Skip to main content

And Then There Was Europe

By

Karl-Heinz_Florenz_MEP_sm@body We have to give our European friends points for ambition:

Discussions regarding Europe's future energy policy this week has seen MEPs backing proposals for new EU targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 80% before 2050.

And, the meetings of the full EU Parliament in Strasbourg saw support for a 60% renewable energy target.

We think MEP stands for Member of European Parliament. In any event, the MEPs have some firm ideas how to reach these targets:

This week's discussions by MEPs also included nuclear energy, with MEPs calling on the Commission to draw up a specific "road map" for nuclear investments, while rejecting calls for a "phase out plan" for nuclear power in Europe.

Well, okay. The Europeans are getting ready for the climate change conference happening in Copenhagen later this year to bang out a new framework to replace the Kyoto protocol. Impossible to know whether the targets will be as ambitious as the Europeans are now discussing – though they have some idea, as interim conferences in Bali and Poland provided some direction – but they’re not waiting to find out.

---

And from the same article:

[Slovenian MEP Jordan] Cizelj said of Europe's energy mix: "It has to attain a larger portion of energy sources that do not emit greenhouse gases, such as renewable energy sources and nuclear energy. Besides, we cannot stop using coal, but we have to ensure the use of the best possible technologies that assure carbon capture and storage."

For those of you who think coal is going anywhere anytime soon.

Karl-Heinz Florenz, the German MEP (isn’t the planet the Great Gazoo came from) who presented the EU climate report. We’re sure it’s not remotely true, but every picture we see of an European politician seems to look like Herr Florenz – intelligent, well fed, a little jowly.

Labels:

Comments

Anonymous said…
At most, Wasserman is consistent; he began his false claims early, "And this is a time when we actually need stimulus in our economy, and no nuclear plant that’s funded now with taxpayer money could come online for at least a decade."
Even before taxpayer money has been spent, government action has provided stimulus. It takes many workers to submit a plant license application and government jobs to review that license. There is no doubt that Wasserman knows that. Also, once money is provided by the taxpayers, that money will go immediately into the pockets of construction workers and workers who manufacture goods such as pipe and valves. Perhaps somebody could explain to me why Wasserman's statement above is not a lie.
February 7, 2009 at 12:28 PM
Space Fission said…
What has really gotten socks in a knot for the green groups and consumer protection organizations is that one of the leading environmental lobbyists in Missouri, Irl Scissors, has switched sides and is now working with economic development groups to change the law on recovery of construction costs.

More details at Idaho Samizdat
February 9, 2009 at 5:50 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Fluor Invests in NuScale

By
You know, it’s kind of sad that no one is willing to invest in nuclear energy anymore. Wait, what? NuScale Power celebrated the news of its company-saving $30 million investment from Fluor Corp. Thursday morning with a press conference in Washington, D.C. Fluor is a design, engineering and construction company involved with some 20 plants in the 70s and 80s, but it has not held interest in a nuclear energy company until now. Fluor, which has deep roots in the nuclear industry, is betting big on small-scale nuclear energy with its NuScale investment. "It's become a serious contender in the last decade or so," John Hopkins, [Fluor’s group president in charge of new ventures], said. And that brings us to NuScale, which had run into some dark days – maybe not as dark as, say, Solyndra, but dire enough : Earlier this year, the Securities Exchange Commission filed an action against NuScale's lead investor, The Michael Kenwood Group. The firm "misap
1 comment
Read more

An Ohio School Board Is Working to Save Nuclear Plants

By
Ohio faces a decision soon about its two nuclear reactors, Davis-Besse and Perry, and on Wednesday, neighbors of one of those plants issued a cry for help. The reactors’ problem is that the price of electricity they sell on the high-voltage grid is depressed, mostly because of a surplus of natural gas. And the reactors do not get any revenue for the other benefits they provide. Some of those benefits are regional – emissions-free electricity, reliability with months of fuel on-site, and diversity in case of problems or price spikes with gas or coal, state and federal payroll taxes, and national economic stimulus as the plants buy fuel, supplies and services. Some of the benefits are highly localized, including employment and property taxes. One locality is already feeling the pinch: Oak Harbor on Lake Erie, home to Davis-Besse. The town has a middle school in a building that is 106 years old, and an elementary school from the 1950s, and on May 2 was scheduled to have a referendu
Post a Comment
Read more

Wednesday Update

By
From NEI’s Japan micro-site: NRC, Industry Concur on Many Post-Fukushima Actions Industry/Regulatory/Political Issues • There is a “great deal of alignment” between the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the industry on initial steps to take at America’s nuclear energy facilities in response to the nuclear accident in Japan, Charles Pardee, the chief operating officer of Exelon Generation Co., said at an agency briefing today. The briefing gave stakeholders an opportunity to discuss staff recommendations for near-term actions the agency may take at U.S. facilities. PowerPoint slides from the meeting are on the NRC website. • The International Atomic Energy Agency board has approved a plan that calls for inspectors to evaluate reactor safety at nuclear energy facilities every three years. Governments may opt out of having their country’s facilities inspected. Also approved were plans to maintain a rapid response team of experts ready to assist facility operators recoverin
Post a Comment
Read more