Here I copy my reflections on the energy policy of the Basque Country as reflected in the article on the Country from the day before. The deep oil crisis at the end of the 1970s made the saying “Even if you can, Spain can’t” become fashionable. Do you remember the radio and television campaigns? The curious thing is that, after 30 years of energy policy, we have again reached the same point. We continue to depend on the outside to supply us with energy and, after the mirage of abundance and relatively cheap prices at the end of the last century, we are facing increasingly plausible scenarios of scarcity and high energy prices, to which must be added, the economic, social and environmental impacts of climate change, which no one doubts anymore, is based on the energy model based on fossil fuels.
To face these global trends, an evolution with small marginal changes is not worth it. A new and ambitious cycle of energy policy is imposed and prepare for big changes if you really want to configure a low carbon economy in the next 30 years. The determination for a change of this nature must be found in the conviction that the competitiveness of our companies and the quality of life of people depend on the articulation of a new system of production and use of energy.
In our opinion, four are the priorities of this new system. In the first place, to advance in a new model of cooperative governance capable of aligning the interests and concerns of the multiple public and private agents that affect energy consumption (industrial model, transport, environment, land use planning, investments in physical infrastructure, including housing, fiscal model) and that, with all legitimacy, are moved by interests that are often contradictory to energy objectives.
Secondly, the need to tilt the new energy policy measures towards the demand and use of energy as a way to multiply efficiency and reverse the growing trend of energy consumption, placing special emphasis on those sectors such as transport and residential they behave worse and experience growth in energy consumption well above the average. In this section, incentives and the development of an advanced and competitive sector of energy service companies may be the key to reaching many and diverse agents for whom energy saving is not the determining factor of their conduct.
Thirdly, the progressive replacement of fossil fuels, using gas as a transition element and maximizing the generation of renewable energy. For this, it is necessary to reserve oil only for those uses that are not easily substituted by gas, abandoning all energy use of it, a more intensive use of biofuels, fighting for legislation that obliges distributors to mix them with derived fuels. of oil and the increasing use of new mobility technologies that are less intensive in oil derivatives that are already or will soon be perfectly available on the market, such as hybrid, plug-in hybrid and electric vehicles.
Likewise, the progressive substitution of natural gas in the long term involves the maximum use of the energy potential available from renewable sources with economically profitable technologies at all times, the implementation of carbon capture and storage in gas electricity generation plants and the articulation of a new electricity generation/distribution/consumption model based on the smart grids model that will open up new possibilities for savings and efficiency, as well as alternatives for a new wave of renewable energy technologies: small wind , micro-cogeneration, solar etc.
Fourthly and lastly, it will be necessary to take advantage of the global transformation of the energy model, as a vector of technological development and business positioning. Many of the technologies needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the world, 50% reduction in emissions by 2050, according to the “Blue Map” scenario of the International Energy Agency, are still far from being economically profitable. , require significant R&D investments up to 2050 and open up many opportunities for technological and industrial development in the coming years. Clearly, CIC Energigune, together with the technological capabilities of TRI Tecnalia and Ik4 and the presence of a highly consolidated business fabric in the energy value chain in the Basque Country are the anchors that we must take advantage of in this priority.
The path that is opening up in the world of energy is extremely exciting. The new energy plan of the Basque Government will soon see the light of day, and it is up to it to exercise leadership, set the pace and establish the incentives so that society as a whole can advance at a firm step in this new world in which we will live better and happier, consuming less energy and more efficiently.