SUSTAINABLE ENERGY
IN ITALY: STILL AN OXYMORON
Too often, Italian decision-makers
interpret 'sustainability' as a simple
improvement of environmental conditions.
The urgent need to ensure social and
economic development while at the same time
reducing resource use has not yet found a
place among the government's
priorities.
The area of energy provides a useful
illustration of the differences between
official statements and reality. The
National Conference on Energy and
Environment undertook an extensive review
of problems and possible solutions over the
past year, but its final document is vague
and devoid of concrete recommendations.
Responsibility for energy reform is placed
wholly upon citizens and companies, while
the crucial role of government remains
undefined.
Privatization Without
Liberalization
Recently, the government's priority in
the energy field has been the privatization
of the giant public electricity company
ENEL. Privatization fever has overshadowed
the necessity for planning, and
environmental measures such as attempts to
steer demand and promote renewable sources
are being overlooked. The fanfare around
new wind and photovoltaic programmes
conceals the fact that these are simply old
plans which have been revived in order to
placate solar products manufacturers.
What is worse is that authorities, with
the professed aim of removing obstacles to
the free market, now threaten to eliminate
the mechanisms that have helped to keep
Italian household energy consumption
relatively low over the past 30 years.
Their new plans may spell the end to
successful measures such as the so-called
'progressive electricity tariff', a price
mechanism which provides a discount to
families that accept an electricity supply
of no more than 3 kW per hour. The
financial loss created by this discount is
recuperated through the higher tariff
applied to those using more electricity, a
mechanism already used successfully
in the water sector. It is attractive as it
does not interfere with free market
principles by rejecting rules entirely, but
rather encourages the application of
appropriate rules to all competitors. FoE
Italy holds that this consumption-reducing
measure should not only be promoted, but
should also be 'exported' to other
countries.
It must be noted that thus far
privatization has not implied the
disintegration of the ENEL monopoly, so the
outcome could well be the worst possible
situation: a private monopoly. True
liberalization of the electricity sector
would provide a turning point for the
energy market and would facilitate energy
conservation measures. Companies could be
created that not only sell energy but that
provide services, such as light, heat and
air conditioning. This would make energy
conservation attractive to suppliers, and
their companies would be provided with the
necessary capital for investment in energy
efficient technologies (these costs are
prohibitively high for individual
households).
Climate and Equity
Efficiency, of course, must also be
related to electricity production. This
brings up the issue of fossil fuel
depletion. However, this problem is not
addressed by the international market's
pricing system, and at the same time
represents a serious contradiction within
the environmental movement.
The Italian Minister of Environment (a
Green) has promoted the switch from plants
built to burn oil and coal to gas-powered
facilities. This was in response to demands
by most of the environmental movement.
However, the outcome is not terribly
environmentally friendly. Although local
air quality is improving and the Minister
can boast that CO
2
emissions
have decreased, natural gas is a scarce
resource and will be depleted within 60
years at present consumption rates. The way
in which it is burned in power plants is
very inefficient and wasteful.
For reasons of equity, a country as rich
as Italy should lower its emissions by
investing both in renewables and, at least
during a transition period, in technologies
that allow for the cleaner use of less
scarce fuels such as coal. Otherwise, our
emissions will improve to the detriment of
southern countries which cannot afford to
burn coal cleanly and which will find that
natural gas supplies have been exhausted by
the time they are required for their
development.
To be sure, coal producers and importers
also constitute obstacles to a clean coal
strategy. They want to use as much coal as
possible at the lowest possible price,
resulting in conditions that are
unacceptable from environmental and social
perspectives.
The most advanced technologies, like
gasification, are also very expensive.
Unfortunately however, the coal taboo is so
ingrained within the environmental movement
that any proposal for its use is considered
blasphemous, and a serious debate has thus
far proven impossible.
Rosa Filippini, FoE Italy
