The EU Council is meeting today and the major discussion subjects are energy and climate. This meeting is done under the German presidency. German people are generally against nuclear and want to stop their nuclear plants in the very coming years. The discussions today are a lot about the place nuclear energy should take in the future of the EU.
Renewables and energy conservation are fine, but enabling nuclear to play a more important role in the energy mix would truly help the EU 27 members to reach these very ambitious goals. Decreasing by 30 or just 20 percent the carbon dioxide in only 13 years will prove to be difficult, so why not taking all chances to do the job ?
Replacing coal-fired plants by nuclear would be a very interesting way to cut emissions and this quickly. According to the EU official website, coal represents around a third of the electricity mix (source). In Germany, half of the electricity is produced by coal-fired plants. Still according to the EU website, a similar proportion of the electricity mix is provided by nuclear energy (source).
Renewables are also due to play a more important role in the future. This is why the EU will implement obligations to use more this kind of energy in order to increase their part in the energy mix. Renewables share should increase from 7 nowadays to 20 percent by 2020.
There are doubts that the EU can decrease by 30 percent its CO² emissions just by renewables and energy conservation. Hence, some countries, like France or Poland among others, would like Nuclear energy to play an important role in the carbon dioxide mitigation.
A better insulation of the EU housings would also lead to massive carbon dioxide and energy savings. According to the researches I had done for my Master’s thesis, 40 percent of the energy consumed in the EU is for the housing. Insulating housings would thus lead to huge savings.
Tomorrow, I will give the results of the council and I hope I will be able to give the information whether the EU council decided for 20 or 30 percent cuts of its emissions.
