Rol van Fossiele bronnen: rapport - Instituut Samenleving en ...

widening of the traditional scope, both with respect to time and the area covered, and
asks for insight in the justice of the energy and environmental policy.
In the report the external impact of the current Flemish energy policy has been
expressed in economic terms by means of the concept of ‘external costs’. For this the
Extern-E-programma was used, which has been developed for the European
Commission. The total external costs of the use of fossil energy carriers and uranium
in Flanders amounts to almost € 1 billion per year. In the cost assessment the origin
of the energy flows has been taken into account.
The major part of the external costs is linked to the use of oil. These costs arise by
the burning of acid gasses associated to the oil extraction in Russia and the related
emission of SO2. On the second place the external costs related to the upstream
processes in the chain for uranium follow. These are mainly caused by exhibition to
radiation, as a consequence of radon emissions from storage deposits for radioactive
waste at the mining sites.
Significance for Flanders
For the Flemish government there are in principle two policy areas where choices will
have to be made and solutions can be promoted. These are the availability of
sufficient sources and the more sustainable development of the extraction locations.
Political choices are required to achieve effective impact in these areas.
One of the most important conclusions drawn from the study is that an explicit
distinction has to be made between, on one hand, the demand - and supply aspects,
which are related to the current market circumstances and, on the other hand, the
developments which will become relevant in the longer term. If this distinction is not
made explicitly, wrong policy decisions, with really negative impacts are likely. The
piling-up of market interventions that do not relate well to the real problems and to
the term on which they occur, can have serious negative consequences for the
energy market and for the energy security of supply in broader sense.
On top of this, for Flanders the international and the federal policy component are
very important. Security of supply is of vital interest for all EU Member States. If any
doubt arises in this area or asymmetry between the countries, the tendency will grow
to implement unilateral energy policies. However, because of the European
integration of energy markets and the liberalisation of these markets, less and less
possibilities exist to pursue effective national policy.
In general sense it is important to create an acceptable balance between producers
and consumers by means of starting dialogues on aforesaid and other aspects, such
as technology transfer, support in generating added value, etc. Frameworks for the
policy in the longer term and at international level are described under the head
"geopolitical relations and the responses to these" above.
With regard to the more sustainable development on the extraction locations it is
possible for Flanders to stop own local subsidies, which promote wrong situations
elsewhere. To start with these types of subsidies have to be mapped for Flanders,
like as this for example was done for the Netherlands.
It is not simple to enforce better working conditions and environmental care from
Flanders. However, for some carriers direct possibilities seem of existing. In the
report several measures are suggested, such as making demands to the origin of
uranium and license requirements for the exploitation of biomass.
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