Every day, there are developments in the energy dossiers. In order to comment on them regularly, I would have to devote at least one of these columns to them every week. This time, what one immediately notices is the way the debate has intensified around nuclear energy. The official position of the European Commission and, proclaimed or implied, of most of the governments, is that the EU cannot take a decision which is valid for all of the member states: each country, each population, must retain its freedom of choice and take the responsibility for this itself. In actual fact, a European choice would be more logical, because the member states are so close to each other that any member state which says “no” would almost certainly end up surrounded by nuclear power stations close to its border. But the choice is such a delicate one and the populations are so sensitive to it that a decision taken in Brussels (even by majority!) is unthinkable. But the European debate is open and it must become public.
The frankness of Michel Rocard. A politician of international standing, Michel Rocard, has already broken the rule of prudence. He was prime minister when France confirmed its nuclear choice and took rigorous provisions (for the time) on waste disposal. Then the Chernobyl disaster happened. Mr Rocard believes that the emotive reactions were not all justified: in the Soviet Union, “the checks were not tight enough, the USSR's investments in safety were less than half than those of France. We have 59 power stations and there has never been a real accident. Obviously, in order to guarantee safety, we have spent a lot of money”. According to Mr Rocard, the debate remains partially distorted due to an error of understanding on the part of ecological movements which are “intellectually incapable of distinguishing between pollution and risk”. For pollution, the situation is, in his opinion, clear: nuclear power stations do not pollute. Radioactive waste brings with it risks for the future, but it is possible to tackle this scientifically. The link between nuclear and atomic bomb, between nuclear energy and cancer, is absurd, in Mr Rocard's opinion; in France, “over the last two centuries, coal has killed many tens of thousands of people, through accidents or illness, and nuclear energy has not killed a single one”. Besides, “nuclear is for the consumers. In France, it represents 78% of electric energy. That is why we have the cheapest kilowatt hour in the whole of Europe”.
For the future, Michel Rocard believes that the new-generation nuclear power stations, which are more efficient, will be available in two or three years' time; they will produce more waste still, but “this is a problem we can cope with” whilst we wait for fusion power stations, which will not produce any. But we still have a long wait ahead of us: 25 years at least, even though problems are urgent. His strategic vision of the future is not reassuring: energy demand from China and India will quadruple in the next 15 years, and they consume mostly coal, a prospect which Mr Rocard describes as “terrifying”. His evaluation of the renewable sources is positive, but on a relatively modest scale: in Europe, hydroelectric energy has reached saturation, wind power has been defeated… by the ecologists, tidal energy has produced modest results, biomass has been criticised for the damage it causes to nature. His conclusion: “in total, a renewable energy will be able to cover 8 or 9% of our needs. And even if we also manage to reduce consumption by 8 or 9%, by limiting waste, we would still be a long way from covering our growing needs. I do not believe that we can do without nuclear energy”.
Have we already managed to get on top of waste? Mr Rocard's speech lacked precise indications about what to do with waste. Stating that “it's a problem we can cope with” is not reassuring. The industrialists from the sector and the scientists must prove that nuclear waste is not a threat and could even constitute raw material for other uses, in full respect of the environment. This is an essential aspect of the debate.
In the meantime, the opponents of nuclear energy are not giving in; far from it. Jeremy Rifkin, the American who is to play an official role in the European consultative organisations in these fields, has stated that to opt for nuclear would be a mistake, because he feels that Europe is perfectly well able to resolve its problems by saving energy, renewable energy and hydrogen technology. But we know that Mr Rifkin's strong pro-European stance often leads him to excesses and that his enthusiasm must be taken with a certain pinch of salt (he states that “the human race faces extinction”).
The battle of the Greens and its weaknesses. At political level, it is the Greens group of the European Parliament which leads the anti-nuclear battle in the EU. The good faith and sincerity of Monica Frassoni and Daniel Cohn-Bendit attract sympathy and deserve all of our esteem. But the attitude of some of their faithful raises a certain amount of confusion: once an alternative source meets with success, they seem to take delight in demolishing it instead of calling for its shortcomings to be remedied. Wind energy, with its enormous blades, disfigures the shoreline and countryside. Biofuels weaken nature and reduce food production, contributing to world hunger. However, these dangers may be justified in the Amazon (although the Brazilian authorities are believed to have taken initiatives to tackle them) and certain parts of Asia, but the risk for human food may become a real one if entire regions abandon food production in search of higher yields; this fear has contributed to the increase in prices of certain basic agricultural food products (although speculation has no doubt played a prime role in this).
But not in Europe! Here, a reasonable development in biofuels is to grow it on land currently not in use, set aside due to the pressure to produce less. A better control of real costs in the processing and distribution phase would show that the increase in prices for basic products should have only a minor influence on the cost of food for European consumers, whilst reducing expenditure under the Common Agricultural Policy.
The Green movements, in the European Parliament and elsewhere, must understand that in the EU, the real threat to food production would be the complete opening-up of its market to competition from the United States, Brazil, China and other giants, which - due to their very low costs and export subsidies - would destroy European food production to the detriment of the entire world, which will need it more and more. The Greens would be better advised to take account of this danger rather than fighting biofuels, for the production of which Europe is in the process of developing technologies based on biomass which cannot be used for food.
What was presented to us by the Greens group of the European Parliament as the programme of a “Future Energy Balance without Nuclear” (press release of 10 November) is, at the moment, just a catalogue of objectives for renewable energies and energy savings, good intentions or rhetorical statements, such as the development of the Solar Union for the Mediterranean instead of the Sarkozy project for this area. Certain intentions are excellent, most notably that of “imposing financial transparency on the oligopolies of the energy sector and cracking down on fraud”.
The scandal of oil price-setting. Behind the approximate phrasing of the Greens, a fundamental question is indeed hidden: the unacceptable way in which world oil prices are actually set. Analysis shows that this price depends on speculations on a few repressive markets, aggravated by irrational panic movements. The oil barons continue to benefit from absurd financial rewards. Among the European political decision-makers, it was once again Jean-Claude Juncker, in his function as president of the Eurogroup, who raised the problem by declaring, on 12 November: “in the oil markets, there is a clear lack of transparency and a good dose of speculation in price-setting” (EUROPE 9542). On the occasion of the World Energy Forum, Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi spoke of a “great pressure from the world of finance, which uses oil prices as an instrument”, and of the “weight of speculation”. Mr Prodi added that the oil companies and electric companies delayed their investment in order to accumulate massive profits, and today we are paying the price for it.
Call to the debating table. At the Madrid conference on energy challenges last month (in memory of the late lamented Loyola de Palacio), José Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission, spoke of the European debate on nuclear: states cannot afford to avoid it, “we need an open and full debate”. He reaffirmed that the EU must not choose itself, but that it must make its contribution in the fields of research and safety (see our bulletin 9514). He reiterated his appeal to the above-mentioned World Energy Forum, with the support of the main industrialists from the sector (see our bulletin 9542), and the counter-appeal of the MEP Claude Turmes in the “Alternative Forum” of the Greens.
An urgent operation in transparency and an opposition of positions is to be launched by the European Parliament, calling on all democracies of the world to get involved.
Tomorrow, I will finish these considerations with a few sentences about other remarkable developments in the European and international energy landscape. (F.R.)