Energy autonomy

For some time now, the energy sector and specifically energy autonomy has been constantly trending news in our country, either because of the news about fracking, the instability of gas that comes from Russia, oil prospecting in the Canary Islands, the fall in prices or the cuts in renewables.

Energy is one of the fundamental engines of any developed country, and for those who depend on fossil resources from abroad, it is becoming a serious problem of stability for their economies.

If we analyze the problem carefully, we can see that our energy system commits three major sins:

• First, and most importantly, DEPENDENCE.

We depend on third countries to fuel our voracity, and we depend a lot. Our net energy dependence rate is still among the highest in Europe, with close to 73% recorded in 2012, and all this thanks to the crisis.

In 2013 alone, Spain imported a total of 14.3 million tons of petroleum products, 57.9 million tons of crude oil, 13.6 million tons of coal and 375.5 TWh of natural gas.
Such a strong dependence on third countries that produce fossil fuels means putting a very high price on the survival of our economy. In fact, our energy dependence weighs so heavily on the trade balance that, if we eliminated these imports from our accounts, Spain would register a structural surplus.

Making a basic calculation, we can see that Spain spends an amount of approximately 110 million Euros per day to supply fossil fuels from abroad, and this assumes low supply prices.

• Second, INSTABILITY.

The fossil fuels and natural gas that are expected in Spain, and in most European countries, are a very important risk factor in the stability of their economies.
Proof of this is how the supply pattern has changed in recent years, especially in the case of crude oil. While in 2010 the main suppliers were Iran and Libya, the economic blockade of the former and the manifest instability of the supply sources of the latter, have ended up transferring the supply to other countries, including mainly Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Russia or Nigeria.

In the case of natural gas, the supply is necessarily “more stable”, since it comes mostly through a gas pipeline, it cannot be easily changed from supplier to supplier, as is evident. However, this fact is perhaps an even more serious problem when the country from which the gas pipeline comes uses the resource as an element of pressure, as has happened with Russia and the crisis in Ukraine, something that neither does Spain escape in its relations with Algeria and Morocco.

• Third, and less relevant, EXHAUSTION.

It is a fact that the energy resources on which our society depends today are not renewable, and therefore they are being used up progressively, much faster due to the increasingly widespread mass use worldwide, and also, as they are exhausted, their supply becomes more expensive.

However, today, there are no symptoms of imminent depletion, but on the contrary, it seems that we have not yet reached the peak of our exploitation of the planet's fossil resources and, year after year, the proven reserves discovered are expanding and with it the years of supply guarantee, which are already about 53 years for the case of oil, and about 55 years for the case of natural gas.

It should be noted, however, that these reserves are becoming less accessible, and that the resources obtained are of worse quality, making them more expensive to exploit and refine. In addition, the room for maneuver in which we operate, and which would actually remain in about 40 years, seems clearly insufficient to change the current pattern of dependence on fossil energies.

• How can the problem be solved?

The only way to solve this problem is to achieve, as far as possible, self-sufficiency, and this is where each country chooses its destination, and where many of us are at the moment.

One of the fundamental pillars that should form part of any government's energy policies is the promotion of energy savings, and in fact this is contemplated by Europe, which, for some time now, requires member states to submit action plans for energy savings and efficiency.

In the case of Spain, this action plan, now in its second edition, is led by the IDAE (Institute for Energy Savings and Diversification), and has 41 concrete savings measures to be adopted in the period 2011 to 2020.

However, the lack of coherence on many occasions between certain lines of the above-mentioned plan and the real policies finally adopted by the government is striking, as is the case with measures aimed at promoting cogeneration or savings in buildings.

The numbers in fact do not allow us to prove any success in energy reduction and efficiency measures, and only the crisis seems to be the only one that has managed to achieve a real reduction. However, once we overcome it, it is possible that consumption will rebound and we will be at a clear disadvantage compared to other countries that will have adopted measures to increase their efficiency.

On the other hand, in addition to acting to reduce consumption, the task of any dependent country must be to search for its own sources of supply that allow independence from third parties, responding to existing needs.

In this sense, the line of work may involve the search for non-renewable own resources, something that seems to be one of the guiding principles of politics in Spain in recent years.

The recent approval of research permits granted to Repsol for oil exploration in the Canary Islands seems to be in line with finding greater self-supply of this resource to the peninsula, which could amount to up to 10% of the needs, according to the company's brand.

On the other hand, the steps taken in favor of the “legalization” of fracking and shale-gas in Spain, and the permits already granted for the investigation of these resources in a large number of autonomous communities, also seem to seek a solution to gas self-supply, since in this case domestic consumption could be covered for practically 55 years.

The other line of work may involve the search for its own renewable resources, a sector in which Spain was a pioneer until less than a year ago, and which is really the only one that can truly guarantee an autonomous and sustainable long-term energy supply.

Unfortunately, this line of work in Spain has not only been abandoned, but it has also been punished by a conception of the market based on the assumption of a tariff deficit that has become unsustainable with the economic crisis, and which the government has decided to attribute exclusively to the special regime, which includes renewable energy.

This has meant that in 2014, and for the first time in the most recent history of the Spanish electricity market, special regime generation contracted, yielding in favor of nuclear energy and coal, the latter also in its most rancid version of generation.

If you want to know more about this topic:

ENERGY AUTONOMY: A vital crossroads.