(November 10, 2008) Recently, the International Energy Agency published its first review of the energy policy of the European Union. The review covered several nuclear energy issues. In the report, the agency kept itself far from proliferation concerns and branded nuclear waste as a mere “cooperation challenge”. As the sister organisation of the OECD’s Nuclear Energy Agency furthermore lauds nuclear power as a means to decreases energy dependence and to achieve climate goals, it wont come as a surprise that the IEA is generally supportive of nuclear power. However, the review did make some interesting observations concerning EU energy research policy which are worth reviewing here.
(679.) WISE Amsterdam - The EU's research funding is bundled in FP7, the 'Seventh Framework Programme for research and technological development'. The budget for FP7 is spread out over several years and over a nuclear and a non-nuclear part.
The IEA noted that the EU's overall spending on energy research has gradually declined. “Most European energy firms now spend less than 1% of their net sales on clean technology innovation”. It also noted that the FP7 program was drafted before energy emerged as a key concern for Europe. As a consequence, only 2.4 billion euros - spread out over seven years and 27 member countries - is reserved for non-nuclear energy research. In comparison; in the same period, 9.1 billion is invested on information technology research. The nuclear part of FP7 receives 2.8 billion euros divided over 5 years, 1.7 billion euro of which goes directly into nuclear fusion research.
The authors of the IEA question if Europe has its research priorities right. The EU has ambitious energy and climate targets for 2020, but the largest part of the energy research budget, which is already small, is being invested in a technology which, if ever, will only pay off after 2050 - which the IEA, by the way, labelled as 'unlikely'. The OECD agency urgently recommend the EU to recast its FP7 before it expires to ensure more energy research can be done, in order to be able to achieve the Unions ambitious targets.
High ranking ITER researchers called the IEA's fusion position a “company accident”. The IEA is quoted saying instead of cutting fusion research, it meant to press for increased funding of non-nuclear research. The IEA’s policy review remained unchanged.
The IEA commended the European Commissions' attempt to correct the lack (FP7) energy research funding by launching the Sustainable Energy Technology (SET) plan. However, here again, the EU erred while setting priorities. “It [raises] concern that demand-side technologies do not feature at all in the six priority areas of the SET Plan”, the authors wrote. For that matter, it seems that the SET plan is a mere continuation of FP7 mistakes, where “out of nine non-nuclear thematic areas, only one is covering demand side”. There is not yet a budget allocated to the SET-plan; this is expected to happen in the course of the autumn.
The SET plan has its focus on renewables as solar, wind, and biomass, and on the smart grid, CCS and generation 4 reactors. Slowly awareness is rising that we have less than 100 months to prevent dangerous levels of climate change. And as both CCS and generation 4 reactors are due beyond 2030, they will be too late to be of any help to face the climate challenge. But one has to be very unfamiliar with EU decision making, or just plain naive, to expect that the EU will be willing and able to recast its FP7 work program midterm, and make energy efficiency and demand side management as soon as possible energy priority no. 1.
Sources: IEA Energy Policies Review: The European Union 2008 (http://www.iea.org/textbase/publications/free_new_Desc.asp?PUBS_ID=2045) / NRC Handelsblad, Eeuwige hoop op kernfusie, November 1st, 2008 [Dutch]
Contact: WISE Amsterdam