Sustainability

The European response

At the end of the last century the member states of the European Union progressively committed themselves to researching common solutions to solve the energy problem. Faced with an economy that devours energy and a common shortage of traditional energy resources, the European Union has decided to adopt a common growth programme to exploit renewable sources. The first step towards promoting renewable energy sources was defined in the White Paper presented by the member states in 1997. The result of this study was a practical proposal and an ambitious objective: to succeed in obtaining, by 2010, a share of clean energy equal to 12% of total consumption. To achieve this goal, in October 2001 a regulation was passed, 2001/77/EC, that established the adoption of specific objectives regarding the increase in the utilization of electric energy produced by renewable sources. According to this document each individual European state had to decide individually the course and methods it was going to follow to reach the first common target, the amount set for 2010. Alongside this primary regulation there have been other legal instruments that have promoted not only the development of renewable sources but also the energetic efficiency of homes and common household electrical appliances: ovens, refrigerators and domestic heating and cooling systems are, in fact, important factors in the battle against atmospheric pollution and in the promotion of a sustainable consumption of electric energy.
Here are some figures
The situation in Europe today is encouraging in some ways even though it is especially in the next years that it will be necessary to work hard to respect the pre-set objectives. Western Europe uses about 16% of the energy produced in the world but it contributes markedly to the increase in the use of renewable energy, with 79% of the global increase of wind energy, 48% of micro-electric energy and 31% of the energy obtained from biomass. The leading countries in the utilization of clean energy are Sweden (28% of the total energy consumption), Austria (23%), Finland(22%) and Portugal(15%). The technologies on which there are the greatest expectations to attain the objectives of 2010 are those connected with exploitation of the wind and the sun and in some cases futuristic frontiers have already been reached today, as we shall see further on. As far as wind energy is concerned in particular, the European Union has 75% of the world installations with a productive capacity of 60TWh, sufficient for 35 million inhabitants. In particular three countries contribute 85% of the total wind energy production: Spain with 7,000 MW, Germany with 15,000 MW and Denmark with 3,000 MW. Moreover, Germany and Denmark have distinguished themselves thanks to the development of mathematical models of climate change capable of foreseeing with accuracy wind behaviour in the 24-36 hour time interval. The utilization of new technologies and the exploitation of off-shore currents with equipment situated in the open sea raise hopes regarding a progressive growth of wind energy, capable of soon making it competitive with conventional forms of energy.