Renewable Energy Sources In Europe: Environment, Nuclear Power Safety, Imported Energy


There are various and somewhat complementary reasons to foster the growth of renewable energy sources in Europe. A major incentive for renewable energy sources policies in the past two decades has been to reduce the environmental impact of energy use both locally (e.g., pollutant emission reduction) and globally (e.g., greenhouse gas and carbon emissions reduction). In some countries, concerns about the safety of nuclear power generation have motivated the search for renewable energy sources. Another motivation for replacing foreign fossil and nuclear fuels with domestic renewable energy sources relates to security issues and Europe’s growing dependency on foreign energy sources. (more…)

Vehicle Carbon Emissions Reductions- European Automobile Manufacturers Association Commitment

Vehicle Carbon Emissions
The European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA) has offered, and the European Commission (EC) has accepted, a voluntary commitment to reduce the CO2 emissions from new light-duty passenger vehicles, with firm fleetwide targets of 140 g CO2 /km (B41 mpg for gasoline) by 2008, measured under the new European test cycle (Directives 93/116/EC and 99/100/EC). This represents approximately a 25% reduction from the 1995 average of 187 g/km (B30 mpg) on this cycle. The European cycle is likely to produce lower fuel economy ratings than the U.S. combined urban/ highway cycle, so the ‘‘U.S. equivalent’’ miles per gallon ratings of the year 2008 European fleet will likely be higher than 41 mpg if the targets are met. (more…)