Diversification (14)
Greater security of supply is about not relying on one form of energy or on a handful of supplier countries outside the EU. It is about producing more energy within the EU, and where necessary ensuring supply from other stable regions of the world. It is also about agreeing to share supplies in times of crisis since the level of import dependence of different EU countries varies considerably.
Some 80% of the energy the EU consumes is from fossil fuels — oil, natural gas and coal — all of them major sources of CO2(ซีโอทู)emissions. Technology is helping reduce those emissions, and ‘clean’ coal technology should be operational within the next decade or so. Nevertheless, fossil fuel is a finite resource, which will have been significantly depleted by the middle of this century. Reducing the use of fossil fuels thus contributes to improving the EU’s energy security as well as helping to limit climate change.
Moreover, the EU’s own fossil fuel resources are being depleted faster than those of the world as a whole. It is becoming increasingly dependent on imports, and therefore increasingly vulnerable to supply and price shocks. Dependence on imported oil could rise to 95% and on imported gas to 84% by 2030, if energy consumption is not checked and the fuel mix changed. At present, the EU gets about 50% of the gas it consumes from just three sources — Russia, Norway and Algeria — and imports about two-thirds of its oil needs from the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and Russia. The overall level of the EU’s reliance on imported energy was 53.8% in 2006.
Diversification into more home-grown energy will need a greater use of low or zero carbon technologies based on renewable energy sources ,such as wind, solar, hydro power and biomass, since the EU is short of fossil fuel resources of its own. Ultimately we are likely to have hydrogen in the mix as well. Some EU countries will also use nuclear power as part of their energy mix. For the foreseeable future this will come from nuclear fission since nuclear fusion technology is not likely to become available before the second half of this century.