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European Union

European Energy Policies Bought and Paid For

This is literally an outrage. According to several sources, oil giant company Shell bought the European energy policy to be as low as possible on renewable energy sources.

As a close examiner for the past decade of energy and climate policies for the European Union, I have been wondering why, oh, why did the EU backed up recently from its previously ambitious policies on climate change.

Now, we just know. The Guardian and many other sources have published this week article on how an oil company spent around four million euros (and as much in US Dollars given the current parity) per year to water down renewable energy goals for 2030.

One single company with a few millions euros was favored by our elected representatives over the wellbeing of its citizens and of our economies. We have seen previously that the ambitious 2020 goals have already been partially reached and that as a result, hundreds of thousands of green jobs have been created in the past few years.

Yes, the European Union still has somewhat ambitious goals for 2030. Cutting by 40 percent total greenhouse gases emissions by that date compared to 1990 levels is ambitious, but it could and should be much more.

I just hope that now this has been exposed new targets will be voted. Shell or any other fossil fuel giant conglomerated should have the last world when we determine our future.

Image credits : Flickr.

05/05/2015 3 comments

Clean Transportation

Cycling industry amounts to 650,000 jobs in the European Union

written by Edouard Stenger

According to a new report, up to 650,000 people are working within the bicycle economy in the European Union. With the right incentives, these figures could reach a million jobs by 2020 according to the European Cyclists’ Federation.

As The Guardian noted :

If cycling’s 3% share of journeys across Europe were doubled, the numbers employed could grow to over one million by 2020.

(…) The study, which the Guardian has seen, finds that cycling has a higher employment intensity than any other transport sub-sector. Growth in the cycling economy should thus have a higher job creation potential than in the automotive industry for example, which employs three times less people per million euros of turnover.

The ECF calculated that the annual economic benefit of cycling in the EU27 is of at least 205 billion euros (256 billion US Dollars). This includes among other benefits savings on fuels, the various health benefits, the lower traffic congestions and air pollution…

If health benefits are the largest – ranging from 114 to 121 billion euros – tourism is another major positive impact as the impact is believed to be of 44 billion euros.

What if the future of transportation within cities were surprisingly low tech ? Bikes are economical, do not emit carbon dioxide or pollution, keep us fit, enable us to avoid traffic congestion and take almost no place to park. It is high time cities and businesses alike promote this transportation mean to make it the norm.

A study by the World Health Organization points out that 10,000 lives could be saved each year and 76,600 jobs would be created in 54 major cities around the world if their citizens biked as much as the Danes do.

To conclude this article, it is worth noting that in Europe, for every car sold, almost two bicycles currently find a new customer as 20 million bikes are sold per year. If these trends were to continue, cities in the near future would have more bikes than cars. This would free a huge amount of space that would be ready for more

12/17/2014 1 comment

Renewable Energy

Can France Succeed its Energy Transition ?

written by Edouard Stenger

Recently the incumbent Energy and Environment Minister of France unveiled an ambitious energy transition project. As Euractiv reports, the country should ” increase the proportion of renewable energy to 32% by 2030, reduce CO2 emissions by 40% between 1990 and 2030, and reduce the consumption of fossil fuels by 30% by 2030.”

The previous conservative government had very ambitious projects on energy and the environment with its Grenelle de l’Environnement. Most of this ambition remained that, just ambition (Granted, there were a few successes on energy use and efficiency).

But the current Socialist government goes even further as Segolène Royal claims that the plan she unveiled is the ” most ambitious in all of the European Union ” and should make this country “the country of environmental excellence”. Given how Germany and the others are years ahead, I am not sure if I got to applause at the ambition… or laugh at the delusion.

Speeches are fine, speeches are great, but ACTS are much better. And until now, France has not been measuring up with is ambitions :

While renewable energy sources have surged in large neighbouring countries such as Germany, Italy and Spain – reaching 31, 37 and 35 percent of the local electricity consumption, respectively – France is behind with “only” 18.6 percent.

Worse, within its European obligations, France needs to have 23 percent of its total energy consumption coming from renewables by 2020. To EU statistics, the country had 9.3 percent of its energy from renewables in 2004, 12.7 percent in 2010 and 13.4 percent in 2012. In eight years this share has increased by 4.1 point. If this trend were to continue the country would miss its 2020 objectives by 5.5 points…

To compare, overall, the 28 members of the European Union have seen this share rise from 8.3 percent in 2004 to 14.1 in 2012. A simple trend continuation shows that reaching 20 percent by 2020 is feasible.

In any case, whether France will succeed or fail its energy transition, be sure that I will keep you updated on the situation.

09/18/2014 0 comment

Renewable Energy

European Union Gets 23.4% of Electricity From Renewables

written by Edouard Stenger

According to official statistics from Eurobserv’ER, 23.4 percent of the electricity in the European Union came from renewable energy sources in 2012. The total output for 2012 has been estimated at 763.5 TW. This represents an important increase from 2011, when these energy sources brought “only” 20.4 percent of total electricity.

Regarding gross final energy consumption, renewables brought 14 percent of the total in 2012, up from 12.9 percent in 2011.

Eurobserv’ER also provided employment statistics showing that the renewable energy industry has employed up to 1.22 million people in direct and indirect jobs in 2012 (50,000 less than in 2011).

Jobs were mostly in wind power (300,000 direct and indirect jobs), followed by solid biomass (280,000 jobs), photovoltaic (250,000 jobs) and biofuels (110,000 jobs).

This report also shows that the renewable energy picture varies greatly from country-member to another (cf. page 80 of the full report).

While Austria and Sweden lead with 68.3 and 67.1 percent of their total electricity from renewables in 2012, respectively, Lithuania, Hungary, Cyprus, Luxembourg and Malta got less than ten percent of their electricity from these sources.

Nine countries got from 20 to 50 percent : Latvia (43.4%), Denmark (41.7%), Portugal (35.6%), Finland (32.5%), Spain (31.7%), Slovenia (29.5%), Italy (26.6%), Romania (25.2%) and Germany (24%).

Many more of the 27 EU members got from ten to twenty percent of their electricity from renewables : Slovakia (18.9%), Ireland (18.7%), France (16.1%), Bulgaria (15.7%), Greece (15.2%), Estonia (15.2%), Belgium (11.7%), the Czech Republic (11.5%), the United Kingdom (11%), Poland (10.6%) and the Netherlands (10.5%).

Other important differences can be noticed in the share of each renewable energy source in the total. Hydropower represents 43.9 percent of the total renewable energy produced in 2012. Wind follows with 26.6 percent, biomass (19.5%), and solar energy (9.2%). Geothermal and ocean energies make up the remaining 0.8 percent.

This means that overall, hydro provides 10.3 % of total electricity consumed in the EU, wind power, 6.2 %, biomass, 4.5 % and solar only 2.1%.

To conclude, Eurobserv’ER notes that the European Union and its 27 country-members is only six percent away from one of its 2020 goals: 20 percent of renewable energy in the total energy consumption. The analysts are optimistic as in 2006 the share of renewables was of only nine percent. By keeping that annual growth at 0.7 to 0.8 percent, the EU should succeed.

This would be the second success of the European Union policy on climate and energy. We have indeed previously seen that the EU should achieve its greenhouse gases emissions reduction goal. Perhaps it is time to move on to higher ambitions?

04/03/2014 6 comments

Renewable Energy

Portugal Shows Leadership in Renewable Energy

written by Edouard Stenger

In my previous article for Cleantechies, I wrote that many European nations are already benefiting from renewable energy sources. A country that was missing from the list was Portugal. In today’s article we will see how the country is also leading on clean energy sources.

In 2010, Elisabeth Rosenthal wrote in the New York Times that the country was until fairly recently mostly powered by fossil fuels. From 2000 to 2005, the share of renewables was between 17 and 19.7 percent. Their average share in the local electricity mix in this period amounted to 19 percent.

But in 2005, the Portuguese government decided to sail away from imported fossil fuels and embarked their nation on a massive clean energy cruise. Their plans were most successful as the following figures will show you.

As an example, wind power capacity grew 16-fold in ten years, from 289 MW in 2003 to 4,724 MW in 2013. As a result, in the first quarter of 2013, renewables – mostly hydroelectricity and wind power – supplied 70 percent of electricity of the country.

As a consequence, generation from fossil fuels decreased significantly. Compared to the first quarter of 2012, generation by coal-fired plants and natural gas fired plants fell by 29 percent and 44 percent, respectively.

Overall, in 2013, renewable energy sources provided over 58 percent of the total as the local newspaper Publico reported. Hydro provided 29 percent while wind power brought 23 percent. Solar and biomass brought one and five percent, respectively.

One year later, in 2014, local energy distributing company REN notes on its homepage that renewable energy sources provided 80.9 percent of the electricity of the country in January and February. For February alone, this figure reaches 84.4 percent.

Portugal offers yet another example of how a transition to local and clean renewable energy sources can be done with the right political support. Let’s hope other European nations, the United States and other countries around the world will learn from this exciting example.

Image appearing courtesy Flickr.

03/25/2014 1 comment

Renewable Energy

The European Union Already Benefits From Renewables

written by Edouard Stenger

There is a question that currently puzzles me: Why is the European Union so unambitious on climate and energy goals?

We have seen recently that the European Commission unveiled plans to cut carbon emissions by 40 percent by 2020 and that these cuts would be insufficient to prevent climate change.

This is even more puzzling as the energy transition is already saving money and creating jobs across the EU. Official estimates suggest that 300,000 new jobs in the renewable energy sector were created in the past five years alone. The goal is to create 1.5 million green jobs by 2020.

Many countries are already doing a lot to further renewable energy sources and have begun to benefit from their efforts. Here are some of them:

Denmark has recently unveiled plans to cut its emissions by 40 percent by 2020. During the windy month of December 2013, more than half of the electricity consumed in the country came from wind.

Germany is the most evident example of a European country that has been benefiting from renewable energy sources. Germany has twice as many people employed in the renewables sector than in all other energy sectors combined. An estimated 377,000 jobs have been created in the renewables sector in Germany

Ireland has already saved up to a billion euros – $1.37 billion – on electricity thanks to renewables, according to the local Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI). Furthermore, carbon dioxide emissions were cut by 12 million tons. The country currently spends as much as 6.5 billion euros per year on fossil fuels imports.

Italy may not be talked about a lot, but has also seen a renewable energy boom in recent years. The installed capacity of renewable energy sources has gone from 18 GW in 2001 to 41 GW ten years later. In 2011, renewables provided 28 percent of electricity production.

Spain is already getting a fifth of its electricity from wind power, making it the top energy source in 2013. Overall, renewables now account for almost a third of the local electricity. A decade ago, renewables brought in only around 15 to 22 percent.

The United Kingdom has been advancing wind power for the past few years and has now more offshore wind capacity than all other countries combined. Additionally, the country got 10 % of its electricity from wind during the month of December. On December 21st, no less than 17 percent of the total electricity demand was met by this renewable energy source;

All these countries could rightfully push ambitious goals for climate change mitigation and green jobs as they are benefiting from renewable energy sources.

Let’s hope it will be the case this year during the and next one in Paris for the 21st Conference of Parties (COP).

02/28/2014 1 comment

Renewable Energy

European Union to Cut Emissions by 40% by 2030

written by Edouard Stenger

The European Union has long been regarded as a leader on climate change. Now it appears to becoming a laggard as the EU has unveiled unambitious goals for 2030.

If in 2007 the EU led the fight on climate change with an impressive triple goal of 20 percent emissions reductions by 2020, 20 percent renewables and 20 percent increased energy efficiency (compared to 1990), the situation is not the same now.

The European Commission pledged to cut emissions by 40 percent by 2030 as well as to cover 27 percent of its energy needs by renewables.

These goals are unambitious as the EU has almost reached its 20 percent emissions reduction goals, seven years ahead of schedule as we have seen in this previous article.

In 2012, this had led a majority of European Parliament members (MEPs) to call for increased action and 30 percent cuts by 2020. The MEPs who voted for such cuts believe that cutting EU emissions by 20 percent wouldn’t be sufficient to prevent global temperatures to warm by just 2°Celsius.

The European Commission’s decision of yesterday is even more puzzling when faced to the previous decision of cutting emissions by a minimum of 80 percent by 2050.

By agreeing to 40 percent cuts by 2030 it states that between 1990 and 2030 it will cut its emissions by one percentage point per annum and that in the remaining twenty years, it would cut them by two percentage point per annum.

As Kees van der Leun, a Dutch expert on climate and energy issues, noted on his Twitter : ” EU CO2 emission reduction from -18% now to -40% by 2030 is not even 2% per year. For 2050 target (-80..95%) we need sustained 4-7% per year! “

There is ample evidence that 40 percent emissions cuts won’t be enough. An example of this is the many negative reactions the European Commission decision brought from many newspapers such as the Financial Times, consultancies such as Ecofys and NGOs.

Let’s hope the vote by the European Parliament will bring more ambition. Our climate, our economies and our jobs are at stake.

01/25/2014 1 comment

Renewable Energy

European Union Could Agree to 45 Percent Cuts in Emissions by 2030

written by Edouard Stenger

We have recently seen that the European Union is already close to its climate goals, to cut its greenhouse gases emissions by 20 percent by 2020 (compared to 1990 levels). In 2012, emissions were already 18 percent lower than in 1990.

This is perhaps why a majority of European Parliament members (MEPs) have called for increased action and 30 percent cuts by 2020.

Currently, the European institutions are preparing both for the 2015 Climate conference that will take place in Paris, France, as well as the future of its climate plans.

The United Kingdom is already calling for the European Union to halve its emissions by 2030. A recent study from the WWF has stated that such a target is within reach.

All this perhaps explains why according to RTCC, the European Union could agree to 45 percent cuts by 2030.

To some analysts, the European Union has not conducted any analysis on how it could reduce its emissions by more than 45 percent by 2030.

A MEP representing the European Green Party – Bas Eickhout – has said that this lack of ambition could be explained by a failure to calculate the potential of both renewable energy sources and energy efficiency.

The 2020 strategy will be further reviewed in January. Let’s hope these targets will be set higher and that the 2030 plans will be ambitious. It is high time for the European Union to take the lead again on climate change as the threat is even clearer according to the most recent IPCC report.

12/17/2013 0 comment

Renewable Energy

China Set to Open World’s Second Largest Carbon Market in December

written by Yale Environment 360

China is in the midst of launching seven carbon markets, the largest of which will open next month in Guangdong, the country’s most populous province. The carbon markets are a key element of China’s plan to cut carbon emissions by up to 45 percent per unit of GDP by 2020.

11/29/2013 0 comment

Renewable Energy

More and More French Households Burn Wood for Heating

written by Edouard Stenger

According to a recent study from the French Environment and Energy Management Agency (ADEME), wood burning is being used more and more in the country. Current estimates show that approximately 7.4 million households use this method to heat their homes, compared to 5.9 million in 2009.

This represents an increase of over 100,000 households per year. If this trend continues, by 2020, 9 million households could use this fuel (out of around 27 million households in the country).

An interesting fact reported by Enerzine [Fr] is that despite this important increase, the quantity of burned wood remained stable as the quantity burned by household decreased from 8.6 to 7.5 steres ( cubic meter of wood) per household.

According to Wikipedia [Fr], French forests have been constantly growing in the past century – it grew by six million hectares in the 20th century – and cover now over 29 percent of the Metropolitan area with 16.3 million hectares.

Wood is by far the cheapest energy source on the market, with 3.4 euro cents per kWh, compared to 7 cents for natural gas, 9.9 cents for heating fuel and electricity is the most expensive with 13.3 euro cents.

However, the energy price is not the first reason for choosing wood. The main reason (63 percent of users) is comfort. Price comes second with 52 percent of users and the environment third with 40 percent.

As a result, more and more wood buyers use this energy source as their main or only source. In 1999 only 30 percent of wood burners used it as their main energy source for heating. Nowadays, this share has increased to over 50 percent. Half of these users use solely this to heat their places.

This can be explained by a better efficiency of the stoves and heaters as well as a better insulation of the households. On the former point, the average efficiency have risen from 50 to over 70 percent since the year 2000. Important gains in energy efficiency are still possible.

An important factor in these trends was the Flamme Verte (green flame) label.

Launched by over 60 companies in 2000, this quality label has increased the efficiency of the stoves and heaters and has reduced the pollution induced by wood burning. Particles emissions have been slashed by a factor ten. To date, 70 percent of the sold apparels in France have this label.

To conclude this article, I believe many countries could learn from what takes place in France. Growing forests are used in a sustainable way to heat more and more houses with less and less resources. When renewables meet energy efficiency, everybody wins.

11/05/2013 0 comment

Renewable Energy

European Union Already Close to 2020 Climate Goals

written by Edouard Stenger

According to the European Environment Agency, the European Union is already close to its 2020 climate objectives as it has decreased its emissions by no less than 18 percent between 1990 and 2012.

Additionally, renewable energy sources such as wind, solar and many others were already accounting for

10/10/2013 3 comments

Renewable Energy

World Action on HFC’s and Why it Matters So Much to Climate Change

written by Walter Wang

At the G20 summit in St. Petersburg, there was some very cool stuff happening. Not necessarily the stuff that grabbed the headlines. It was on climate change as 35 countries and the European Union have decided to take action to curb hydrofluorocarbons, a set of powerful heat-trapping gases used in refrigeration, air conditioning, heat

09/17/2013 0 comment

Renewable Energy

Trade War Averted – Europe and China Settle Solar Dispute

written by Walter Wang

The ongoing saga between the European Union and China over the alleged dumping of solar panels has apparently been resolved. Over the weekend, The EU and China agreed to a settlement which sets a higher minimum price for Chinese exports of solar panels to Europe. This means that Chinese exporters must respect minimum import prices. Prices

07/29/2013 0 comment

Renewable Energy

European Investment Bank Will Not Finance Most Coal Power Stations

written by Yale Environment 360

The European Investment Bank (EIB), the main lending arm of the European Union, has decided to stop financing most coal-fired power plants, part of an effort to help the 28-nation bloc meet ambitious greenhouse gas reduction targets by 2030.

The EIB says that new and refurbished coal-fired

07/25/2013 0 comment

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