Does Wind Power Increase European Energy Security?
January 7th, 2009Posted by: Roger Pielke, Jr.
According to the FT today, in an excellent article by Ed Crooks on the Russian gas crisis, it does not (emphasis added):
Once the immediate crisis has passed, the EU’s response may also be similar to its reaction after the last crisis, according to Dieter Helm of New College Oxford.
The reactions to that crisis did not include heavy investment in gas storage and progress on an integrated network in the EU, to minimise the vulnerability of individual countries. Instead, bilateral deals with Russia were signed by countries including Italy, Germany and France. The EU also has a strategy of investment in wind power, which will need more gas-fired power plants to keep the lights on when the wind does not blow.
“It was very clear in 2005-06 what Europe should do, and nothing has happened since then,” Mr Helm says. “Indeed if anything, the situation has been allowed to get worse.”
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January 7th, 2009 at 5:48 pm
Maybe what the EU needs is to follow France’s lead with nuclear power. Reagan warned Europe, don’t feed the Russian energy bear. They didn’t listen. Nuclear power could break the stranglehold.
There is also the coal to liquids technology that Germany used in WWII, and is still operational and Germany and England still has lots of coal that could be converted to transport fuel. Recently Indonesia started construction of a new coal to liquids conversion plant at under 1 billion dollars capital investment for 100,000 barrels of fuel per day. It achieves new low benchmarks for costs.