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TIME EUROPE September 18, 2000, Vol. 156 No. 12 The Energy Crunch Soaring fuel prices set off protests and raise questions about Europe's sources of power By THOMAS SANCTON Paris PAGE 3 Nonetheless, research is underway on all the renewable sources, and the results are encouraging in some cases. Spain's Energía Hidroeléctrica de Navarra last year produced 418 megawatts of wind power and is planning to build 1,800 generators with a capacity of 1,400 megawatts — enough to meet the needs of a million families — over the next three years. France's EDF has built 84 wind turbines in Morocco and plans to be generating up to 500 megawatts in France by 2005. The downside of wind power is that it takes up a lot of valuable land and has met considerable resistance from local inhabitants, who object to the unsightliness and noise of wind farms. Perhaps the best bet is to build floating installations offshore.
Biomass — including such fuels as straw, dung and sawdust — also has potential for local energy production. Britain's Energy Power Resources, a private utility, will soon launch the world's largest straw-fired power station in Cambridgeshire. Fueled by an annual 200,000 tons of straw collected from local farmers, it will provide 283,000 megawatt-hours a year. The company already has a power station in Fife, Scotland, that cranks out 79,000 megawatt-hours per annum. Its fuel source: 110,000 tons of chicken droppings and litter. Perhaps the most exciting alternative energy source is hydrogen, which exists in practically limitless quantities and can be used in fuel cells to produce clean power through a process of reverse electrolysis. "Hydrogen is the long-term solution to the pollution problem," enthuses Raffaele Velone, director of advanced technology at enea. For now, most hydrogen research is focusing on vehicles. Later this year, Iceland will launch some hydrogen-powered buses developed by Shell, Daimler-Chrysler and Norway's Norsk Hydro. In California, carmakers and energy companies are working intensely on fuel-cell development, spurred by a state law that will require 10% of all new cars to produce zero emissions by 2004. France's Gaz de France is developing fuel cells that could eventually provide electric power for individual buildings. The main drawbacks: fuel cells, which contain platinum, remain very expensive, and most of the hydrogen must currently be derived from fossil fuels. Future technological advances could bring down the price and enable the large-scale extraction of hydrogen from water. With the exception of hydroelectric power, which is already being used close to its full capacity in Europe, most renewables in the foreseeable future will continue to be scattered, small-scale, local power sources. That's not necessarily a disadvantage. "With open markets," says French economist Jean-Marie Chevalier, "the trend toward building bigger and bigger equipment is being reversed. We're going in the direction of decentralization and multiple sources of electricity, with a greater share for renewable sources." Unfortunately, there is no simple, universal response to Europe's energy dilemmas. Nor can Brussels, which has no legal authority in this area, draw up an E.U.-wide plan. Ultimately, each country will have to work out its own policies according to its particular circumstances, geography and political imperatives. Austria and Norway, for example, will continue to rely heavily on water resources. France will remain largely nuclear. Germany and Britain will probably ease out of the atomic age and rely more heavily on gas. Spain, too, is giving up its nukes, but its climate and topography will allow wind and solar energy to pick up some of the slack. Few issues are less suited to a unified European solution. But the latest surge in oil prices may have done Europe a great service by focusing all eyes on the problem. — With reporting by Helen Gibson / London, Nicholas Le Quesne / Paris, Martin Penner / Rome, Ursula Sautter / Bonn and other bureaus PAGE 1 | 2 | 3 TIME Europe home More stories from TIME Europe and related links E-mail us at mail@timeatlantic.com |
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