The European Union Proves Once Again it is Not a Democratic Institution

by Owen Martin

As European citizens who care deeply about the democratic values of the EU, we can only feel a sense of shame that the EU has gone into an international forum with a position that threatened to undermine democracy and accountability in a range of countries extending throughout the wider Europe and Central Asia. And the primary reason for this is the European Commission’s stubborn resistance to having its decisions on environmental matters challengeable before the EU courts in the way that the decisions of national authorities may be challenged at national level [Jeremy Wates, EEB Secretary General].

The EU constantly portrays itself as a beacon of democracy and law in the modern world. But it often does not live up to this ideal. This week, at the meeting of the parties to the Aarhus Convention, an International Treaty which grants the public certain rights in environmental decision making such as access to information, participation and access to justice, the EU failed to accept a ruling made against it in relation to access to justice for citizens. 

The "Remainer" crowd in the UK and the Guardian tell us that it is not the European Union which is the problem but individual Member States :

If the EU does have a democratic deficit, that is because it is made up of countries with their own problems with public engagement in politics. Plus governments have a habit of blaming “Brussels” when things go wrong, which feeds the idea of an unelected, untamed bureaucracy. As one senior EU official puts it: “Anything you like you claim for yourselves and anything you don’t like you blame on Brussels [The Guardian].”

 However, here we have a situation where NGOs from various Member and Non Member States are trying (unsuccessfully) to hold the EU bureaucratic behemoth to account. Indeed, Norway and Switzerland (both outside the EU) were both forceful in their condemnation of EU's refusal to accept the ruling made against them :

Today during the plenary not a single Party or stakeholder supported the EU position. On the contrary, every delegation that spoke on the issue made very explicit that these amendments were not acceptable to them as they would undermine the Convention in the long term without any legal grounds justifying such amendments. 

Any EU decision to call for a vote on this issue would:

• Destroy the consensus-based spirit that is the fundamental bedrock of the Convention.

• Send a clear signal to all other Parties that their views do not count.

• Enable the EU to force the rejection of a legally correct decision on the basis of political motives.

• Undermine the rules of procedure of the Convention.

We firmly believe that the amendments of the decision proposed by the EU would strongly undermine the Convention and its compliance mechanism. [Furthermore] the EU would return from Montenegro with its reputation in disgrace, having lost all credibility as a proponent of democratic norms.

[Statement from Norway and Swiss delegation].

But it gets even worse. As one NGO noted : 

 A day after European Commission President Juncker declared the rule of law to be one of three principles that must anchor the European Union in his State of the Union address, the EU has been heavily criticised for its failure to accept an international panel’s ruling that it is not ensuring adequate access to justice for its citizens at EU level.

I have to be honest. I didn't think the NGOs had it in them to stand up to the might of the EU Commission. I'm happy to be proved wrong. 

The reality is the European Union is just like any large State Power that has ever existed in the world. It dislikes immensely the idea of the individual citizen having a say in it's affairs or challenging it's decisions in the courts. It seeks to consolidate it's power, rather than divest it. We saw this during the Irish vote on the Lisbon Treaty. We are seeing it again in relation to it's obligations to the Aarhus Convention, the ultimate citizen empowering Treaty.

The full statement made by the coalition of NGOs is well worth a read for those interested in the technical details of what happened during last weeks events : 


http://eeb.org/eu-slammed-for-lack-of-respect-for-rule-of-law-on-environmental-justice/

Ireland will fail to meet Greenhouse Gas Targets - EPA

by Owen Martin

The EPA have announced that Ireland will miss it's EU Greenhouse Gas emission targets for 2020 because of a growing economy and increases in agriculture and transport activities. The media are warning of EU fines.

Firstly, the EU is in no position to enforce fines for failing to meet emissions or renewable targets. The UNECE Aarhus Compliance Committee have repeatedly issued rulings stating that the EU are in breach of the Aarhus Convention in relation to Ireland's renewable energy plans. So unless Ireland decides to simply lie down in the face of bullying European Union bureaucrats, there will be no fines. 

Secondly, consecutive EU policies have resulted in increased greenhouse gas emissions. By allowing beef imports from countries like Brazil into the EU, shipping and transport emissions will have increased. As Marine Le Pen has pointed out, if you want sustainable agriculture, then grow your own crops and invest in your own farms. The last thing that should be done is to ship beef into your country from 5,000 miles away. 

Another EU policy is that member states should accept millions of refugees. This will increase demand on food, electricity, housing and other resources increasing emissions. 

EU energy policies have increased electricity prices and driven energy intensive industries outside of the EU effectively outsourcing emissions elsewhere on the (same) planet. 

To whom do these policies benefit ? To whom would a fine against Ireland benefit ? It is exactly because of the contradictions inherent in EU policy right now that it is becoming ever more unpopular.

Freak Out! - How "Science" Caused Mass Hysteria in the Past

 “To capture the public imagination . . . we have to . . . make simplified dramatic statements, and little mention of any doubts one might have. . . . Each of us has to decide the right balance between being effective and being honest.” - Stephen H. Schneider, 1989, in an interview in Discover.

To people who believe in climate change, science is something truly unique in human history - infallible and incorruptible. The reality is that science has got things wrong in the past or perhaps a more accurate statement is that doubts in scientific theories have been suppressed
producing a false or incomplete picture to an unsuspecting public. The people doing the suppressing of selective information are not usually scientists but eco-loons, politicians and the media. Most scientists will likely agree that doubt is a good thing.

The more physicists discover about distant galaxies (e.g. accelerating away from us) the more they find out that current physics models, as good as they are, are incomplete. They have no choice but to invent new theories such as dark matter to fit new information. The doubts remain and are acknowledged by physicists. The media and other propagandists have found no reason yet for reporting that as a result of accelerating galaxies and dark matter our planet is in grave danger.

The mass hysteria that accompanied the Acid Rain theory in the 1980s is a good example of where suppression of scientific doubts lead to rash and costly policy changes.

Acid Rain Mass Hysteria by Pat Swords

While one should not generalise, one also has to acknowledge that there are cultures in organisations and countries, which strongly influence behaviour.

Company cultures are like country cultures. Never try to change one. Try, instead, to work with what you've got. • Peter Drucker - Austrian-born American management consultant, educator, and author 

For instance, Irish people have a near pathological obsession with being seen ‘to be nice’ and wanting to be liked, such that when something goes wrong, they are often unable to challenge and confront it; often for fear ‘that they might upset somebody’. The former US Ambassador to Ireland, Jean Kennedy Smith put her finger on it, with her famous statement about the ‘Irish lacking a proper sense of outrage’. On the other hand if one takes the Israeli culture, which is brash and somewhat confrontational, when Irish people come up against such behaviour, it ends up ‘freaking out’ many of them. Germans on the other hand have always suffered from a collective ‘Angst’, in which doom and dread is predominant. They just can't help being gloomy. Instead of sitting back and accepting simply that what will be, will be, not to mention getting on and enjoying it, they agonise. As a result there is a collective fear of the unknown. Mad cow disease, swine fever, bird flu, nuclear plants, global warming - who on the planet is most alarmed? That’s an easy question to answer isn’t it? Neither do Germans learn well from history; they started one world war with devastating results and did the same again by starting another world war less than twenty one years later.  

• Die Geschichte wiederholt sich – history repeats itself

Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it. • Edmund Burke - Irish statesman, author, orator, political theorist and philosopher

Understanding history and culture is very important; it does and will influence us. 

'Whoever wishes to foresee the future must consult the past; for human events ever resemble those of preceding times. This arises from the fact that they are produced by men who ever have been, and ever shall be, animated by the same passions, and thus they necessarily have the same results.' • Machiavelli

The late 1970s and 1980s in Germany was characterised by growing public concern over damage to forests, the so called ‘Waldsterben’ or dying forests, a circumstance which was referred to as ‘acid rain’ in the English speaking world. In hindsight we can learn a lot from this issue, such as is documented by the Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations (FAO). The hype and ‘frightening scenarios’ got out of hand, it was the central ‘dogma’ in Germany that an unprecedented decline in all tree species in central European forests was occurring, as a result of a complex disease of forest ecosystems triggered by air pollution. However, the results of a decade of research are not compatible with the central dogma of the Waldsterben concept. As the FAO concluded in relation to this research, it “rather confirmed the occurrence of non-synchronous fluctuations of forest conditions and recurrent episodes of clarified as well as unsettled species specific declines”. In other words impacts related to natural variations and plant diseases. 

As to the main lesson to be learnt: 

• Waldsterben may be understood as a problem of awareness: forest conditions that were believed to be "normal" in earlier times suddenly became a symbol of the growing fear of the destructive potential of human activities on the environment. However, holistic concepts such as the Waldsterben hypothesis are of little help in solving problems. Rather they raise emotions and lead to premature conclusions. To gain a real understanding of the multitude of decline phenomena in our forests, we must continue to analyse symptom by symptom, species by species and site by site, according to the classical principles of phytopathology and forest science in general. 

You could substitute the ‘weather’ for ‘forests’ in the above and it would become very much ‘up to date’. However, the political fall-out from the above was that draconian legislation was introduced in West-Germany in 1983, which meant that 70 large coal fired power stations were in a short period of time retrofitted with emissions controls for sulphur dioxide, amounting to some 14.3 billion DM in investment (€1 = 1.96 DM). However, this was rushed, equipment suppliers were overloaded, etc. such that it was later the opinion of one analyst, that if this investment had been done later, as was the case in other Member States, it could have been done a third cheaper. While the political impetrative for completing it, namely the ‘Waldsterben’ was false, fortunately it did lead to a benefit in terms of human health, which is why such pollution control is now essentially standard for new coal plants globally. 

Many people think that Germany is very rational. As a German speaker and as somebody who has worked there regularly, there is no doubt that individually their technical people are highly rational, but collectively the country is anything but, in particular when ‘Angst’ gets a grip. There is also the undisputable fact that ‘Made in Germany’ is a big brand and there is a cultural tendency in Germany to be ‘technology forcing’, such that it is foreseen that their industry will then become the resulting ‘technology providers’ elsewhere. They also use this ‘perceived benefit’ to regularly dismiss the ‘inconvenient truths’ associated with some of the policies they have adopted. 

This is important, Germany is not only the economic driver of the EU, but has been also driving EU policies, particularly in the area of environment and energy. If these are being driven by ‘Angst’ and not what is rationally evaluated as beneficial for the EU-28 as a whole, then ‘Houston we have a problem’. 

Currently, these problems are increasingly glaring. The German ‘Angst’ over nuclear energy and the resulting mad rush into renewables (Energiewende) was justified that Germany would be the manufacturing power house for wind turbines and solar panels, for which there would be a huge market place, as other countries followed suit. It didn’t happen that way, cheap Chinese solar panels and turbines flooded the highly subsidised German market, while on a global basis the demand for such technology collapsed. Other countries did not follow the German ‘Energiewende’ – expectations that ‘they think like us’, when clearly they don’t and never had, is a very dangerous premise, but often repeated as people do not learn from the past and different cultures. 

Ireland is of course in the back seat of EU energy policy, but if you are in a motor car speeding along with the doors shut, you really should understand the behaviour of the driver and as to where he or she is taking you.  

The French - Irish Interconnector

Pat Swords on the proposed Interconnector from Ireland to France :

JP Morgan famously said: “A man has two reasons, the good reason and the real reason”. Thought about that today when I saw the latest spin from Eirgrid, i.e. spending €1 billion of our money, which was of course for our wonderful benefit:

http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/eirgrid-plans-1bn-power-link-to-france-35445723.html

One has to laugh at the total ignorance of the press, do they ever actually think about the crap they write, although if we had to pay to read it like in the past, nobody really would anymore.

This €1 billion interconnector to France is to power 450,000 homes and increase security of supply, which is a bit daft, as we already have a system, which does that and has been ultra reliable for decades, so why do we need to spend another €1 billion on another one to do the same thing?

Yes France has a lot of cost competitive nuclear, but when the cold weather hits France, their electricity consumption soars, as they have a lot of domestic electric heating. If you don’t believe me watch the dial on the top left when the cold weather comes in, they are really struggling to match demand during these periods: 

http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/france/

When the cold weather hits France it often hits here too. So if we bring in French nuclear off peak and at competitive prices, this is a short term gain, but means that some of our existing generation capacity will simply in time shut up shop. So what happens then when it gets real cold? Of course the French will suffer blackouts, as the lovely new interconnector keeps sending French electricity to Ireland. After all there is plenty of precedent of such issues and how we can rely on the EU’s trading ‘rules’ when the ‘chips are down’:

http://www.novinite.com/articles/178804/EU+Commission+Questions+Bulgaria's+Move+to+Halt+Electricity+Exports+in+January

Maybe people will smell the coffee when the power eventually comes back on and they can brew it?

So let’s get down to the real reason, which one will never get from the so called professionally paid news media. One has to ferret it out oneself, such as using the Aarhus information rights utilised effectively in the article above. However, isn’t it amazing how our so called ‘public servants’ (don’t make me laugh), try every trick in the book to obstruct citizens seeking information, even to the point of breaking the laws, which apply to them?

With regard to this wonderful interconnector, it is part of the EU’s Projects of Common Interest, which has been part of a long drawn out Communication at UNECE, which is in its final phase with the draft findings and recommendations likely to be out this spring. The EU fought tooth and nail, right to the head civil servant in the EU Catherine Day (wouldn’t you know it Irish!), that nobody would have access to information relating to the justification for these projects. However, go to Annex 6 of the Communication and Questionnaire for E 153 – Grid Link (page 83/119 of the pdf)

https://www.unece.org/environmental-policy/conventions/public-participation/aarhus-convention/tfwg/envppcc/envppcccom/acccc201396-european-union.html

“This investment is planned primarily to facilitate the integration of 1,283 MW of wind generation in the south of the country. This is approximately equivalent to 0,054 GW/1000 km2 based on GW of additional wind installed within county boundaries. Because of the favourable wind conditions on the island of Ireland and offshore there is interest (evidenced by applications for grid connections) in developing renewable generation capacity well in excess of what is required for native demands. The connection of such capacity can only be facilitated if further interconnection is installed to provide access for this generation to the British and continental European markets, in addition it will facilitate future interconnection to Great Britain or France.”

One of the things that is strikingly clear, is that the Irish grid system can’t take more wind without a major build-out, which includes more interconnectors. So developers may well get their planning for wind turbines, but the realty of project completion and operation hinges on other developments in grid infrastructure, including those interconnectors. The East West interconnector, linking Malahide to the Welsh grid, cost Irish consumers over €600 million and the UK consumers not a cent. It was raised, but not addressed in the first Communication I brought in 2010 to UNECE.

For instance, the below from what is a ‘Green tinged (and funded) German think Tank’:

Social cost benefit analysis of interconnector investment: A critical appraisal
Bremen Energy Working Paper No. 02, July 2010 (published in Energy Policy, 39(6), 2011, pp. 3096-3105.) Michiel de Nooij

Abstract

“Some, like the European commission, claim that Europe needs more transmission capacity and interconnectors. This paper studies interconnector investment decisions from the perspective of a social cost benefit analysis (maximising total welfare in a country). For two European decisions to build an interconnector (NorNed and the East West Interconnector) the analysis underlying the decisions is discussed in detail, and will be compared with lessons from theory and decisions made in other jurisdictions (Nordel, California and Australia). The key findings are that (i) it is unclear how much demand for transmission capacity and interconnectors there actually is, and thus how large the benefits of investing will be. (ii) Both studies analyzed are not correct. Main criticism includes that they do not take the reaction of producers to new interconnection capacity into account; ignore part of the potential benefits of more competition; and make a strange assumption with respect to discounting. (iii) Decisions in Europe are taken very differently, leading to situations in which approval of an investment might depend on who has to approve. (iv) Therefore, it is unlikely that interconnector and transmission investment decisions in Europe currently are maximizing social welfare. Some lessons for future cost benefit analysis are drawn.”

In other words, the figures were a fudge and there was no rational economic justification for it, it all came down to ‘who has to approve’!

This same point came up with the Irish Academy of Engineering’s report in 2009:

http://www.iae.ie/publications/publication/review-of-irelands-energy-policy-june-2009/

“1.2.3 East­West Interconnection (EWIC), In July 2006, the Irish Government decided to construct an interconnector from Ireland to Great Britain. It would appear that this decision was taken without the benefit of a robust techno‐economic study or cost benefit analysis.  

In addition it is not clear that the main benefit, the “capacity savings”, amounting to some €40m annually out of a total annual benefit of €66m, would be attainable under current market rules, as the benefit would appear to imply 100% usage of the interconnector. The Academy understands for example that during 2008 the usage factor on the Moyle interconnector was approximately 14%. This would appear to indicate a much lower likely benefit from EWIC.”

Looks like Eirgrid are happy to dismiss these issues for their projects on the basis that the punters and decision makers (a shower of punters with our money) only read the crap in the Irish Independent, etc., which is a reproduction of what they feed the lazy journos in the first place.

God help us from all this stupidity and the appalling mess it leaves behind, as if we didn’t have A&Es and hospitals crying out for investment, etc.

French Grid Case Study - 20th January 2017

Figure 1

Figure 2

On 20th Jan, as demand hit 93.8GW (Figure 2), France was dependent on over 4.5GW of imports (Figure 1). In previous years, France was a net exporter. At the same time in Ireland, wind was only at 30% of max output leaving nothing for export if an interconnector to France was in place. Most likely French grid operators were engaging in load shedding to prevent blackouts - see here for more details 

Non Compliance with Aarhus Convention - Update

Reblogged from The Law is My Oyster with thanks to Neil, Pat and David for their efforts.

The Irish Authorities have got themselves into a precarious state of affairs viz a viz their responsibilities under International and European environmental law :

The first session involved the opening statements.  These are delivered in writing to the Aarhus Convention Compliance Committee (ACCC) beforehand, which allows a speaker from both sides to paraphrase and highlight the main points underpinning the Communication and the Party’s Response  in about ten minutes or so.

.

And then it was the turn of the Curator. The Curator is the ACCC member who was assigned the case, researches it, makes some sort of preliminary assessment (and perhaps recommendations?) to the rest of the Committee in closed session before the parties are invited in.

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The Curator asks ‘clarification questions’ to both the Communicant (us) and the Party (the Irish government) – sometimes a common question for both sides to answer, and sometimes a question directly and specifically at one party but the other is entitled to respond to the answer to the question. It is a very European civil-law way of doing it and you need to listen to the questions carefully, as they often have a sting in the tail.

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Full Article Here - https://the-law-is-my-oyster.com/2016/06/28/report-on-communication-acccc2014112-regarding-complaint-of-non-compliance-against-ireland/

It’s official – nothing is happening at the High Court!

Important News (or should I say lack of news) from the High Court from The Law Is My Oyster  --

https://the-law-is-my-oyster.com/2016/06/18/its-official-nothing-is-happening-at-the-high-court/

Is the writing on the wall for the NREAP?

An update on the precarious legal position of Ireland's Renewable Plans from The Law is My Oyster Blog is available here (Thanks Neil ! ) :

http://the-law-is-my-oyster.com/2015/10/30/is-the-writing-on-the-wall-for-the-nreap/

Aarhus Convention Committee confirm EU in breach of Aarhus Convention

The Aarhus Convention was designed to empower citizens to participate in environmental matters at the political level. It has three main pillars - public participation, access to information, and access to justice. Both the EU and Ireland have signed up in principal to its tenets, but in practice, implementation is sporadic and often arbitrary.

UNECE Aarhus Convention Compliance Committee (ACCC) perform an enforcement role of sorts, but their decisions are not binding. Instead, they try to encourage parties to the convention to comply at Meeting of the Parties.

In a recent complaint accepted by ACCC, the EU itself was found to be non compliant in relation to its plans for large energy infrastructure projects for Ireland (called PCIs) :

After taking into account the information received, the Committee re-confirmed its earlier determination of preliminary admissibility with respect to the allegations concerning article 7 of the Convention. 

Article 7 refers to public participation concerning plans and programmes relating to the environment. There are also allegations of breaches of Article 4, relating to access to information on the environment.

The EU now has till November to respond. Well done to Pat Swords and those involved for getting this far. One of the central tenets of the 2008 Lisbon Treaty was that the EU would :

consolidate and support democracy, the rule of law, human rights and the principles of international law;

 It sure has a lot more work to do..........

Cost Benefit Analysis Obligations - Parts 1 to 5

Without reflection, we go blindly on our way, creating more unintended consequences, and failing to achieve anything useful - Margaret J. Wheatley (born 1941), American writer and management consultant

Pat Swords, an environmental and chemical engineer, has written an excellent series of articles on the cost benefit analysis that should have been, but wasn't, prepared for Ireland's Renewable Action Plan (NREAP) back in 2010. The full implications of the failure to comply with proper procedures is only beginning to come clear and will be with us for a long time. In the UK yesterday, there were warnings about legal action over wind subsidies as the new UK government attempt to introduce some long overdue free market policies into their energy policy.  Pat alludes to some other potential legal actions that are coming down the line in Part 5. In Ireland, it was reported this week that, despite having installed 2,200MW of fuel free wind (equal to about half of peak demand), we now have the third highest electricity prices in Europe with network costs (increasing to facilitate NREAP) now making up about 30% of people's bills.  


Parts 1 to 5 can be found below -

Part 1 - Obligation to complete a prior cost benefit analysis

Part 2 - What has been the benefit to date from our expenditure?

Part 3 - What is being used to justify the approval of wind farms in my vicinity?

Part 4 - Abuse of your right to a ‘highly competitive social market economy’

Part 5 - A mandatory programme and we will be fined – how accurate is this claim?

Cost Benefit Analysis obligations for Ireland's Renewable Action Plan - Part Five

A mandatory programme and we will be fined – how accurate is this claim?

By Pat Swords BE CEng FIChemE CEnv MIEMA. 

There is a website funded by the EU’s Intelligent Energy Europe Programme ‘Keep on Track’, whose function is to track the progress towards the EU’s 20% renewable energy by 2020 target, namely the implementation of Directive 2009/28/EC. Indeed, the website’s press release of 6^th October 2014 couldn’t be clearer: “14 EU Member States will fail to meet their 20% renewables target by 2020, as progress stands today”.

• According to the 2020 RES (Renewable Energy Sources) Scenarios for Europe Report, as it stands today, 14 Member States will fail to meet their 2020 RES targets and there are doubts about 4 other Member States reaching their target.

Consideration of this report provides the results below of the quantitative analysis of a Member State’s ability to meet its 2020 target given the current ‘business as usual’ scenario:

Note: The traffic light colours of the figure on the left hand-side show an achievement or shortfall 

of 2020 RES targets by Member State after possible adjustments through RES cooperation.

It is not as if these issues weren’t known already prior to the above report of late 2014. Indeed, the EU Commissions had also published a “Renewable energy progress report COM(2013) 175 final” in March 2013. In addition, the Commission published a Staff Working Document accompanying this progress report, entitled SWD(2013) 102 final. As the latter pointed out:

• These findings are based on data from the period 2008-2010. Since then, as set out in the Report mentioned above, the economic climate has changed significantly and, as a result, the overall prospects of Member States meeting their targets for 2020 are less evident.

If we consider the main “Renewable energy progress report” itself, the same issues are to be seen. Indeed, as presented in the following graphs and bullet points.

Planned (blue) versus estimated (red/dotted) trend in EU renewable energy

• The failure to comply with national plans is most evident in the wind sector. According to Member State plans, wind capacity is expected to reach 213 GW in 2020 (169 GW onshore and 44 GW offshore). Electricity generation from offshore capacity is planned to reach 140 TWh (roughly 12 Mtoe). However, according to the Commission's analysis, it may only reach 43 TWh (3.7 Mtoe) due to reduced national efforts and infrastructure difficulties.

• Despite the recent strong growth in the onshore wind industry of recent years, Member States' plans for onshore wind production 354 TWh may fall short. Further efforts will be needed to reinforce measures and improve infrastructure, or only an estimated 210 TWh might be achieved.

Planned (blue) versus estimated (red/dotted) trend in EU onshore wind energy

• Total wind generation may therefore fall short of expectations. Whereas Member State plans foresee wind generation of almost 500 TWh, current trends point to the risk of achieving only half of it, i.e. 253 TWh.

This dysfunctional renewable programme energy was impractical from the outset, so is it now surprising it has come off the rails? Furthermore, no matter how many incompetent reports are produced by the various academic computer models, the programme is not going to ‘get back on the rails’. It simply takes enormous sums of money and time to develop this amount of infrastructure, both of which are increasingly running out, as we approach 2020.

Yet the ‘bogey man under the bed’ is constantly wheeled out, i.e. as to how Ireland and other Member States will be exposed to billions of Euros in fines, if they don’t meet these targets. In reality this is a pure lie. If we take the manner in which the EU Commission takes legal proceedings against a Member State, then this process requires more than five years to progress and indeed the number of times fines have actually been levied by the European Court are extremely limited, such as less than twenty times. See the relevant blog post on ‘The Law is my Oyster’.

So are we really going to reach the situation where the majority of Member States end up in the European Court, in relation to non-compliance with a Directive, which was not only fundamentally flawed and impractical, but also legally non-compliant with Community law and Democratic Rights? There is enough resentment around Europe already with respect to the lack of Democratic accountability of the EU, as was evident in the election results of the 2014 vote on the European Parliament. To even contemplate such draconian fines ignores the reality of the complete backlash that it would generate around Europe, in particular with a population, which is becoming increasing sceptical and disillusioned with the whole programme.

However, this renewable energy programme is already in the Courts with large financial claims against the Member States and this trend is likely to rapidly increase. To digress a little first of all, the current claims against the German State in relation to their abrupt shut down of their nuclear energy sector has led to some €30 billion of compensation being sought from nuclear generators there. This includes compensation for the effective confiscation of generating rights from the eight reactors ordered shut after Fukushima in March 2011, despite safety assurances from the regulator that everything was in compliance. Business is business, and if the German State chooses to ignore its technical regulators, and instead appoint an Ethics Commission with no technical representative and two bishops, to facilitate politically populist decision making, then why should these companies carry the financial ‘can’ for it.

While a number of the German power companies are currently pursuing matters through the German Courts, Vattenfall are a Swedish company and since June 2012 are contesting the confiscation of generation rights for their nuclear power plants through the autonomous International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) in Washington, which was designed in 1965 by the World Bank and established by a Convention now signed by 143 countries.

Indeed, in the European and Asian area there is an Energy Charter Treaty, which entered into legal force in April 1998. To date, the Treaty has been signed or acceded to by fifty-two states. The Treaty includes a legal mechanism for resolving disputes, which also utilises the ICSID referred to above. Currently over sixty cases have been referred to this disputes mechanism. Of these, well over twenty cases are relating to disputes over reforms to renewable energy tariffs, principally against Spain, although Italy and the Czech Republic also feature. These reforms had to occur as the financial costs of these tariffs were simply spiralling out of control.

There are serious questions to be asked here, if for instance Spain rushed in to this renewable programme to comply with EU Directives, and as a result of it going ‘sour’ now finds itself at the wrong end of huge legal claims for financial compensation in the International Courts, who picks up the tab? Is it the Spanish electricity consumer by being fleeced even more, while the EU officials who instigated all of this walk away with massive pensions to go with their previous massive salaries? Are there more financial claims going to come from companies, who have been put at a grossly competitive disadvantage as a result of this State Aid for renewables, State Aid which wasn't legally compliant?

We all know the answer to this, plus that it is a process which is going to be replicated in a lot of other Member States in the future. Clearly it is long overdue that the plug was pulled on this illegal and dysfunctional renewable programme, the consumer has been fleeced enough and there is already enough damage done to the countryside and the people who live there.

Cost Benefit Analysis obligations for Ireland's Renewable Action Plan - Part Four

Abuse of your right to a ‘highly competitive social market economy’

By Pat Swords BE CEng FIChemE CEnv MIEMA

Article 3(3) of the Lisbon Treaty (TEU) made it very clear what the objectives of the European Union were:

• The Union shall establish an internal market. It shall work for the sustainable development of Europe based on balanced economic growth and price stability, a highly competitive social market economy, aiming at full employment and social progress, and a high level of protection and improvement of the quality of the environment. It shall promote scientific and technological advance.

This direct reference to a ‘social market economy’ is absolutely fundamental. While there is no strict definition of this term, it essentially evolved in post-war Western Germany and is generally defined as:

• An economic system based on a free market operated in conjunction with state provision for those unable to work, such as elderly or unemployed people.

Principally one can see it, as what differentiated the highly successful Western Germany from the State planned economies on the other side of the Iron Curtain. At its core is your freedom of choice as a consumer, to purchase your products and services where you see fit and achieve the value and quality you desire. Distorting the ‘social market economy’, such as by the provision of State Aid is a serious issue, as there is no longer a level playing field and the rights of the consumer are being infringed. As such then Article 107 of the Lisbon Treaty (TFEU) applies:

1. Save as otherwise provided in the Treaties, any aid granted by a Member State or through State resources in any form whatsoever which distorts or threatens to distort competition by favouring certain undertakings or the production of certain goods shall, in so far as it affects trade between Member States, be incompatible with the internal market.

2. The following shall be compatible with the internal market:

(a) aid having a social character, granted to individual consumers, provided that such aid is granted without discrimination related to the origin of the products concerned;

(b) aid to make good the damage caused by natural disasters or exceptional occurrences;

(c) aid granted to the economy of certain areas of the Federal Republic of Germany affected by the division of Germany, in so far as such aid is required in order to compensate for the economic disadvantages caused by that division. Five years after the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon, the Council, acting on a proposal from the Commission, may adopt a decision repealing this point.

3. The following may be considered to be compatible with the internal market:

(a) aid to promote the economic development of areas where the standard of living is abnormally low or where there is serious underemployment, and of the regions referred to in Article 349, in view of their structural, economic and social situation;

(b) aid to promote the execution of an important project of common European interest or to remedy a serious disturbance in the economy of a Member State;

(c) aid to facilitate the development of certain economic activities or of certain economic areas, where such aid does not adversely affect trading conditions to an extent contrary to the common interest;

(d) aid to promote culture and heritage conservation where such aid does not affect trading conditions and competition in the Union to an extent that is contrary to the common interest;

(e) such other categories of aid as may be specified by decision of the Council on a proposal from the Commission.

As has been documented previously, nobody knows what the renewable programme is actually to deliver in terms of quantified carbon savings, while there is a complete lack of knowledge, as to what the environmental damage cost of carbon actually is. So instead everything is based on ‘spin’, such as highlighted previously the wildly inaccurate claims of carbon dioxide savings made in the REFIT I application for State Aid for Environmental Protection.

Even worse in February 2012, when the EU approved under REFIT II, a further 4,000 MW of wind energy representing a capital investment of some €8 billion, they did so on the back of a ‘one pager’ from the Irish authorities. This simply stated that by 2009 14.4% of Ireland’s electricity was from renewable sources and this new State Aid would contribute to achieving the target of 40% of electricity from renewable sources. So nobody has a ‘barney’ as to what the alleged positive environmental protection actually is.

Of course if proper due process was followed, the reality would expose the adverse impacts, both environmental and financial, to completely outweigh any claimed for environmental benefits. Indeed, the Principle of Proportionality, a key aspect in the case law of the European Court of Justice, requires each decision and measure to be based on a fair assessment and balancing of interests, as well as on a reasonable choice of means. Simply put, the extent of the action must be in keeping with the aim pursued.

As a result, State Aid for Environmental Protection, such as priority access to the grid and preferential tariff arrangements, has to be based on proportionality. As the 20% renewable energy Directive 2009/28/EC further clarifies:

• Rules governing authorisation, certification and licensing are objective, transparent, proportionate, do not discriminate between applicants and take fully into account the particularities of individual renewable energy technologies.

Furthermore, the 2008 EU Commission’s guidelines on State Aid for Environmental Protection are clear in that:

• Aid is considered to be proportional only if the same result could not be achieved with less aid.

• In particular, the aid amount must be limited to the minimum needed to achieve the environmental protection sought.

These State Aid rules are specific, there has to be a balancing test completed between positive impacts of the aid and its potentially negative side effects. So how could these procedures have been followed and legal compliance ensured, when we have no data on this alleged environmental protection or ‘comparative costs’ to achieve it? Indeed, as the EU could only write to UNECE during the investigation by the Compliance Committee on Communication ACCC/C/2010/54; “it is generally recognised that renewable energy, and wind energy in particular, is preferable from the environmental point of view to non-renewable energy”. No actual quantified information ever existed, which could be referred to.

However, it is after all only common sense to question the sense of pouring billions into wind generation, which at best results in a cost of about €160 per tonne of carbon emissions savings achieved, when even within the eleven different sources of renewables defined in the 20% renewable energy Directive, there were a multitude of others which could have been used to achieve the same savings at a fraction of the cost and environmental impact. Indeed, the current carbon trading price of less than €5 per tonne clearly demonstrates that there is a huge range of viable carbon reduction projects available, such as in energy efficiency, at a fraction of the cost of wind energy.

However, it is not as if this wasn’t known in advance. In 2004, the engineering report published by Eirgrid, on the impact of wind energy and its intermittency on the economics of operation of conventional plant, highlighted not only the practical limitations, but also the very high cost associated with wind energy, given other far more cost effective alternatives available for carbon abatement. It was completely ignored.

So in conclusion, the fact that the consumer no longer has free choice with regards to the selection of the most cost effective electricity generation available, and instead  has to fund ever more expensive renewables, is solely because a complete abuse of the State Aid procedures for Environmental Protection occurred.

Cost Benefit Analysis obligations for Ireland's Renewable Action Plan - Part Three

What is being used to justify the approval of wind farms in my vicinity?

By Pat Swords BE CEng FIChemE CEnv MIEMA

That wind farms have a negative financial and environmental impact is very clear, so what is the actual benefit in terms of alleged climate change impacts. As previously documented, no actual quantifiable data in this regards actually exists. Yet wind farms engage the Directive on Environmental Impact Assessment, in which there is a legal obligation on the competent authority for the planning decision under Article 3 of the Environmental Impact Assessment Directive to complete the following.

• The environmental impact assessment shall identify, describe and assess in an appropriate manner, in the light of each individual case and in accordance with Articles 4 to 12, the direct and indirect effects of a project on the following factors:

(a) human beings, fauna and flora;

(b) soil, water, air, climate and the landscape;

(c) material assets and the cultural heritage;

(d) the interaction between the factors referred to in points (a), (b) and (c).

In reality this occurs in the planning inspector’s report, if at all. If we consider a number of An Bord Pleanala reports for wind farms, which were granted planning permission, we get the following typical wording:

• With regard to the operational impact of the proposed development, I would concur with the findings of the EIS that the generation of renewable electricity by the proposed turbines will have a wider positive impact on climatic considerations in terms of reducing carbon emissions thereby contributing to national and international emission reduction objectives through the displacement of traditional methods of energy generation by the unsustainable combustion of fossil fuels such as coal and oil.

• The generation of electricity from the wind farm will result in an avoidance of greenhouse gas emissions that would otherwise occur from fossil fuel power generating plants.

• Along with other wind energy developments in the area, the proposal will contribute to national targets for renewable energy generation.

• The proposed development will contribute to limiting CO₂ emissions.

In other words they haven’t a clue. So you can believe in this Green Agenda and welcome it. However, if you question it, you will quickly find that like the financial crises, it is based on nothing but Groupthink, hype and the failure to follow proper regulatory procedures.  

Cost Benefit Analysis obligations for Ireland's Renewable Action Plan - Part Two

What has been the benefit to date from our expenditure?

By Pat Swords BE CEng FIChemE CEnv MIEMA

Ireland's Renewable Energy Action Plan (NREAP) was prepared in 2010 without any proper assessment of costs and impacts. Table 10 of the NREAP provides us with the bottom line on electricity generation, namely by 2020 the installation of 4,094 MW of onshore wind and 555 MW of offshore wind. For wind energy installed in Ireland, where project costs are higher than elsewhere, approximately €2 million per MW is the installed cost for onshore installations and at least €3 million per MW for offshore installations. This then gives a total cost for installed wind energy of almost €10 billion.

Additional electricity infrastructure is required in transmission to facilitate wind energy, already we have had the investment in the East West Interconnector to Wales at €0.6 billion, with more and even longer interconnectors to come to the UK and France – as described on page 79 of the NREAP. As a result the total cost of such interconnectors will conservatively come to another €3 billion.

In the Republic of Ireland there is the roll out of Grid 25 to expand the high voltage grid, for which an accurate cost is not known, but it is reported as some €4 billion and will undoubtedly rise, as the Energy White Paper of 2007 stated:

• We will ensure completion of the ongoing capital investment programme in transmission and distribution networks by 2010 and oversee further extensive investment in a programme expected to total €4.9bn up to 2013.

Not only is there over 800 km of new high voltage lines to be constructed in Grid 25, but as the All Island Grid Study demonstrated, there is an additional 5,000 km of medium voltage grid connections required to connect all these wind farms to the high voltage grid. For instance, in November 2011, the European Investment Bank, i.e. the EU’s bank, lent the ESB some €235 million for network expansions to facilitate increased deployment of wind energy. Further similar loans totaling €300 million followed in 2013 and 2014. Their total loans to the ESB to facilitate network expansions for wind farms in Ireland have by the end of 2014 totaled €1 billion.

So between high voltage and medium voltage grid expansions, plus interconnectors, there is a bill of some €8 billion, for which if we add the turbines, the total now reaches €18 billion. However, we are not done yet, as the electricity grid is now, with all this wind energy, in an unstable state. As a result it is necessary to roll out so called ‘smart meters’ to regulate consumers and their demand habits. These smart meters are described on page 77 of the NREAP and for their funding; we can throw in another billion or two into the financial pot.

However, this won’t ‘cure’ the fundamental problem the grid will experience, as more and more highly intermittent wind energy is installed and given priority access over conventional thermal power generation. As the former Green Party leader and Minister for Environment John Gormley's stated in his ‘Carbon Budget’ of October 2008:

• The target is underpinned by analysis conducted in the recent All Island Grid Study which found that a 40% penetration is technically feasible, subject to upgrading our electricity grid and ensuring the development of flexible generating plant on the electricity system.

In essence we will have to mothball our current base load Combined Cycle Gas Turbines (CCGTs), which although they cannot rapidly respond to changing loads, have efficiencies over 55% and greater. New open cycle fast response gas turbines, which are at best only 40% efficient, will have to be built to replace these CCGTs:

Efficiency curve for an aero-derived gas turbine, LM2500+, which is typical of the technology, which is used for open cycle gas turbines

Equally as bad as the poor efficiency obtained with these open cycle gas turbine, is how their emissions start to rise significantly at lower loads:

Emissions profile for a LM2500+ gas turbine

So given that a the UK authorities report that the installed cost of a CCGT is £0.9 million per MW and the installed cost of an open cycle plant (OCGT) about £0.6 million per MW, and we will require at least 1,000 MW of fast response power to balance the grid fluctuations, there is going to be no change out of another billion Euro in terms of investment in new plant and premature write offs of CCGTs.

So all in all over €20 billion plus was committed in capital investment alone as a consequences of the NREAP. By 2015 we have already installed 2,100 MW of wind energy, plus the East West Interconnector and network upgrades as previously highlighted, so we have spent quite conservatively €6 billion already. To that you have to add the operating costs, profit for the wind investors and the costs of inefficient operation of the grid. So it is not surprising that in their 2014 submission to the Irish Green Energy Paper, the Irish Academy of Engineering pointed out:

• Without wind generation, Ireland’s electricity generation costs in the period 2005 to 2013 would have increased by 1.2 cents per kWh due to the increased cost of imported fossil fuels. But over the same period, Ireland’s business electricity prices actually increased by 4.0 cents per kWh and household electricity prices increased by 8.85 cents per kWh. This clearly shows that increased fossil fuel import costs were not the cause of electricity price increases in Ireland but rather government policies which did not place appropriate emphasis on price competitiveness.

Considering that the Irish domestic electricity rate is between 19 and 20 cents per kWh, to which additional levies are applied, clearly without wind energy, the rate would be a third less, around 12.5 cent per kWh. This is not an isolated issue; the Union of the Electricity Industry – Eurelectric had a report produced by Accenture in 2014, which provides the rather sobering graphic of how costs to the consumer are soaring, in particular due to Renewable Energy Sources (RES):

Graphic from Eurelectric report

It is also worthwhile reflecting some more as to the so called reason and what we got for this in terms of environmental protection. If we consider Ireland’s first application for State Aid to establish the first phase of the REFIT scheme for supporting 1,450 MW of almost exclusively wind energy, then the 2007 clarification documentation with the EU Commission, in respect of what environmental results were anticipated and over what period, stated:

• Wind technology will be the dominant technology. The overall environmental improvement, based on wind technology data, will deliver emissions savings as indicated in the following table.

Table A

Emissions	Annual savings per 100 MWs installed Tonnes of oxide
Carbon Dioxide	0.19 ml
Sulphur Dioxide	4k
Nitrogen Oxides	1.3k
	Ml = millions k = thousands

It was therefore claimed back in 2007, as basis for the 'environmental protection' to justify the State Aid funding that for each 1,000 MWs of installed wind energy capacity, 1.9 million tonnes of CO₂ savings would result. So what did we actually get for our money?

If we go to the National Renewable Energy Action Plan (NREAP) progress reports to the EU, we can see that the Irish report dated February 2014 claims 1,763 MW of wind energy were installed by 2012 and 2,738,072 tonnes of CO₂ savings occurred that year. If we look at Table 1 b of the same progress report, then wind energy was responsible for (4,247 / 5,659) or 75% of the renewable electricity, therefore 2.05 million tonnes of CO₂ savings.

This is equivalent to 2.05 / 1.763 = 1.17 million tonnes of CO₂ savings per 1,000 MW of installed capacity – certainly not what was claimed for in the REFIT documentation.

However, we do know this ‘saving’ documented in the NREAP progress report is also completely inaccurate, as the calculation method is false. Namely, the calculation method does not allow for the considerable inefficiencies induced on the grid, by this intermittent input of wind energy, which requires the power stations to operate in a stop start variable manner, i.e. increased balancing. As page 29 of the Irish NREAP progress report clarifies:

• The limitations and caveats associated with this methodology include that it ignores any plant used to meet the associated reserve requirements of renewables. These open cycle plants will typically have lower efficiency and generate increased CO₂ and NOx emissions compared with CCGT and these emissions should be incorporated into the analysis. The purpose of presenting a simplified analysis here is to provide initial insights into the amount of fossil fuels that are displaced by renewables and the amount of emissions thereby avoided.

Note: Open cycle gas turbines are at best 40% efficient as compared to Combined Cycle Gas Turbines (CCGT), which are 55% efficient.

As the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) has been criticised for inaccurate claims, they produced another report quantifying fuel and emissions savings, this time where they claimed their modelling output allows for inefficiencies on the grid. The conclusion of this revised report was that for 2012, wind energy saved 1.5 million tonnes of CO₂.

Therefore with this more in-depth assessment methodology the claimed savings are now at 1.5 / 1.783 = 0.85 million tonnes of CO₂ savings per 1,000 MW of installed wind capacity. Sadly, this is actually less than half (45%) of what they claimed would occur when REFIT was initiated back in 2007 to fund the building of this infrastructure in the first place.

Furthermore, it has to be said that the SEAI report above is highly suspect, in that it is based on computer models, which concluded that increased ramping up and down of gas plants occurred, for the situation where there was no wind installed on the grid. Yet it is well known that power plant operators are complaining that the degree of ramping is now greater to compensate for the increased wind energy input. Indeed, the whole grid is being redesigned, not with the goal of fuel efficient generation, but instead to prioritise fast response, as recent documentation from the Irish grid regulator on this subject demonstrates.

Not only are the 1.5 million tonnes of CO₂ savings for 2012 somewhat exaggerated, but these savings are not going to get a whole lot better as the NREAP progresses. In 2004, Eirgrid produced a report on the “Impact of Wind Power Generation in Ireland on the Operation of Conventional Plant and the Economic Implications”, which clarified:

• The adverse effect of wind on thermal plant increases as the wind energy penetration rises. Plant operates less efficiently and with increasing volatility.

In other words, it is a case of diminishing returns as more wind energy is installed to comply with the trajectory of the NREAP. For Ireland total greenhouse gas emissions in 2013 were 58 million tonnes, while electricity generation amounted to less than 11 million tonnes. So these savings on a national basis are extremely poor when compared with the reckless enthusiasm by decision-makers for renewable energy and their disregard for both the resulting financial and environmental costs. Plus, these alleged savings from Irish wind energy are only 0.004% of global annual emissions of carbon dioxide, which given that there has been no increase in global temperatures since 1998, is the classic case in terms of effectiveness of ‘a drop in the ocean’.