BUS604: Innovation and Sustainability

"What then can we do - apart from complaining about what we can't do?

"If I focus on Europe, we come back to the previous point, because every country has different perceptions for the 'three A's': in Germany they are closing nuclear power stations, in Finland and in France they like to build them. We say about Kyoto that we have to reduce Co₂ but we now use more coal in Europe than when we agreed Kyoto - and in the United States less, by the way. But it shows that if we continue with an energy mix policy country by country, we will end up nowhere.

"We will not achieve the A of acceptable. Even if we do it for one country, its neighbor will think that it's not acceptable. I think we will probably end up with more expensive electricity for our industry and our consumers than for instance in the States. So it is not only the A of acceptable, I don't think we will achieve the A of affordable either.

"So the first thing we need is a real European energy policy.

"You need to have an overall energy policy. Now there are two remarks about that. You can't have an energy policy if you don't have a European foreign policy, because for a European policy you have to decide how much to import from Russia, how much from Algeria, and how much from the Caucasus. How do we do that? Do we have a pipeline through Russia or around Russia as with the Nabucco pipeline? Or do we use liquefied natural gas (LNG) ships from the Middle East? For a European energy policy, you need to have this kind of foreign policy thinking. That is only the A of availability, which includes the security aspect.

"But if we decide for instance that we would like to have it as a kind of insurance against an uncertain future, we need to have nuclear energy in the basket, because nuclear is in itself very interesting as it is the only large-scale solution with basically no CO₂. If that is part of an energy policy, then you need a process on how to decide where to build this nuclear energy capacity. Because the Germans will say: put it in the Netherlands. And the Dutch will say, put it in Belgium. And they say put it in France.

"I think that nuclear energy is part of the solution for Europe. Suppose a European Commissioner produces a great policy result, backed by good research - but then I think it will get stuck in the process to decide where it should go. I think that will be very tough.

"You will get a lot of maneuvering, but it is better than no European energy policy. You have to start somewhere. So the first step is to map the overall picture for Europe on the three A's, and then to initiate the processes to allocate what to do where. Then it is very helpful in my view if Brussels doesn't make life difficult for itself by having too tough energy targets for 2030.

"Because 2020 is near, the Commissioner (Günther Oettinger) said we would like to have targets probably for 2030, but these are not yet agreed. The present proposals, supported so far by Dutch civil servants, is that by 2030 we should have a 40 percent reduction in Co₂ since 1990, which is the reference here for Kyoto. Now I always like simple calculations. By 2030 our GDP has doubled compared to 1990, in fact I hope it is a bit better. So if we save energy by 40 percent vis-à-vis 1990, then per unit GDP we have to reduce our Co₂ emissions by 80 percent. Is that achievable?

"I am not against the Greenpeaces and all kind of environmental thinking, but we should understand what we are doing. The new target may be more disruptive than the 2020 target was.

"I always go back to central energy policy, funding research and the processes of allocation. That is the way to accelerate the energy transition".

In other words, a target that is too severe will in fact take us farther away from it if it leads to subsidies of inefficient and suboptimal outcomes, ignoring both economic viability and economic growth.