Spain maintains its commits to the deployment of renewable energies to decarbonize the economy and generate cheaper electricity for homes and industries in the face of the trend that is going spreading in the EUalready a majority, to also count on for this purpose the nuclear poweras seen in a discussion on an EU energy union for which the European Commission has promised that there will also be a financing plan for nuclear.
Thirteen governments of the EU have shown themselves this Monday openly in favor that nuclear energy is part of the solution for the EU to achieve reduce its emissions by 90% in 2024 and carbon neutrality in 2050 during a discussion of the issues that should be included in the “energy pact to reduce energy prices” what the new Energy Commissioner, the Dane, has promised Dan Jorgensenduring the first 100 of the new European Commission. The inclusion of green (renewable) or clean (also nuclear) energy must also lead to ensure energy supply and to become definitively independent from imports of russian gasthat they have rebounded again and for which Jorgensen has reprimanded the ministers. “Unfortunately, today consumption has increased and imports, which were reduced from 45% to 15%, have grown again and we are at 18%.” ““The goal is zero”he reminded them.
These 13 countries are joined by two others that are not so explicit this Monday but also have a nuclear tradition, Belgium and Netherlandsand the commissioner himself. After his nomination, the headlines were his rejection of nuclear, this Monday and now as a member of the European Commission of which he is also a part Teresa Riberastated to close the debate that “some of us are in favor of nuclear energy and others against it and we must find a balance and respect both positions.
“In the first 100 days, the European Commission is going to present a clean industry pact and a roadmap to be independent of imports from Russia and then there will be a electrification plan and investments will be at the center of everything,” he listed, before pointing out that this latest plan “will also include nuclear energy.” It is also among the Commission’s plans to tackle the energy poverty, that last year 10.7% of Europeans suffered, that is, 47 million people.
Spain, Denmark, Cyprus, Luxembourg, Portugal, Greece and Malta have stayed in minority this Monday by completely ignoring the possibility of nuclear energy from his speeches to focus on the deployment of renewables as a way to make energy cheaper and eliminate fossil fuels. Although this has not been the case of the Spanish minister, calls for the controversial acceleration of permits to install more photovoltaic or wind farms and to develop as much as possible the offshore windclaim from Malta to Denmark.
The third vice president and minister for the Ecological Transition, Sara Aagesenhas included among the EU’s energy priorities a “joint plan for decarbonization and competitiveness with affordable energy” to “continue accelerating renewableswhich have allowed us in difficult times a more affordable price.” As he said, it is still necessary for “the market to internalize them and give all the signals, with lower bills.”
Whether you call him directly by name, “nuclear energy”, or appeal to “technological neutrality”a majority of EU countries defend that this “clean” energy – not “green” – be part of the European roadmap to be totally neutral in emissions in 2050 and, among them, France champions this battle. Your minister, Agnès Pannier-Runacheroffering today to the new Commission to defend “with a clear voice the reference to nuclear energy in all proposals legislative”.
Groups in the “battle”
Not in vain, France sponsored a few months ago the creation of an informal group of countries in favor of nuclear energy, which usually meets before summits and councils like the Energy Council this Monday and which has an ‘alter ego’, the group “Friends of Renewabless” – with countries that also participate in the previous one, such as Belgium – which also met at the beginning of the day and in which Aagesen participated.
Upon her arrival at the Council and asked how to bring the friends of renewables and nuclear energy to an agreement, the third vice president trusted that “we will be able to reconcile a joint response”. Although he insisted that “achieving affordable and stable prices normally comes hand in hand with renewables”, he also pointed out that “Every country has to advocate for technology for your system.”
“Why don’t we put this battle aside between renewables and nuclear energy,” said the Irish minister, Eamon Ryan in an intervention in which he has opted for the installation of “small reactors” to meet the energy needs of the industry and has asked to “focus on a European market”, regardless of the technology used to produce electricity.
In addition to the nuclear “battle” yes or no, the ministers have stressed that the European energy market must develop technologies such as hydrogen and storage of energy and batteriesthe biomass wave carbon capture and have a financing enough to, for example, develop and make distribution networks more flexible.
At this point, Aagesen has called for a “permanent financial instrument of the EU, at the level of the Next Generation (funds) (approved after the pandemic) that is permanently available to make the transition a success.
France, plug for interconnections
Another of the most numerous requests among the Twenty-Seven has been that, for an energy market to exist, it is necessary to develop cross-border interconnection between networks. It is deficient among the Baltic countries, which are going to completely disengage from the Russian system to integrate into the European one, or in Eastern Europe, but it is also deficient across the Pyrenees, between the Iberian Peninsula and France.
Both Aagesen and the Portuguese minister, Maria da Graça Carvalhohave insisted on the “priority“to increase the interconnection with France, which should be 15% in 2030 and does not reach 3% and although, from the other border, Germany has also advocated For this reason, the French minister has standing feet to these expectations, by putting more weight on the “national market” than on the intra-European one. The development of interconnections cannot be done, he said, “at all costs without a cost-benefit analysis.