The Oil Drum

This week Andris Piebalgs talks Nuclear in his blog. Without taboos, Andris lays down the advantages of Nuclear energy that have put it at the core of the Commission's New Energy Policy for Europe.

Nuclear energy has been discussed many times at TOD, mostly from a technical perspective, on its practicality and long-term sustainability. This time we look at Nuclear Energy policy, from the perspective of an Executive that has made a clear option towards this energy source.

Source: NewScientistTech (click to enlarge)

Andris Piebalgs is the European Energy Commissioner with responsibility for shaping European Union (EU) energy policy. These policies may then be adopted by the European Parliament and will effectively shape Europe's energy future.

Mr Piebalgs has an informative web site where he has newly installed a blog inviting comments on EU energy policy.

I would like to invite all my fellow bloggers and all citizens to contribute your ideas.

Andris, I would like to thank you for providing us bloggers with this wonderful opportunity to relay our ideas and opinions directly into the heart of the European Parliament. But beware, not all ideas and opinions are born equal.

There's more under the fold.....

By the beginning of 2006 the EU's Energy Commissioner, Andris Piebalgs, was directly interpellated at Parliament about the coming issue of Peak Oil. “...no more than a theory” he answered. Full text (21/01/2006). Peak Oil is more than a theory, and two years later the tune is different.

Jerome also asks that folks please also read his most recent post on the topic: The Economist on European energy: wishful thinking and outright lies

[editor's note, by Chris Vernon] We have two articles today on the EU energy plan. Luís's take on it can be found here: A New Energy Policy for Europe

Now that the dust has settled and that the topic is already out of the news (displaced by Iraq, Beckham going to LA or the fact that oil prices are at record lows), it's time to revisit the EU energy proposals, by taking a look first at the original material (their press release and their attempt at responding to expected questions or objections on their sector enquiry and on climate change goals) and then at press commentary (Google selection, summary articles from Le Monde and the Financial Times, other coverage collected by Fran in the Salon thread).

Somewhat predictably, the EC dutifully, and valiantly, focused on climate change as the main priority, and that garnered most of the coverage from the superficial media (TV, press agency releases) which have understood that climate change "sells." However, the real action (identified, possibly, by the fact that the core documents are only available in English) focuses on energy markets "reform" and in particular the need for unbundling and other trustbusting measures to ensure competition. The more serious papers focus only on that aspect, ignoring the boring and expected climate change stuff - just like the stock market does not focus on the news of the day, but on how they were different from expectations. And the business world could not care less about climate change (except if it imposes financial costs on them) but does care about the juicy opportunities to be provided by unbundling, corporate resturcturing and the like.

(From the European Tribune. an earlier "live" discussion thread by kcurie can be found here)

Two things the evening. First, an exciting development is in the works around here. In consultation with the existing editors of TOD:UK, we have decided to expand the scope of that operation to cover the whole of Europe. So, as of tonight, TOD:UK becomes TOD:Europe!

The new staff of TOD:Europe will include: Chris Vernon (former editor of TOD:UK, MPhys Computational Physics); Euan Mearns (formerly of TOD:UK, PhD Isotope Geochemsitry: Ran isotope geochemsitry company 1991 - 2001: Freelance energy analyst and journalist); Jerome a Paris (of DKos and the European Tribune, Energy banker based, yes, in Paris, France); Luís de Sousa (of picodopetroleo.net, Assistant Teacher and Researcher at an Institute of Technology in Lisbon); Rembrandt Koppelaar (chairman of ASPO-Netherlands).

That's a pretty damned amazing staff. Please help me in welcoming them to our little endeavor.

Second, if anyone knows anything about wikipedia-ish software, how to start one up, basics, etc., discuss in the comment thread. Imagine if we could accumulate all of the information at The Oil Drum in one place without giving SuperG nightmares...

The UK Department of Trade and Industry (Oil and Gas) and the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate have both published production forecasts showing increased oil production in the years 2007 and 2008. Oil production in the UK and Norway has been falling steadily in recent years following peak production in 1999 and 2001 respectively.

These forecasts have a significant impact upon forecast trade balance, particularly in the UK which has just turned net oil importer. So lets see how the UK and Norway are going to pull off this gravity defying, Hubbert denying stunt.

[editor's note, by Prof. Goose] This is a guest post by lads.

This article is a first simplistic (but comprehensive) assessment of World Oil Exports, here defined has the total amount of liquid hydrocarbons that are surpluses in producing countries. This assessment is made by projecting in to the future fixed change rates that reflect current trends in liquids production and consumption in countries where presently the difference between the two is positive. The outcome of this assessment is worrisome.

An oil production, consumption, import-export model for the 25 EU states (plus Norway, Iceland and Switzerland) is presented, based on data published in the 2006 BP statistical review.

Applying a 0.5% growth in consumption and a 8% production decline rate points to EU oil imports growing from 9.8 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2005 to 12.6 million bpd by 2012 - an increase of 29% over the next 6 years.

The EU will have to "fight" for these additional resources in an oil import market already hot with competition from the USA, China and other developing countries.

[editor's note, by Prof. Goose] This is a guest post by lads.

Pelamis is a greek word that means sea serpent. I guess it is the best definition for what I was shown today, a metal serpent riding the waves, harvesting its energy.

A presentation of the pilot project was held here at school, directed to the Hydraulic Engineering students, but open to the general public. The speakers were from Enersis, the company promoting this first full materialization of such technology. I couldn't miss it.