AP News, January 10th, 2007
Energy-dependent Europe is moving to wean itself off oil imports and slash the carbon emissions blamed for global warming.
With world demand for limited stocks of oil and gas surging, top EU officials have embraced a new energy strategy that emphasizes diverse and renewable sources of fuel. The plan is due out Wednesday.
Europe got a reminder of the high-risk future it faces this week when a trade dispute between Russia and Belarus disrupted shipments of Russian oil to Europe via a pipeline through Belarus. It follows a similar cutoff of natural gas to Ukraine last year.
The latest disruption presents no immediate threat to EU oil supplies, but has unsettled European leaders.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel joined EU President Jose Manuel Barroso in admonishing Russia for Monday's cutoff, both saying it was "not acceptable" for energy transit or supplier countries to halt deliveries without consultation.
But such risks are growing, the EU plan warns, saying it is not certain that major oil and gas producers such as Russia will make the investments and commitments needed to keep Europe's economy running and its homes heated and lit.
Europe has to look at alternatives, the plan says, recommending more renewable energy such as wind power and biofuels.
Officials will suggest setting a new target for renewable power by 2020, with a binding target for biofuels to replace oil in vehicles. It says that biofuels could take up 14 percent of that market by 2020.
"Major investment" in renewable energy is needed to make such options viable, the EU said, acknowledging that many EU nations will fail to meet existing goals to draw 12 percent of all EU energy from renewable sources by 2010.
But this can only help cut into Europe's growing hunger for power _ and imported oil and gas. Electricity generation will be "heavily dependent" on natural gas in the near future, it said, warning a number of countries reliant on one main supplier that they should diversify, choosing a wider range of sources, suppliers, transit routes and methods.
It also suggests that current plans to cut back nuclear power _ which it calls "one of the cheapest sources of low carbon energy" _ will endanger the goal of curbing greenhouse gas emissions. It does not, however, explicitly endorse nuclear power, calling that a decision for each EU nation.
Germany is in the process of closing its 17 nuclear power plants over the next 14 years, a policy Merkel questioned on Tuesday.
"One must also consider well what consequences there would be if we shut down nuclear power plants," the chancellor said in an interview on ARD, Germany's public television.
She stopped short, though, of actually calling for lengthening the lives of Germany's reactors _ could bring her in conflict with her coalition partners, the Social Democrats, who share power with her conservatives.
Vast amounts of money also are needed to upgrade Europe's electricity network, with some $1.17 billion just to provide more power generation alone in the next 25 years as demand grows.
Antitrust regulators will also highlight serious problems with the way the electricity and gas markets work at the moment, pointing to the control huge energy companies have over energy production and sales that led to overcharging, underinvestment and little competition.
