Energy matters

The energy sector is currently undergoing a series of significant developments. On March 8 the EU Commission launched a Green Paper entitled 'A European Strategy for Sustainable, Competitive and Secure Energy'. This document is considered a milestone in the development of a regional EU energy policy.

Locally, the Malta Resources Authority and the Ministry for Resources and Infrastructure have just published 'A proposal for an Energy Policy for Malta'. This draft policy document, due for approval following a ten-week public consultation phase lasting until mid-September, provides an over-arching energy policy framework for Malta.

Last June Enemalta Corporation's 'Electricity Generation Plan 2006-2015' was also published. A salient point revealed by the latter two documents is Malta's intention to link its energy grid with the European energy network.

Concern on the European Union's energy status is probably justified. According to the recently published EU Green Paper on Energy, the EU's energy import dependency is expected to rise from the present 50 per cent to 70 per cent of the union's energy requirements within the next two or three decades.

Invariably, most of the EU's energy requirements are derived from conventional, non-renewable energy sources. One business-as-usual scenario envisages that the EU's energy budget for 2030 should entail a 38 per cent dependency on oil, 29 per cent on gas, 19 per cent on solid fuels, about six per cent on nuclear power, and only about eight per cent on renewable alternative sources.

Strategically, the implications of such a scenario may already sound preoccupying enough. However, matters related to the EU's security of energy supply constitute only one aspect of the region's immensely complex energy sector.

A case in point is the extent to which the EU's efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions, particularly those emanating from the energy sector, have been successful. There already seems to be considerable uncertainty, for example, about the positive outcome of the greenhouse gas emissions trading scheme established under Directive 2003/87/EC.

This directive was drafted in the spirit of a significantly innovative Kyoto Protocol provision advocating the partitioning of global emissions between states. Theoretically at least, the directive was designed to provide member states with an economic incentive for achieving substantial greenhouse gas emission reductions by enabling them to trade any unused greenhouse gas allocations.

Writing in the New Scientist magazine on May 20, Fred Pearce argues that the success of the carbon permits scheme has been seriously compromised. Apparently, many European governments have been too generous in their greenhouse gas emission allocations, such that, according to Pearce, the carbon permits market as currently experiencing a 'glut' with too many permit-sellers and only a few buyers.

Michael Grubb, an Imperial College London specialist in carbon emissions trading policy, is cited in the article as arguing that Europe could even be "sleepwalking towards a fiasco" as far as the greenhouse gas emissions trading scheme is concerned.

Have EU member states effectively rigged Directive 2003/87/EC, after all?

But, assuming that the implementation of the Emissions Trading Scheme Directive results in failure, what are Europe's alternatives in having to comply with the Kyoto Protocol provisions and beyond (that is, post-2012)? Arguing in favour of renewable energy resources sounds obvious but, in practice, it may still be a long way off before clean energy technology can be implemented on a large scale as desired.

From an environmental standpoint it may be ironic, perhaps, that beyond all energy savings efforts, only nuclear power can provide the much needed quick-fix solution. Nuclear power remains the major carbon-free energy source supplying Europe, with about a third of its electricity needs.

In the UK the controversy rages on upgrading nuclear power plants, or even commissioning new ones. And given the power demand trends across Europe, coupled with the relatively slow pace at which renewable energy technology is developing, it cannot be excluded that the UK's consideration may provoke a ripple effect across the rest of Europe.

Could a more onerous post-Kyoto Protocol greenhouse gas emissions regime set the ball rolling for a re-emergence of the nuclear power industry, both in Europe and worldwide, after all? Rather than excluding such a possibility altogether, the EU Green Paper on Energy argues in favour of promoting a "well-informed, objective and transparent debate" about the future role of the nuclear power industry and its impacts.

This does not imply that efforts to develop cleaner renewable energy technology should be shelved or that EU member states should be reluctant to implement any feasible renewable energy policies. Far from it!

It is rather the case where Europe urgently needs a stop-gap solution to cope with its energy market demand trends while ensuring that it meets its carbon emissions reduction commitments. Concurrently, the EU is striving to provide the right economic conditions for the renewables energy sector to develop at the fastest pace possible.

Malta is no exception to the region's ever-growing concern with energy use. As part of a complex modernisation programme which Malta's power generation facilities are expected to undergo in the near future, Enemalta Corporation's 'Electricity Generation Plan' prescribes the need to invest in a 200 MW Malta-Sicily electricity cable interconnection at a cost of about Lm55 million.

In the longer term, perhaps to secure Malta's position both in terms of being able to meet its energy demand trends and honouring its greenhouse gas and other emissions obligations, a Lm65 million Malta-Sicily gas pipeline is also being proposed.

Malta's intention to link its energy grid with the European network is reaffirmed in the draft 'Energy Policy for Malta proposal'. Irrespective of the urgency for such a large-scale project to materialise, it may still be in Malta's interest to assess fully any impacts - economic and social, but also environmental and strategic - deriving from such a merger.

Given the electricity cable interconnection goes ahead as proposed, for example, Malta would be in a position to import both green and nuclear-generated electricity. One asks, say, about the effects on local consumers resulting from such a diversification of Malta's power supply.

But then, at a strategic level, careful assessment may be required to evaluate the extent to which Malta's relatively fragile economy should become dependent on a definite physical merger with the proposed regional European energy grid.

Such an analysis should be carried out irrespective of the EU intention to move towards the establishment of a regional energy grid has already been declared.

In ceding its 'energy island' status, or rather having that status evolve within a regional EU energy network, the stability of Malta's power generation facilities should become entirely dependent on foreign energy entities.

Shouldn't we fully assess all the implications, inevitable as they may be?

Alan Pulis, B.Ed. (Hons.), Dip.Env.Sc., M.Sc. (Lond.), teaches Environmental Science and Chemistry at the Giovanni Curmi Higher Secondary School, Naxxar.