Blog edited by Professor Lévêque

EU Energy Policy Blog

• Green Investments Alive And Apparently Well
  Financial markets may be depressed and unemployment high but investment keeps pouring into GreenTech field – loosely defined to include renewable energy technologies, energy efficiency including in-home automaton and energy management systems, smart meters/smart grid, electric cars, storage, batteries, biofuels and a host of supporting technologies. According to a report recently published by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and [...]
  
  
• Ensuring success for the EU Regulation on gas supply security
  In July 2009 the European commission published a proposal for a Regulation on the security of gas supply, due to replace the Directive 2004/67 on the same topic. The proposal has been discussed at the Council under the Swedish Presidency and the negotiation continues under the Spanish Presidency; a political agreement is expected in May [...]
  
  
• Nabucco versus Southstream: an economic competition behind a geopolitical confrontation
  The Nabucco consortium strongly supported by the European Commission in the name of EU energy security interests is going ahead. It decided on February 2010 to order the steel to forge the 3000 km future pipe. Such a strong determination is striking because there is only room for one transit pipe-line and the rival project [...]
  
  
• The future of Carbon Intensity in China’s Economy
  Being now the largest CO2 emitter in the world, China’s actions toward climate change are particularly important to reduce GHG emissions at the global level. The recent announced target to reduce the carbon intensity of its economy by 40 to 45% by 2020 seems rather more difficult to achieve than first calculations would suggest. From [...]
  
  
• The Need for Education to Mitigate CO2 Emissions
  Both our energy use and CO2 emissions can be reduced by using and producing energy in different ways. Implementing these improvements is associated with changes in our technology and energy use. It has been shown that the public is, to a large extent, unaware of the essential role played by energy in society, of the [...]
  
  
• Power Marketer Google?
  Google has a habit of surprising its competitors. The fast moving company is known for launching into new forays not always knowing where it may end up. In this sense, it is not only the competitors who are trying to read what the company’s latest move may entail. In early January, Google submitted an application to [...]
  
  
• LNG v. Unconventional Gas Sources In North America
  Nothing has altered the North American natural gas market and its appetite for LNG as severe as the discovery and development of significant unconventional gas sources. Within a couple of years, the supply-demand balance has changed from one of continuous production declines to one of an upcoming surplus. Rising natural gas prices since 2001, easy financing [...]
  
  
• Sustainable Energy Priorities For The Spanish Presidency
  On January 1st, 2010, the Spanish Government took over the presidency of the European Union. Shaping the future political agenda at a European level is especially important in the field of energy and sustainability. The current unsustainable energy models, both European and global, and especially their consequences on climate change, need an urgent action on [...]
  
  
• Another Copenhagen Outcome: Serious Questions About the Best Institutional Path Forward
  Whether you like it or not, for the time being the most important product of the December meeting in Copenhagen of the Fifteenth Conference of the Parties (COP-15) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is the “Copenhagen Accord”. In the long term, however, it is quite possible that another outcome [...]
  
  
• Demand For Green Power Shows Resilience
  A survey by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reported that the top 50 US purchasers bought more than 12.5 TWh of green power in 2008 with Intel Corporation holding the top spot, again. The Green Power Partnership, a voluntary program with 1,100 participants, keeps track of voluntary purchasers of green power, defined as electricity from solar, [...]