Power vacuum

30 June 2011

There seems to be a lot of confusion about energy efficiency, on which the European Commission published proposals on June 22, writes Stephen Gardner. Take this from a press release from the Eurelectric power generators’ federation: “energy efficiency is key to decarbonising Europe’s economy”. This is clearly wrong. Decarbonisation is mainly a question of the way power is generated. Using less energy might be a good idea for many reasons, not least saving money, but if the way power is generated is not changed, the benefits in terms of reducing emissions and combating climate change will be limited. I’m with Dieter Helm on this. He is an Oxford University professor and advisor to various governments. His point is that if electricity generation could be 100 percent clean, and if the maximum number of products (cars, etc.) could run on electricity rather than fossil fuels, energy efficiency becomes irrelevant, beyond the eternal quest for lower bills. Coal is the real key to decarbonising Europe’s – and everybody else’s – economy, according to Helm. Power generating capacity based on coal is increasing, swiftly wiping out any emissions reduction from efficiency savings. Interestingly, the amount of energy from coal globally was more or less steady between 1990 and 2002, but then started to climb, mainly because of installation of capacity in China. The amount of electricity from coal globally went up by 27 percent between 2002 and 2009. There is surely a risk that emphasising energy efficiency, while a good idea, detracts attention from the steady increase in the use of different emissions-intensive fossil fuels. The European Commission’s energy efficiency proposals will have the effect of making energy companies sell less, in principle reducing their revenues, though I’m sure ways around this will be found. But perhaps the power firms prefer this to being made to massively ramp up investment in the short term and phase out coal. A version of this article appeared on EUObserver blogs.

 

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