The electrical grid is at the heart of a battle waged around energy policy on a continental scale, in Europe and in the US
Going back to the beginnings of electrification, the immense value of power delivered to industry and to homes was soon enough subjected to a regulator framework defining the rights and the constraints under which electricity providers were to operate
The premise was straightforward – accessible power, delivered to all, securely and at an affordable cost
To make it happen, power suppliers were vertically integrated with the mandate of a public service
As the thirst for power grew exponentially with urbanization, new industries and consumer expectations, supply kept pace
The profiles of the energy providers, distinct from the start from one country to another, diverged immensely in the course of time
Access to the natural resources dictated energy production
- coal mining (originally in Great Britain and in Continental Europe as is still the case in Poland…, in India … and the list could go on and on…
- hydropower – then and now in Scandinavia or in France
And when mines or water streams were not at hand, oil was the indispensable fallback solution for countries lacking the natural resources such as Japan, and because of the price advantage of cheap oil, coal ended up being pushed out of the power stations in Germany as well….
Natural gas on the scene
Natural gas was a relative latecomer, added to the energy mix in Europe after massive discoveries in the Netherlands from the 1960’s
Unsurprisingly, geography remained the commanding factor, scaled up immeasurably by the German Chancellor Willy Brandt’s Ost Politik in the 1970’s, securing German industry’s access to new reliable Russian gas for decades
Increase in efficiency brought about by combined-cycle turbine technology commanding the flow in the pipelines (in the 1990’s) and explosive economic growth created vast opportunities for natural gas in power plants – the so-called ‘dash for gas’ was underway
France or the 'exception française'
The French ''exception' is usually invoked to justify some (more or less) preposterous cultural singularity ....
...but this time, in matters of energy, the exception is certainly not a flimsy cause
France could have opted for a nearly identical energy strategy to Germany's, based on natural gas (imported by pipeline from the Netherlands) and oil (shipped from the Middle East) but did not…
As always, a conjunction of factors may have influenced decision makers in France
- the loss of control over Algeria’s oil and gas resources, after Algeria’s bloody war for independence (1962), surely must have weighed
- no less fateful was French military expertise in nuclear weapons, already 20 years in the making by 1970
In this context, and following the first oil shock (1973-1974), driven by deeply ingrained trust in national sovereignty, the decision to ‘go nuclear’ in civilian energy would not come as a surprise
A giant program for the construction of 13 gigawatts of nuclear capacity over the following two years was announced in March 1974 (more than the entire thermal generating capacity in the country in 1972)
With nuclear reactors generating 65% to 70% of France’s electricity today, the country’s energy policy has enjoyed unstinting political support for the better part of half a century, with only occasional hiccups
Germans knew best...Wandel durch Handel
....until fundamental assumptions were turned upside down
Germany’s course of action – announced in September 1973 – could be seen as a frontrunner of the French commitment to nuclear power generation, 6 months earlier with similar ambition promising 50 units and 50 gigawatts in capacity by 1985…
The German nuclear program failed to gain traction and a conjunction of faulty assumptions and mistakes were the carbon copy inverse of the French success
Less advanced research in nuclear application, decentralized authorities (as opposed to France’s centralized decision process) and the shadow of Hiroshima over a country committed to peaceful coexistence after WWII were compounded by the political failure to ‘buy-in’ the German people (as opposed to legitimate French pride in advanced technological achievements, including nuclear ones)
The stage was set for Germany’s full embrace of Russian gas, leaving aside concerns for energy independence which had weighed on the fitful attempts at nuclear energy after the oil shocks of 1973-1974 and 1979
Relying on an energy mix with no nuclear power generation (abandoned in principle in 2011 following the Fukushima meltdown and effectively by 2023) but with a large share of renewables complemented by natural gas, Germany could feel smug
And they did...
What could go wrong in the ironclad conviction that 'Wandel' (of the geopolitical interests of their powerful neighbor to the East, the USSR first and Russia today) could be brought about by 'Handel'
Along the way, the German Green movement went from strength to strength, riding the fear for all things nuclear to the hilt…
All the more unfortunate that Change was not guaranteed by Commercial Interests after all...
No less surprising but surely unanticipated by the governing elites, Green policy converted long-term commitments into articles of faith and the environmental movement into a powerful substitute of religious beliefs, with the return to a natural state, ‘saving the planet’, an arc of hope envisioning a new Resurrection
Beware the Greens
Energy policy, more often haphazard than should be expected from such a central factor of universal well-being, is singed by the long tail of history, always by geographical reality, often by long-term cost advantage of certain energy sources and inevitably by political decision making
The emergence of Green powerbrokers, from California to Washington, in Germany and, by and large, in Northern Europe, has upended energy policies, turned into a shouting match in the US and into an even more dangerous tug-of-war between national interests within the European Union
In the end, the battle around energy policy has drawn all factions into hand-to-hand ideological combat, hardly the premise for sound energy policy or for climate change
With deeply divided factions, a showdown is looming in Europe - and probably in the US as well
Compromise around a 'grand bargain' is urgently needed ...