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Cogeneration in the European Union
Europe is still not acting responsibly in its use of energy and
as a result Europe suffers
unnecessarily high fuel imports and unnecessarily high CO2
emissions. As the European
Commission reviews security of supply, serious consideration
should be given to the
significant impact of eliminating energy waste compared to the
effort of securing the
equivalent supply. Unnecessarily heightened demand artificially
inflates supply issues.
The European Commission has consistently recognised the need for
energy efficiency as a key enabler to its energy strategy but Europe has failed to follow
through. Energy efficiency
throughout the full energy supply chain should be a primary
element of any strategy to improve security of supply and should be the very first step in
implementing such a strategy.
In
its 2006 Action Plan for Energy Efficiency, the European Commission warned that without
action, the cost of Europe’s energy inefficiency would be
390Mtoe per year by 2020. There is no
technological, industrial or material barrier to moving forward
in addressing this problem. The
main barrier can be overcome through policy implementation at
the European Level and political leadership at all levels in the European Union.
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