Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-02-02-Speech-1-117"
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"en.20090202.16.1-117"2
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"Mr President, last year’s energy review was a timely update, and I congratulate Anne Laperrouze for her rigorous report on it.
The issues raised are highly complex, but we can boil them down to this: Europe needs an energy policy that gives us sustainable, affordable and secure resources of energy. Sustainable by breaking our umbilical dependence on the fossil fuels that are choking our planet; affordable by guaranteeing a stable and realistic cost to consumers; and secure by freeing European citizens from dependence on unreliable or monopolistic suppliers.
This Friday, a group of Commissioners will meet Prime Minister Putin and his team of ministers. Energy is on the agenda, and our side should make clear that we cannot tolerate a dispute between Russia and Georgia evolving into a European gas crisis in the depths of winter. Assurances should be sought, but notice should also be served. This has happened before, and it must not happen again.
The time has come fundamentally to reassess Europe’s energy supplies. This view is shared by members of all groups in this House, who should unite in leading the charge to make it happen. That is why this week a small group of us, including Mr Hammerstein, who will speak later, will launch a cross-party pamphlet
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I am grateful to all Members who contributed their ideas, and I am startled by the degree of consensus that exists. There is an appetite in this Chamber to work fast, to work together, in search of a lasting solution to Europe’s energy crisis, and we must harness that.
Of all the potential plans to open up a new energy era, one stands out: it is called the supergrid, or DESERTEC. The French Presidency cited it as a possible operation project for our new European Union for the Mediterranean. A number of Members, including Ms Harms, recently visited southern Spain to see the technology in action: solar thermal power from North Africa and sun-rich land in southern Europe harvesting energy from the sun, generating the equivalent of one and a half million barrels of oil per square kilometre per year. Transported through energy-efficient, high-voltage direct current cables, that power could be fed into a European supergrid, taking renewable energy from across the EU – tidal power from coastal regions, wind and wave power from windswept north-western Europe, and biomass and geothermal power from wherever they flourish.
Upfront, there are costs. The German Aerospace Centre estimates it would cost EUR 45 billion to build, but it also says that it would save consumers many times that amount in reduced energy bills over the next 35 years, and the investment would create thousands of jobs.
This is a bold project for an energy future that is sustainable, affordable and secure. That is the energy future that Europe must champion."@en1
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"Making the Green Energy Switch at a Time of Crisis"1
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