CleanTechnica is the #1 cleantech-focused
website in the world. Subscribe today!


Air Quality fracking_640

Published on June 3rd, 2012 | by Andrew

22

EU Pulls an €80B Fast One; Natural Gas to be Eligible for Renewable Energy Subsidies

Share on Google+Share on RedditShare on StumbleUponTweet about this on TwitterShare on LinkedInShare on FacebookPin on PinterestDigg thisShare on TumblrBuffer this pageEmail this to someone

June 3rd, 2012 by  

 

The power and influence of fossil fuel dollars over politicians and political processes never ceases to amaze. In the latest illustration of just how much sway the fossil fuel lobby has over governments around the world, the European Union (EU) is likely to divert €80 billion of funds earmarked specifically for development of innovative renewable energy sources to the development of natural gas power plants.

The U.K.’s The Guardian broke the news, basing its report on the contents of a secret document that it had seen. Ironically, the switch takes place just as EU representatives to the UN Rio+20 conference are pressing emerging market and other nations to drastically reduce, if not eliminate, fossil fuel subsidies.

Rapid growth of natural gas fracturing, “fracking,” in the US has led countries around the world to consider making use of the new drilling technology despite persistent concerns about its environmental and geological effects, the quantities of water involved and its effects on water supplies in particular. The International Energy Agency (IEA) last week released a report that predicted “a golden age for gas,” forecasting that unconventional natural gas supplies, mostly from shale gas deposits, will triple by 2036, The Guardian noted in its report.

A Major Victory for Europe’s Fossil Fuel Lobby

Natural gas prices have dropped sharply and held at low levels for several years now, pressuring and prompting closer examination of the practices of some highly leveraged shale gas fracking players, including Chesapeake Energy. That’s prompted concerns that low natural gas prices would crowd out cleaner, truly renewable energy alternatives at a time when global CO2 and greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise despite best efforts to date to reduce them.

The EU governments fast one is a clear victory for the European natural gas lobby, according to The Guardian. “The insertion of gas energy as a low-carbon energy into an EU programme follows more [than] 18 months of intensive lobbying by the European gas industry, which is attempting to rebrand itself as a green alternative to nuclear and coal, and as lower cost than renewable forms of power such as wind and sun.”

Following a tried-and-true fossil fuel industry lobbying script, the natural gas lobby has been relentlessly touting estimates of shale and unconventional natural gas reserves that will almost certainly prove to be much higher than anything that’s actually produced. Independent analyses raise serious doubts about industry projections.

Already approved by EU member states, the document seen by The Guardian sets out an energy policy strategy dubbed Horizon 2020, which is touted as “a €80 billion programme for research and innovation for the years 2014 to 2020.”

“Of the funds available, more than €30 billion are supposed to ‘address the major concerns shared by all Europeans such as climate change, developing sustainable transport and mobility, making renewable energy more affordable, ensuring food safety and security, or coping with the challenge of an aging population.'”

Then again, these funds could just as well be given to an already highly profitable, well-established and heavily subsidized fossil fuel industry. And this is in Europe of all places. It seems that the EU’s public representatives aren’t as immune to the influence of petro-dollars and the fossil fuel industry lobby as may have seemed to be the case.

“The Horizon 2020 project is likely to result in several billions of spending on R&D between 2014 and 2020, the significance of the changes goes much further, according to Brussels experts,” The Guardian writes.

“The changes show that the gas industry has succeeded in its aim of having gas considered a low-carbon fuel, at least in some parts of the European Commission – and this is likely to be disastrous for the renewables industry, as well as having massive implications for greenhouse gas emissions and the fight against climate change.”

Keep up to date with all the hottest cleantech news by subscribing to our (free) cleantech newsletter, or keep an eye on sector-specific news by getting our (also free) solar energy newsletter, electric vehicle newsletter, or wind energy newsletter.



Share on Google+Share on RedditShare on StumbleUponTweet about this on TwitterShare on LinkedInShare on FacebookPin on PinterestDigg thisShare on TumblrBuffer this pageEmail this to someone

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,


About the Author

I've been reporting and writing on a wide range of topics at the nexus of economics, technology, ecology/environment and society for some five years now. Whether in Asia-Pacific, Europe, the Americas, Africa or the Middle East, issues related to these broad topical areas pose tremendous opportunities, as well as challenges, and define the quality of our lives, as well as our relationship to the natural environment.


Related Posts



  • http://www.yodergeothermal.com/ Zach

    Here give a good post. In the current situation we are saw a many location where we can saw a different kind of renewable energy source. This post give a some financial suggestion to develop a various kind of fuel.

  • sola

    This is just plain silly to do in Europe.

    Europe is heavily dependent on Russian gas since it doesn’t have NG resources. This stupid behaviour will only increase the expenditure on Russian gas and increases the EU trade deficit towards Russia.

    I just cannot imagine how any responsible, non-corrupt European polititian could come to this conclusion.

    • http://cleantechnica.com/ Zachary Shahan

      depressing…

    • Bob_Wallace

      Does Europe not have shale gas potential? The UK apparently thinks it does, enough for its own use and some for export.

    • Bob_Wallace

      Answering my own question…

      “The old continent has nearly as much technically recoverable shale gas (natural gas trapped in shale formations) as America. Europe’s reserves are 639 trillion cubic feet, compared with America’s 862, according to America’s Energy Information Administration, a government agency. But technically recoverable does not mean economically recoverable, notes Peter Hughes of Ricardo Strategic Consulting.

      Costs are higher in Europe, for several reasons. First, European geology is less favourable: its shale deposits tend to be deeper underground and harder to extract.

      Second, America has a long history of drilling for oil and gas, which has spawned a huge and competitive oil-services industry bristling with equipment and know-how. Europe has nothing to compare with that. In 2008, at the height of the gas boom in America, 1,600 rigs were in operation. In Europe now there are only 100. America’s more cut-throat market drives costs down. A single gas well in Europe might cost as much as $14m to sink, three-and-a-half times more than an American one, estimates Deutsche Bank.

      Third, America’s gas industry faces fewer and friendlier regulations than Europe’s. Call it the Dick Cheney effect. And fourth, in America wildcat drillers, if they strike it rich, enjoy access to a spider’s web of existing pipelines, so they can get their gas to market. Europe has no such network nor open-access rules.”

      http://www.economist.com/node/21540256

      Costs – costs could be considerably higher and still attractive.

      Know-how and equipment – that’s easily imported.

      Regulations – those can be changed. This article is about government assistance for the NG industry, is it not?

      • Ndthwaites

        Costs – yes higher (until the rig rates drop as more rigs arrive in Europe). But natural gas prices are much higher, so it all balances out

        Knowhow and Equipment – Equipment easliy imported, know how already here: the North Sea means there is a wealth of expertise in Norway, the UK, Holland and Denmark (Denmark, and not Texas, is where multi stage hydraulic fracturing of long horizontal wells was invented… the guys in Texas then applied the technique to the Barnet Shale and the Shale Gas revolution started).

        Regulations – the North Sea oil industry has worked quite happily under much stricter regulations than the US offshore industry for decades. And the US government is now (quietly) applying the same kind of regualtions to the US: they’ve already split the production and the safety governance into two (just like the UK and Norway does), expect to see a goal and risk based safety regime soon and independent checks on well designs (just like in Norway and the UK since the late 1980s). ther eal question for the USA is why did you tolerate higher fatality rates, injury rates and well control incident rates than the Uk, Norway and Brazil for so long? Why did it take it’s own disaster for the USA to bother about doing anything about it’s piss-poor offshore HSE record? Why not learn from the Norwegian disaster (the Alexander Kjelland) or the UK disaster (the Piper Alpha)?

        Europe has a vast network of gas pipelines at high, medium and low pressures, in fact a better network of such pipelines than the US (that’s how gas from Norway, Algeria, Holland the UK and Russia arrives in my house in Spain). On a country by country basis, some countries don’t have the open access rights (but they tend not to be the countries with high gas demand).

        unconventional gas is happening and will happen in Europe- the only barriers are the nature of resource ownership (the state owns it, so what benefit is ther to the local community or landowner?) and the fear of the unknown (“arrrgh! frac’cing is going to make me grow another head!”)

        • Akbweb2

          All well and good, but should the industry be the beneficiary of billions in clean, renewable energy subsidies??

        • Bob_Wallace

          “the fear of the unknown (“arrrgh! frac’cing is going to make me grow another head!”)”

          That, and more CO2/methane in the atmosphere is going to cook my butt.

          I suspect Europe is going to be less pro-NG than is the US.

  • http://www.facebook.com/TheWolfHowling Paul Russell

    Natural gas may be the “cleanest” of the fossil fuels but it sure as hell is not renewable. Low carbon maybe, by not renewable

    • http://cleantechnica.com/ Zachary Shahan

      exactly, and at least a few studies have warned against promoting it as one global warming solution: http://cleantechnica.com/2012/03/02/clean-energy-is-needed-now-climate-scientists-climate-economists-say/
      (nevermind the water and other issues related to it as well)

    • Bill_Woods

      Medium carbon, not low.

      • Bob_Wallace

        Medium carbon with a serious problem of methane leaking into the atmosphere.

        If leaks can be controlled (and fracking issues solved), NG is a helpful step away from coal. It installs fairly fast and is dispatchable.

        It’s not a solution, but it is better than sticking with coal. And as more wind and solar comes on line gas turbines will be used less. Generation methods which have no fuel cost can sell their power for less than methods which have to purchase fuel.

  • Anne

    In light of the uncertainties regarding the Nabucco pipeline (see: http://asbarez.com/103386/nabucco-pipeline-might-be-abandoned-by-june/), the idea to develop shale gas is, from a political perspective, understandable. Western Europe is now pretty dependent on Russian gas, and Putin has shown in the past to use this power to further his political agenda. So if the support was purely focused on that area, I could find some logic in it. Especially if it went hand in hand with aggressive action towards reducing gas consumption. That’s a double edged sword.

    However, the broad support that seems to be in the making will only increase gas consumption, thereby negating all the advantages of exploring our own energy sources. Now that is really, really stupid. From an environmental and a political and an economical perspective.

    And finally no word in this article, nor that of the Guardian about the real kicker here: methane leakage. Methane is a 25x more potent greenhouse gas than CO2, and the leakage could easily undo most if not all the benefits of lower CO2 emissions.

  • wattleberry

    The trouble is they’re preaching to a receptive audience. It’s well nigh impossible to find an example of politicians, with their constant preoccupation with day to day firefighting and fending off a points-scoring opposition plus, nowadays, a media obsessed with sound-bites at the cost of objective analysis, capable of initiating this themselves. Instead, they invariably opt for the alternative which is likely to appeal to the largely uninformed electorate.
    A classic example of the damage which can result from this superficial system is the current financial crisis whereby, even though everybody now agrees it was easy to foresee well in advance from the data available , any expressions of doubt were suppressed, greatly exacerbating the effect when it finally exploded. No doubt the understandable fear of precipitating the panic prematurely became, paradoxically, more persuasive the worse the situation grew.
    Clearly, the same thing is developing with energy and the only measure which can counteract it is to prevent the suppression. Blogs like this are a powerful weapon. However, given the urgency of needing to reverse the effective poisoning of our world by fossil and radioactive fuels, only regularly confronting our politicians and media with stark terror is likely to have sufficient impact, especially as they are too distracted now with financial matters.

    • http://cleantechnica.com/ Zachary Shahan

      Great comments. Excellent comments.

      While I tend to avoid calling out big media for specific failures in energy coverage, I may just start doing so more out of frustration and spurred on by the wonderful points you make here. We don’t have a ton of power, but should use what we can.

  • Anne

    I think I’m gonna throw up.

    • Ross

      Pass the sick bucket.

Back to Top ↑

© 2014   Sustainable Enterprises Media, Inc.



Back to Top ↑