth so every decision is crucial. Consequently, the fact that EU is an ideal entity made of dozens of nationalities and different interests as well as the divergent economic needs (Poland has coal mines so they want to produce coal whereas Denmark has good locations for windfarms and low population so they want to increase wind capacities at maximum, etc...) I think this is the basis of the main problem. When every single country has the right to veto, they do not look at the European level but they defend the national interest. An example of this: the debate of the Phase III for the EU-ETS 2013-2020. What was the final result (energy concerns are implicitly included due to the sectoral approach)? The price of the CO2 is still at 8€/ton and, apart from the economic crisis consequences, the amount of this pollutant is still growing. Recently, Feng et al, 2015, published in Nature an interesting article discussing quantitatively the causes of the CO2 decrease during the 2008-crisis. One conclusion: "[...] Energy–climate policies may, therefore, be necessary to lock-in the recent emissions reductions and drive further decarbonization of the energy system as the US economy recovers and grows."
http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2015/150721/ncomms8714/full/ncomms8714.html
Regards
I think the European energy-related policy is unclear. Energy affects all the economic sectors in depth so every decision is crucial. Consequently, the fact that EU is an ideal entity made of dozens of nationalities and different interests as well as the divergent economic needs (Poland has coal mines so they want to produce coal whereas Denmark has good locations for windfarms and low population so they want to increase wind capacities at maximum, etc...) I think this is the basis of the main problem. When every single country has the right to veto, they do not look at the European level but they defend the national interest. An example of this: the debate of the Phase III for the EU-ETS 2013-2020. What was the final result (energy concerns are implicitly included due to the sectoral approach)? The price of the CO2 is still at 8€/ton and, apart from the economic crisis consequences, the amount of this pollutant is still growing. Recently, Feng et al, 2015, published in Nature an interesting article discussing quantitatively the causes of the CO2 decrease during the 2008-crisis. One conclusion: "[...] Energy–climate policies may, therefore, be necessary to lock-in the recent emissions reductions and drive further decarbonization of the energy system as the US economy recovers and grows."
http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2015/150721/ncomms8714/full/ncomms8714.html
Regards
I think the European energy-related policy is unclear. Energy affects all the economic sectors in depth so every decision is crucial. Consequently, the fact that EU is an ideal entity made of dozens of nationalities and different interests as well as the divergent economic needs (Poland has coal mines so they want to produce coal whereas Denmark has good locations for windfarms and low population so they want to increase wind capacities at maximum, etc...) I think this is the basis of the main problem. When every single country has the right to veto, they do not look at the European level but they defend the national interest. An example of this: the debate of the Phase III for the EU-ETS 2013-2020. What was the final result (energy concerns are implicitly included due to the sectoral approach)? The price of the CO2 is still at 8€/ton and, apart from the economic crisis consequences, the amount of this pollutant is still growing. Recently, Feng et al, 2015, published in Nature an interesting article discussing quantitatively the causes of the CO2 decrease during the 2008-crisis. One conclusion: "[...] Energy–climate policies may, therefore, be necessary to lock-in the recent emissions reductions and drive further decarbonization of the energy system as the US economy recovers and grows."
http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2015/150721/ncomms8714/full/ncomms8714.html
Regards
I think the European energy-related policy is unclear. Energy affects all the economic sectors in depth so every decision is crucial. Consequently, the fact that EU is an ideal entity made of dozens of nationalities and different interests as well as the divergent economic needs (Poland has coal mines so they want to produce coal whereas Denmark has good locations for windfarms and low population so they want to increase wind capacities at maximum, etc...) I think this is the basis of the main problem. When every single country has the right to veto, they do not look at the European level but they defend the national interest. An example of this: the debate of the Phase III for the EU-ETS 2013-2020. What was the final result (energy concerns are implicitly included due to the sectoral approach)? The price of the CO2 is still at 8€/ton and, apart from the economic crisis consequences, the amount of this pollutant is still growing. Recently, Feng et al, 2015, published in Nature an interesting article discussing quantitatively the causes of the CO2 decrease during the 2008-crisis. One conclusion: "[...] Energy–climate policies may, therefore, be necessary to lock-in the recent emissions reductions and drive further decarbonization of the energy system as the US economy recovers and grows."
http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2015/150721/ncomms8714/full/ncomms8714.html
Regards
I recommend reading an interesting text:
European energy policy
The European Union heads into battle with national governments on energy
http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21639577-european-union-heads-battle-national-governments-energy-only-connect
Dear Sylwia, good day. Energy is the bood under which modern economies run, and at this moment the attention is on he current non-renewable energy issues, not on the future renewable issues, this seem to be true in the EU or OECD Countries, and in all old capitalist countries in general including Canada.....
There seems not to be interest in developing a local or global orderly transition plan to move economies from non-renewable energy based economies(Dirty Economies) to renewable energy based economies(Clean Economies) and avoid future economic black outs, the focus seems to be right now only on keeping the old economy running at minimum environmental impact...as the recent global warming aggreement and the new 17 UN development goal agenda show.... Without a plan to close the renewable energy gap the transition to the renewable energy based economy when non-renewables either go extreamely scare, or are exahusted faster or are horded by some and no longer available to others.....will be caotic and socially painful....
I think we are facing these energy crises today because there was not a plan for the future and I think that we should face the energy problems of today while this time having a clear energy plan for the future.....
I am sharing this article here you can use as food for thoughts.....
Have a nice day
Understanding the Road Towards the Current Dominant Non-Renewable Energy Use Based Economy: Using An Inversegram to Point Out a Step by Step Strategy Towards an Efficient Dominant Renewable Energy Use Based Economy
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281230333_Understanding_the_Road_Towards_the_Current_Dominant_Non-Renewable_Energy_Use_Based_Economy_Using_An_Inversegram_to_Point_Out_a_Step_by_Step_Strategy_Towards_an_Efficient_Dominant_Renewable_Energy_Use_
Article Understanding the Road Towards the Current Dominant Non-Rene...
Dear Lucio,
Thank you very much for your answer. I will read your paper Understanding the Road Towards... and will write you comment. Best.
Dear Hamit Can,
Thank you for your suggestions,
best regards
Sylwia Mrozowska
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