Tag: energy

A trade row between Brussels and Beijing over claims that China has unfairly priced its solar panels for export could be just weeks away.

In order to re-establish confidence in Europe’s power sector as an actor in the European quest to cut carbon emissions, a few conditions need to be met. These include concrete intermediate reduction targets and an emissions trading scheme capable of delivering a clear CO2 price signal, writes Giuseppe Montesano.

Lars Clausen a top executive at DONG Energy, says the Danish company was able to become one of the leading energy firms in Northern Europe by seeing energy savings not as a "threat", but an "opportunity".

Shell has joined with other ‘progressive’ businesses to lobby the EU for a much stronger carbon price to incentivise clean energy investments. But Graeme Sweeney insists that it will not compromise on its support for tar sands, gas, and opposition to new efficiency and renewables targets.

Former cabinet minister Chris Huhne has issued a stark warning that the UK's economic growth strategy will not work unless the government pursues "green growth" by investing in industries such as energy efficiency and clean energy.

An extraordinary ‘orientation meeting’ between the European Union's 27 commissioners has instructed the EU executive's energy and climate departments to sit down and jointly draft a legal proposal addressing indirect land use changes (ILUC) caused by the biofuels industry.

European states will be given extra time to carry out tests on nuclear plants, to ensure they can withstand natural and man-made disasters, before any laws to improve nuclear safety are proposed, the EU's Energy Commissioner Günther Oettinger has said.

The European Commission and the Danish EU presidency said the Energy Efficiency Directive could "realistically" come together in the next couple of months, despite member states' consistent watering down of the proposal.

Conservatives in the European Parliament delivered a setback for European Commission plans to erase tax benefits for diesel fuel, saying that a period of austerity and high fuel costs is not the time for such moves.

The environmental group Food & Water Europe has accused the Polish author of a European Parliament report on shale gas extraction of resorting to "Cold War" rhetoric against Russia to support the industry's development.

Ministers have been advised to allow the controversial practice of fracking for shale gas to be extended in Britain, despite it causing two earthquakes and the emergence of serious doubts over the safety of the wells that have already been drilled.

European plans for promoting public and private solutions to a pressing global development need - electricity - will do little to address the immediate challenges of one of the world’s poorest countries, Liberia’s energy minister said.

Unpredictable cuts to Europe's feed-in tariff schemes for solar energy threaten the recession-hit renewable sector with disaster, the head of the solar industry’s business association has told EurActiv.

The volcanoes of Iceland could soon be pumping low-carbon electricity into the UK under government-backed plans for thousands of miles of high-voltage cables across the ocean floor.

Russian home and industrial consumers have traditionally enjoyed generous subsidies for natural gas. Today, the Kremlin finds itself in a tough spot - satisfying domestic constituents or authorising dramatic rises in gas prices to fund major projects planned the Gazprom monopoly, Stratfor analysts say.

Russia’s gas export monopoly Gazprom has abandoned plans to increase sales to Europe in 2012, saying it faced stiffer than expected competition from LNG and lower spot market prices. However, the state-owned company said it would meet its planned earnings targets thanks to higher prices charged to consumers.

Britain launched on Thursday a £20 million (€24 million) contest to support up to two pilot wave energy projects, as the government hopes to scale up the clean technology to power more homes and businesses and curb carbon emissions.

The American multinational energy corporation Chevron has suspended its shale gas exploration activities in Romania, announcing that its only activity over the next 12 months will be seismic data surveying and reassuring citizens and policymakers concerned about perceived risks.

Greater gas discounts combined with an offer to build natural gas storage facilities may help Russia increase its leverage in Turkey, writes Stratfor.

The EU’s emissions reduction target for 2020 could be facing an unlikely but grave obstacle, according to a growing number of scientists, EU officials and NGOs: the contribution of biomass to the EU’s renewable energy objectives for 2020.

A high-pressure gas leak from a North Sea offshore platform operated by Total shows that the security of oil and gas operations is still a critical issue in Europe, the European Commission said yesterday (29 March).

Europe's wave and tidal power technology is likely to disappoint EU expectations for 2020 and take over a decade to contribute to energy supply in a significant way, even though it is chalking up rapid growth and drawing in big industrial investors.

For some people in Ukraine, it has been striking to see how little awareness and discussion there is in Europe about Kyiv's plans to expand the lifetime of 12 old nuclear reactors, right on the doorstep of the EU and most likely at European taxpayers’ expense, writes Iryna Holovko, an environmental campaigner in Ukraine.

Energy companies will have to change their business models from gas and electricity supply only as the EU's Energy Efficiency Directive takes shape, says Jon Slowe, director at Delta Energy and Environment, a consulting firm.