Tuesday, March 26

The war lays bare the European energy dilemma


Vladimir Putin celebrates with his signature the inauguration of the Sakhalin-Khabarovsk-Vladivostok gas pipeline. / Eph

There is unanimity that Europe cannot depend on Russian fuels, but not on how to avoid it. The invasion of Ukraine will cause changes in energy policies and in decarbonization that seeks to fight climate change. The danger is in substituting dependence on Russian gas for rare earths from China

Zygor Aldama

The war in Ukraine has awakened Europe from its dream of energy stability. The Russian invasion has laid bare the continent’s gas dependency, which is now forced to urgently seek alternative suppliers. It is a situation that can affect the decarbonisation roadmap, both in the short and long term. “This energy crisis can end well or badly. It will be positive if the European Union promotes degrowth, energy efficiency and public transport; it will be negative if it replaces dependence on Russia with that of liquefied natural gas from the United States, which has a double environmental impact: because it is produced through ‘fracking’, a particularly harmful technique, and because its transport emits even more CO2″, explains Javier Andaluz, responsible for the Climate and Energy programs at Ecologistas en Acción.

“The war is going to change many things,” agrees Enrique Monasterio, Director of Development and Innovation of the Basque Energy Agency (EVE). «He has confirmed that the path marked out in 2016, when he opted to make Europe a technological leader in renewable energies, is the right one. For two reasons: because it reduces our dependence on energy, which has a very high economic and geopolitical cost – only last year Russia received 60,000 million euros from Europe for its fuels; and because it provides our industry with added value that opens up business opportunities».

In his opinion, in the short term, the strategy against climate change may be hampered by the urgent need to find immediate alternatives to Russian gas, a fact that has even led to the reactivation of disused coal-fired power plants. “Now they are competitive despite the fact that they pay more CO2 emission rights and, circumstantially, they can benefit from a gas transfer,” he analyzes. However, Enrique Monasterio maintains that, in the long term, this situation will accelerate the decarbonisation process in Europe, which has set itself the goal of achieving carbon neutrality in 2050. “With these prices, individual consumers will boost self-consumption, and industrialists will contract energy in the long term”, he advances.

Also Read  'Evil will not win': sorrow and disbelief as Uvalde mourns its children | Texas school shooting

Sources from the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge are of the same opinion. “The war has sharpened the clash between supply and demand and can be a boost for the installation of solar farms and wind farms that are not in areas of high environmental sensitivity,” they highlight. The Ministry also believes that projects for the production of biogas and green hydrogen will be accelerated, for which direct lines to the gas network will be created. However, Javier Andaluz, from Ecologists in Action, points out that “better planning of these infrastructures is necessary”, warns that a bubble “like that of the regasification plants at the beginning of the century” can be inflated, and highlights that they are projects that they will not yield results until several years have passed.

old debates

“In the search for quick solutions, old debates have been opened: whether we should extend the life of nuclear power plants and bet on new ones – the United Kingdom has approved the mini-power plants developed by Rolls-Royce and France has managed to have this source considered ‘green’ – , if we have to exploit European gas now that prices give meaning to these projects -Spain hides around a trillion cubic meters in its territory-, and if we have to resume connections that had been abandoned, such as the MidCat”, Monastery explains.

For this expert, the nuclear ones make sense as an alternative if one seeks to fight against climate change, but they carry a very high risk and pose too many problems in the treatment of waste. For this reason, he sees it as more feasible to invest in the extraction of European gas during the transition process towards the ideal of a world powered exclusively by renewable energies.

For now, Spain has already announced a reinforcement of fuel storage capacities to prevent the current critical situation from extending into next winter. This week the mandatory minimum for gas and oil reserves has been increased from 20 to 27.5 days. “You can stock up in summer, when the price is lower, although this year will be different because all European countries will try to reach the 80% of the required reserves,” predicts Monasterio.

In the short term, the person in charge of climate and energy campaigns for Greenpeace in Europe, Silvia Pastorelli, considers that the solution lies in a reduction in demand. “The cleanest and cheapest energy is the one we don’t use. Much can be done to reduce consumption by improving the insulation of homes, for example.” In addition, Pastorelli recommends increasing taxes on energy companies “that are reaping enormous benefits from this crisis” to finance these reform projects, to which Next Generation funds will also reach.

Facilities of the Nordstream 2 gas pipeline in the Arctic. Russia’s flagship energy project is on hold. /

AFP

In any case, the Iberian Peninsula, considered an energy island, will see its policies in this field less affected than countries such as Germany, where dependence on Russian gas is especially pronounced. Even before the invasion of Ukraine, Berlin suspended the permits for the entry into operation of the second NordStream gas pipeline, a key project of Vladimir Putin, and, as a consequence, this week it has launched the first phase of its emergency plan of gas supply, which could result in a rationing of the supply to the industry. In addition, the German government will create strategic reserves that also include coal – Brandenburg has requested to delay the closure of two lignite plants – and regasification plants for liquefied gas.

“This has to be the turning point where Europe stands up to Russia’s energy blackmail without distancing itself from its goal of creating a ‘green planet,'” Ukrainian Deputy Energy Minister Yaroslav Demchenkov said in Berlin during the ‘ Dialogue for the Energy Transition’ organized on Thursday in the German capital. The German Environment Minister, Steffi Lemke, picked up the glove and announced an unprecedented boost to renewables and the circular economy. Her British counterpart, Kwasi Kwarteng, recalled that “moving away from fossil fuels not only increases self-sufficiency but also serves to combat the great crisis of our time, climate change.”

From fire to embers

In any case, this paradigm towards which Europe is moving faster than anyone else also poses its dangers. The main one is in the dependence on elements such as lithium or rare earths. Lemke herself recognized it. “Dependence is not only energy, but also raw materials and logistics chains.”

After all, China produces more than 60% of all the rare earths in the world, key elements for the ecological transition, as well as the lithium batteries that power electric cars. In 2025, the Asian giant could control up to 75% of the critical minerals for electrification -lithium, cobalt, manganese, graphite and nickel-, so many wonder if accelerating the adoption of renewables will not mean replacing dependence on Russia for another from China. In other words, get out of the fire to fall into the embers.

Pastorelli recognizes that this dilemma exists, and that it is not easy to find a balance. But she is convinced that “this is the best time to move away from a toxic system” and emphasizes the need to promote the circular economy. Regarding the opposition of part of the citizenry to the installation of large renewable facilities, the Greenpeace activist underlines the need for the population to participate in decisions and benefit from them. “When you see your bill go down, your perspective changes,” she says optimistically. For Monasterio “the key is not betting on a single technology but on diversification, because each technology requires different raw materials and has different applications”.

Green hydrogen: solution or bubble?

Spain is firmly committed to green hydrogen as the future solution for different energy needs, especially in heavy transport and industry. Ours is the country with the largest projected production capacity for 2030, but Silvia Portelli, from Greenpeace Europe, warns that “there is no silver bullet that will solve everything” and reduces the role that renewable hydrogen will play in the coming decades to “one of the elements of the European energy mix”.

Enrique Monasterio, from EVE, agrees. “It is still a distant solution for its cost, but its development and use is more easily justified in this context of high prices. It is competitive when the price of natural gas is at 100 euros Mwh », he analyzes.

However, Javier Andaluz, from Ecologists in Action, fears that a new bubble is swelling around a gas “that is not used for private mobility or for heating” and that “requires high pressures, has a very low yield – around 25%-, and cannot be stored long-term». Andaluz recalls that “Iceland has been betting on hydrogen for a long time and has not yet extended its use”, for which he considers that electrification is a better alternative. “The problem is that you need to plan it well,” he says.


www.hoy.es

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *