Down the memory hole: Last week we at EER found out the hard way that Europe is far from being “integrated”

kristyResource Efficiency

Analysis

Energy Roadmap 2050

Tuesday 10 April 2012

Down the memory hole

Last week we at EER found out the hard way that Europe is far from being “integrated”. While life went on as usual in the Netherlands, where this publication is made, in many other European countries, including Brussels, people were off from work thanks to the Easter holidays. This resulted in a marked drop in the number of visitors to our website.

For us this was rather unfortunate since we published four major articles last week, which we are convinced are worth your time, but which got a lot less attention than our publications usually get. So we would like to take the liberty to alert those who were out of the office last week to those four articles again, before they disappear down the memory hole.

– Our London correspondent Alex Forbes wrote an important story on UK nuclear policy. The decision by Eon and RWE to pull out of new-build nuclear projects in the UK led many to believe that UK nuclear policy – which is absolutely crucial for the future of nuclear energy in Europe – is in tatters, but according to Alex that conclusion is highly premature.

– Our regular analyst Matthew Hulbert argued in a new, original analysis that US policy to use Saudi Arabia and the emergency oil stocks of the International Energy Agency to fill in any shortfalls left by the boycott of Iran, is endangering the credibility of both Riyadh and the IEA.

– James Stafford, editor of Oilprice.com, held a fascinating interview with astrophysicist Tom Murphy of the University of California in which Murphy shines his light on a wide range of energy technologies, from nuclear to solar power and from shale gas to artificial photosynthesis. Inspirational stuff, even if you may not agree with everything.

– Our editor Karel Beckman produced an in-depth story on how the European gas market is on the point of being radically transformed as a result of EU policies: must-reading if you are interested in where the European gas market is headed for.

Of course we also have many readers who have not had any holidays and who have no catching up to do. For them, we do have a new article on offer today – and, if we may say so, it’s a good one too. In it, Severin Fischer and Oliver Geden of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) ask what we may expect to happen with the Energy Roadmap 2050, the energy future “vision document” which, as you know, was published by the European Commission in December.

Fischer and Geden explain what the current status is of the Roadmap within the complex European decision-making process, and they outline three possible fates that could befall this great piece of energy policymaking. One not unlikely fate is that it could disappear down the memory hole … You can read their lucid analysis by clicking here.

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Coming up on European Energy Review

Why we do not need to worry about “peak oil”
The battle for the EU emission trading scheme
Interview with Fritz Vahrenholt, (resigning) CEO of RWE Innogy, on why he feels duped about global warming
Vestas and the future of the European wind turbine industry
Interview with Jean-François Cirelli, President of Eurogas and CEO of GDF Suez

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