Ron Wit, team manager Stichting Natuur en Milieu:
"CO2 storage mustn’t supplant renewables and energy saving”
Stichting Natuur en Milieu (Society for Nature and Environment) advocates an approach to the energy and climate issue in line with the Trias Energetica: first of all save energy, then produce energy sustainably, and in the last resort – because for the time being we cannot do without – use fossil fuels as cleanly as possible. The capture and storage of CO2 (CCS) is part of this third track too.
Although the political and business worlds say that the Trias Energetica is of paramount importance, Natuur en Milieu sees this as a matter of concern: renewables and energy saving mustn’t become subservient to CCS.
Ron Wit, team manager of Natuur en Milieu, explains why this is a matter of concern. "In practice you see that lobbying is carried out in Brussels to make specific subsidies available for CCS to the detriment of renewable energy. This is of great concern to us, because a transitional technology would limit, temporarily or permanently, the potential for developing the technology of the future. What we say is that you can go down the third track of clean fossil fuel and maintain credibility only if you are credible on the first two tracks."
Stimulation versus obligation
In terms of credibility on the first track – energy saving – one of the measures being considered by Natuur en Milieu is the introduction of obligations for energy companies. In such a system the energy company is obliged, in exchange for a certificate, to take the initiative for energy-saving measures in, say, homes.
Nuon notes that the cost of ‘tempting’ the customer to save energy is high and therefore prefers to use a different approach in order to give a further impulse to energy saving. "In any case", says Wit, "I have the feeling that Nuon has gone a long way towards arranging a total package for the customer to ensure that he can save energy at home in many different ways. I think that Nuon is the frontrunner in the energy sector in that respect."
More investment in renewables needed
Natuur en Milieu has greater concerns about the sustainable production of energy. "For energy companies that is naturally a very important track in terms of achieving CO2-neutrality. Nevertheless, you can see – and I’m talking about the Dutch energy sector as a whole – that things didn’t go well in 2009 and are still not moving quickly enough.
In the Netherlands roughly 50% of new investments are supposed to go to sustainable energy generation so as to reach the target of 20% renewable energy in 2020. None of the energy companies will achieve that level. However, that isn’t the fault of the energy companies alone. Government policy is to blame as well. But in any event, this is a major sticking point."
CO2 norm for coal-fired power plants
As already stated, only when both energy saving and renewables are taken for granted will it be credible, in the opinion of Natuur en Milieu, to invest in clean fossil. "We are in favour of the introduction of a CO2 norm for coal-fired power plants. That means, for example, that in 2020 a power plant will not be able to emit more than 350 grams of CO2 per kWh. It’s up to the companies themselves to decide how to achieve this. One of the possibilities is CCS, another is a combination CCS and co-firing biomass.
The energy companies operate in a West European electricity market, so it’s important for the extra cost of achieving the CO2 norm to be financed out of the revenue from the auction of emission allowances that will be held as from 2013. This combined approach ought to give the Netherlands a lot of economic spin-offs without affecting the level playing field.
I would really appreciate it if Nuon were to embrace such a norm and say: we want this to be the standard in the Netherlands. Such a commitment is appropriate to a company that says it’s concerned with the climate, especially since has coal gasification technology at its disposal."
