European energy policy is a mess, more about appearance than performance, according to a new study from a regional educational institution.
James Woudhuysen, a visiting professor at London South Bank University, argues in a paper for MCC Brussels that the European Union’s “focus on the dogma of environmentalism has seriously distracted it from the foundational question of how to ensure the EU has enough energy. In fact, it is worse than just this: endless policy proposals, meetings and strategies have left Europe dangerously close to being unable to heat, light and power itself.”
MCC Brussels is an affiliate of Budapest-based Mathias Corvinus Collegium, a 7,000-student college with close ties to the government of right-wing Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. Hungary has become EU member often at odds with the European-wide government.
In his paper titled “Lights Out, Is the EU Failing on Energy Policy?” Woudhuysen writes, “EU energy policy is mysterious, and the reason is simple: the unspoken secret of the Brussels approach to energy is that it is more performative than it is effective.” He charges that the EU’s Directorate-General for Energy, headed by European Commissioner for Energy Kadri Simson “issues papers, agrees budgets, and holds press conferences. But outside the ‘Brussels Bubble’ and among ordinary people, one finds little to detect its influence, or concrete results of steps it is taking to avoid the next energy crisis.”
While Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, coupled with the Kremlin’s partial shutdown of natural gas to Europe (Russia curtailed pipeline gas supplies but increased LNG shipments to Europe) highlighted the incoherence of EU energy policy, writes Woudhuysen, “When the EU abruptly ‘discovered’ its dependence on Russian oil and especially Russian gas, the dénouement was just the latest in a long line of grand but often failed visions for European energy and great slowness in achieving those visions.”
The report characterizes EU energy policy as “murky,” and calls it a “Black Hole,” pointing to the European Commission’s largely incomprehensible interactive energy map, which the EC calls its “Energy Platform.” Woudhuysen comments, “The Commission says that its Transparency Platform is ‘a public information system available to every EU citizen’. But in the best traditions of the Black Hole, the Platform is itself not very transparent.”
The foundation of EU energy policy, established in 2007, says the report, is “ESR,” for Efficiency, Saving, and Renewable. Each of the three legs of the policy stool has problems.
Efficiency for the EU consists of programs to retrofit of existing buildings to use less energy, improved internal combustion engines, and electric vehicles. The results show few results, with the EC reporting last year, “Far more efforts are needed if the EU aims to achieve a structural reduction in energy consumption….” The MMC report observes, “The goal of a structural cut in energy consumption is as elusive as ever. A decade on from the Efficiency Directive of 2012, it appears difficult for the EU even to get information on and compare improvements in energy efficiency.”
On energy saving, the EU has adopted the formulation made famous in the 1980s by Amory Lovins, founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute: “negawatts.” Frans Timmermans is European Commissioner for Climate Action, has adopted the formula that “saving energy, not using energy, is the cheapest energy.”
The EU’s implementation of this idea comes in its May 2022 “REPowerEU” plan: “Every citizen, business and organisation can save energy. Small behavioural changes, if we all commit to them, can make a significant difference…. including by: Reducing heating temperatures or using less air-conditioning; Using household appliances more efficiently; Driving more economically; Shifting to more public transport and active mobility; Switching off the lights.”
Woudhuysen is disdainful: “This is the Not-So-New Frugality. In this scheme, every European must play an upright and responsible role. Indeed, the behavioural changes demanded will not be small, as claimed: in a review of the scheme, the IEA has concluded that they must be ‘large-scale’. In its condescending appeals to the European public, the EU only displays its impotence in the face of major energy events.”
The third element of EU policy, renewables, also presents real problems, according to the MCC analysis. “The Commission proposes to increase the EU’s 2030 target for renewables from the current 40 per cent of electricity supply to 45 per cent. The REPowerEU plan would bring total renewable capacity to 1,236GW by 2030, of which almost 600GW is meant to be solar. By 2027, it is hoped, additional capacities will displace the consumption of nine [billion cubic meters] of gas annually.”
This, says Woudhuysen, “is peanuts. In 2021, for example, the European Union consumed more than 400bcm of gas.79 With renewables, the Commission will once again see its utopian premises run up against reality. It appears oblivious to the need for gas as a back-up for wind and solar power. It shrugs off all responsibility for the extra management, IT, generation and transmission systems that will come with more exposure to renewables.”
–Kennedy Maize
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