Europe’s dirty secret
欧洲令人不齿的秘密
The unwelcome renaissance
不受欢迎的复兴
Europe’s energy policy delivers the worst of all possible worlds
欧洲的能源政策可能产出世间极恶的后果
Jan 5th 2013 | BERLIN | from the print edition
《经济学人》杂志2013年1月5日文章；写于柏林
But wait—there’s more…
不要着急，还多着呢……
WHILE coal production and use plummet in America, in Europe “we have some kind of golden age of coal,” says Anne-Sophie Corbeau of the International Energy Agency. The amount of electricity generated from coal is rising at annualised rates of as much as 50% in some European countries. Since coal is by the far the most polluting source of electricity, with more greenhouse gas produced per kilowatt hour than any other fossil fuel, this is making a mockery of European environmental aspirations. How did it happen?
当美国的煤炭产量与消费直线下降之时，在欧洲，用国际能源总署的安妮索菲•科博（Anne-Sophie Corbeau）的话来说就是：“煤炭在我们这里还处于某种黄金年代。”在一些欧洲国家，煤电产量正在以50%的年增长率高速增长。由于煤炭是产电的最大污染源，生产每度电所产生的温室气体超过了任何其他种类的化石燃料，这对欧洲的环境目标而言，真是辛辣的讽刺。
The story starts, again, with American shale gas. As American utilities shifted into gas, American coal miners had to look for new markets. They were doing so at a time when slowing Chinese demand was pushing down world coal prices, which fell by a third between August 2011 and August 2012 and is below $100 a tonne. These prices make European utilities willing buyers. European purchases of American coal rose by a third in the first six months of 2012.
伴随着美国页岩气的大量生产，故事又开始了。由于美国的供电企业转向使用天然气，美国的煤矿主们无奈只能去开发新的销售市场。中国对煤炭需求的下降拉低了全球的煤炭价格。在2011年8月至2012年8月期间，全球煤炭的价格下降了三分之一，每吨煤的价格不到100美元。欧洲人就是在此时开始大量生产煤电了。欧洲发电企业以低价大量购进煤炭。在2012年度头六个月，欧洲人采购的煤炭数量上升了三分之一。
Compared with the rock-bottom price of gas in America, coal is not all that cheap. But it is a bargain compared with the price of gas in Europe. Although gas can be carted around in liquid form, that is expensive and the infrastructure required is still patchy; for the most part, gas is shifted through pipelines, and tends to be used close to where it originates. So whereas coal has world-market prices, gas has regional prices, often linked in one way or another to the oil price. Many European gas contracts were negotiated years ago with the Russian gas giant, Gazprom, and despite a wave of renegotiations European gas prices have stayed high. In the summer of 2012 they were more than three times the American gas price and more expensive than coal. Gazprom has said it will cut prices—probably by around 10%—in 2013, but that may make little difference.
与美国市场上的天然气底价相比较，煤炭并不便宜多少。但与欧洲市场上的天然气相比，煤炭则便宜的多。虽然天然气可以液态形式装在车上运输，但成本很高，而且所需的基础设施尚不完善。在大多数情况下，天然气都是通过管道来输送，在产地附近使用。因此尽管煤炭有一个全球市场价格，天然气只有区域价格，而且常常以某种方式与石油价格相联系。许多欧洲的天然气供应商多年前就在与俄罗斯天然气工业巨头——俄罗斯天然气工业股份公司（Gazprom）进行谈判。但尽管谈了一轮又一轮，欧洲的天然气价格依然居高不下。在2012年夏季，欧洲的天然气价格是美国的三倍，比煤炭要贵的多。俄罗斯天然气工业股份公司答应降低价格，在2013年度可能降低约10%，但这点降幅也许不会产生多大影响。
So coal is cheaper than gas in Europe and is likely to remain so, partly because Europe’s domestic shale-gas industry is many years behind America’s (and may never catch up) and partly because it will take time for Europe to build an infrastructure to import liquefied-natural gas in large amounts. The relative price of coal and gas is crucial to the health of European utilities. At the beginning of November 2012, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, a research firm, power utilities in Germany were set, on average, to lose €11.70 when they burned gas to make a megawatt of electricity, but to earn €14.22 per MW when they burned coal.
在欧洲使用煤炭要比用天然气省钱，而且很可能不会出现变化。其部分原因是欧洲各国的页岩气工业比美国落后很多年（也许永远也无法赶上）；部分原因是欧洲各国需要时间来大规模建设进口液化天然气的基础设施。煤炭与天然气的相对价格是欧洲各供电企业采用何种燃料的关键因素。彭博社新能源财经（Bloomberg New Energy Finance）是一家资讯公司。根据该公司的报告，在2012年11月初，德国的供电企业如果用天然气发电的话，每兆瓦电就要亏损11.7欧元。但如果用燃煤发电的话，每兆瓦电就能净赚14.22欧元。
No room for gas in the Energiewende
在德国的能源转型战略中没有考虑采用天然气
The difference reflects the prices of the fuels concerned. But there is more to it than that. Germany has an ambitious plan to shift from fossil fuels and nuclear power to renewables like solar and wind (this is called the Energiewende, or energy transformation). Electricity from renewables gets priority on the grid. That has allowed wind and solar to grab market share from fossil energy during the most profitable times of day, when utilities used to make most of their money and burning gas made sense (German electricity prices are at their highest in the middle of the day when solar generation is also strongest). By displacing conventional forms of energy this way renewables have undermined utilities’ finances. Moody’s, a ratings agency, recently said the whole sector’s creditworthiness is under threat.
这种盈利或亏损反映了发电燃料价格上的差异。但导致这种结果的还有其它因素。德国雄心勃勃，计划用太阳能和风能这类可再生能源逐步取代化石燃料和核能（这个计划被称作Energiewende，也就是能源转型）。利用可再生能源发电在电网上享有优先权。这使得风能与太阳能发电能在一天中电价最高的白天抢占化石燃料发电的市场份额。这段时间以往常常是供电企业盈利的黄金时刻，用天然气发电也有利可图（德国的电价在中午前后最高，而此时也是太阳能发电的最佳时间）。以这种方式取代常规发电，可再生能源发电就从经济上挖了电企的墙角。穆迪投资评级机构（Moody’s）最近的报告称，整个供电行业的信誉度受到了威胁。
In response, companies are switching from gas to coal as fast as they can, so renewables are in fact displacing gas but not coal. In Germany, RWE, the biggest user of coal in Europe, generated 72% of its electricity from coal and lignite (a dirtier, low-grade form of coal) in the first nine months of 2012, compared with 66% over the same period in 2011. Germany needs new capacity because it is closing down its nuclear plants: RWE is building a new coal-fired plant in Hamm, in North Rhine-Westphalia and another in Emshaven in the Netherlands. E.ON, Germany’s biggest power producer, is also building a new coal-fired plant in North Rhine-Westphalia. It and its partners are considering shutting down a gas-fired plant in Bavaria. Vattenfall, a Swedish state-owned company, has just completed a lignite-fired plant in eastern Germany and is building a coal plant near Hamburg. EnBW, based in southern Germany, is building a coal-fired plant in Karlsruhe, and another jointly with RWE in Mannheim.
作为回应，各公司尽可能迅速地从以天然气为燃料转为以煤炭为燃料。因而事实上可再生能源取代的是天然气，而不是煤炭。德国莱茵集团（RWE）是欧洲最大的煤炭用户，该公司在2012年度头9个月生产的电力中，72%是以煤和褐煤（一种低等级，产生污染物更多的煤炭）为燃料。而在2011年度的同期，这个数字只有66%。德国由于正在关闭核电站，因而需要新增发电能力。德国莱茵集团正在北莱茵威斯特法伦州汉姆市新建一座煤电厂，在荷兰的艾姆斯温（Emshaven）建另一座煤电厂。E.ON是德国最大的电力企业，该公司也在北莱茵威斯特法伦州新建了一座火电厂。该公司与合作伙伴正在考虑关闭一家位于巴伐利亚州的以天然气为燃料的电厂。大瀑布电力公司（Vattenfall）是瑞典的一家国有企业，该公司在德国东部的一家以褐煤为燃料的电厂刚刚完工；在汉堡附近正在建设一座火电厂。总部位于德国南部的巴符能源集团（EnBW）正在卡尔斯鲁厄（Karlsruhe）建设一座煤电厂；与德国莱茵集团合资在曼海姆（Mannheim）建设另一座煤电厂。
Even in countries that are not building new coal-fired power stations, the amount of coal burned is going up. In April 2012 coal took over from gas as Britain’s dominant fuel for electricity for the first time since early 2007. The amount of the country’s electricity provided by coal in the third quarter of last year was 50% greater than the year before.
即使是没有新建煤电厂的国家，燃煤的消耗也在增加。2012年4月，煤炭取代天然气，位居英国发电用燃料的第一位。这是自2007年以来的第一次。去年第三季度英国的燃煤发电量比前一年同期增加了50%。
Companies would be dashing for coal anyway because it is cheap, but the dash is made the more frantic by looming policy changes. Under a European Union directive which comes into force in 2016, utilities must either close coal-fired plants that do not meet new EU environmental standards or else install lots of expensive pollution-control devices. The deadline for companies to decide which course to take is this month. If a company closes a plant, it will be given a maximum number of hours to run before it must be shut down (depending on how much pollution it produces). This is a big incentive to burn a lot of coal quickly.
由于煤炭价廉，各供电企业当然要大量使用煤炭做燃料了。但由于政策即将改变，这个趋势就更加匆忙了。根据欧盟的一项指令，各供电企业要么关闭无法满足欧盟环境标准的煤电厂，要么就大量安装昂贵的污染控制装置。这一指令在2016年生效。本月就是各企业决定其取舍的截止月份。如果某个企业决定关闭一家发电厂，可以允许这个电厂尽可能长地延长其发电时间（取决于其产生的污染量）。这是快速大量使用煤炭的一个重大诱因。
Does this mean the current surge in coal demand is a blip? Tom Brookes of the European Climate Foundation, a non-governmental organisation based in The Hague, says yes. In 2008 Europe’s utilities had plans for 112 new coal plants. Since then, 73 have been abandoned and nothing further has happened with 14, so he reckons a huge amount of coal capacity will be lost as existing plants are shut down over the next 12 to 18 months. All the same, that still leaves two dozen new plants planned or under construction. Moreover, if you count the number of applications for permits to build coal-fired power stations—as the World Resources Institute, a think-tank in Washington, DC, does—the number of planned new coal plants in Europe is much higher: 69, with a proposed capacity of over 60 gigawatts, roughly equivalent to the capacity of the 58 nuclear reactors that provide France with most of its electricity.
这是否意味着目前对煤炭需求的暴增只是一个暂时现象，而无需多虑呢？欧洲气候基金会（European Climate Foundation）是总部位于海牙的一个非政府组织。该基金会的（Tom Brookes）认为情况确实如此。2008年，欧洲的各供电企业曾计划新建112家煤电厂。而自那之后，73家煤电厂的建设计划已被放弃，14家煤电厂的建设迟迟没有动工。因此，他认为在今后12至18个月内当现有的煤电厂被关闭时，大量的煤电生产能力也就随之消失了。但尽管如此，仍然保留了二十四、五个待建的或正在建设的煤电厂。此外，如果如世界资源研究所（一家位于华盛顿的智库）所做的那样，统计一下所递交的新建煤电站申请数量，就会发现欧洲计划新建煤电厂的数量高达69个，远超其它地区。计划新增的发电能力也超过了60千兆瓦，与提供了法国大部分电力的58个核电站所提供的电量大致相当。
So higher levels of coal use may continue for a while, at least in some countries. Bloomberg has looked in detail at the impact of EU environmental standards on the countries most affected: Britain, Germany and Poland. It reckons British coal capacity will indeed fall, from 33GW now to 14GW by the time the new rules take full effect. But Germany’s coal capacity will barely budge, because it is building new coal plants which meet the new standards.
如此大量地使用煤炭发电的现象也许还要持续一段时间，至少在一些国家是这样。彭博社仔细研究了受欧盟环境标准影响最大的这些国家：英国、德国和波兰。研究的结论是，英国的煤炭发电量确实会下降。到新规则完全生效时，会从33千兆瓦下降到14千兆瓦。但德国的煤炭发电量不会出现大的变化。因为德国正在新建符合新标准的煤电厂。
This coal surge is making a nonsense of EU environmental policies, which politicians like to claim are a model for the rest of the world. European countries had hoped gradually to squeeze dirty coal out of electricity generation. Instead, its market share has been growing.
政客们喜欢将欧盟的环境政策称之为世界其他地方的楷模，而这种煤炭消耗剧增的现象使这个政策变得荒诞不经。欧盟国家曾期望将污染环境的煤炭逐步挤出发电行业。但与之背道而驰的是，煤电的市场份额一直在增长。
The EU aims to reduce carbon emissions to 80% of their 1990 levels by 2020. Thanks in part to the recession, by 2009 it was most of the way there—a bit more than 17% down on the 1990 level. In 2010, though, emissions began rising. Bloomberg calculates that carbon emissions from power plants rose around 3% in 2012, pushing total emissions 1% higher than they were in 2011.
欧盟的目标是，到2020年，将其碳排放量降低到1990年的80%。部分要归功于这场经济衰退，到2009年时，基本上还是朝这一目标前进的：比1990年的炭排放量下降了17%还多一点。然而到了2010年，碳排放量开始上升了。根据彭博社的计算结果，2012年各电厂的碳排放量上升了约3%。与2011年相比，总的碳排放量被推升了1%。
In theory, Europe’s carbon price, provided by a cap-and-trade system, the emissions trading scheme (ETS), should have stopped all this from happening. The ETS carbon price should in principle go up when emissions do, as more emissions mean more demand for the carbon credits that the scheme works with. So you might expect the carbon price to have soared in 2012. In fact the price was flat for most of the year, trading between €6 and €8 per tonne (see chart).
从理论上讲，由“总量管制与排放交易体系”，也就是碳排放交易机制（ETS）提供的欧洲炭价本应该制止住这种状况的发生。当碳排放增加时，对这个机制采用的碳信用的需求也随之增加，ETS炭价原则上也应该上涨。因此应该能够预料到2012年的炭价会出现暴涨的局面。事实上也确实如此，这一年的大多数时候炭价都处于高位，交易价格位于每吨6至8欧元（见上表）。
Carbon beyond price
炭是无价之宝
The problem is that when the system was set up, regulators allowed companies overly generous permits to pollute, in part because of lobbying and in part because the effects of the recession were not foreseen. This oversupply has swamped the impact of emissions from coal-fired power plants. On November 12th the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, proposed that some of the excess carbon credits be withdrawn. But the proposal, which has been held up by opposition from Poland, might not do all that much.
问题是，当这碳排放交易机制建立起来后，监管者们过于慷慨地批准了各公司的碳排放量。部分原因是游说的结果，部分原因是没有预料到这场经济大萧条的到来。供过于求的局面掩盖了煤电厂碳排放的影响。去年11月12日，欧盟委员会（欧盟的行政机构）建议将部分超量的炭信用予以收回。但这项提议（由于波兰的反对而被搁置了）可能也无法解决所有这些问题。
Policy uncertainties are growing. The EU has a lot of other things on its plate, so no one has much appetite for tough decisions about energy at the moment, such as how to save the ETS. In 2014 there will be a new European Commission and a new European Parliament, which means Europe-wide decisions about energy risk being put off for a couple more years at least. As Europe’s energy targets (on renewables use and efficiency) are supposed to be met by 2020, this timetable suggests there will be years of policy delay followed by a last-minute scramble.
政策的不确定性正在增加。欧盟还有其它急需解决的问题堆积着，因而此刻没有谁愿意去推出一个能量方面困难的决定（就像如何拯救碳排放交易机制这类问题）。2014年欧盟委员会及欧洲议会将换届，这意味着欧洲国家对能源风险的共识与集体决定被推迟了至少两年以上才能得到落实。当人们认为欧盟在可再生能源与高效利用能源方面的目标能够在2020年实现之际，这个假定的时间表经过最后一刻的讨价还价后，将由于政策的变动而出现数年的延迟。
Faced with such uncertainties, businesses are doing what you would expect: going elsewhere. Jesse Scott, the head of environment policy at EURELECTRIC, an association of electricity producers, asked European energy utilities which also have an international portfolio where they were expecting to invest over the next few years; 85% replied “outside Europe”.
面对这样的不确定性，你可以想象商人们会做出何种反应：到欧盟外去投资。“欧洲电力”是一个发电行业的联合会，耶西•斯科特（Jesse Scott）是该组织环境政策制定委员会的负责人。他向欧盟各能源企业（这些企业也有一个国际组织）进行询问调查：今后几年您的公司打算到哪里去投资？85%的被调查对象回答“欧洲之外”。
If policies work as intended, electricity from renewables will gradually take a larger share of overall generation, and Europe will end up with a much greener form of energy. But at the moment, EU energy policy is boosting usage of the most polluting fuel, increasing carbon emissions, damaging the creditworthiness of utilities and diverting investment into energy projects elsewhere. The EU’s climate commissioner, Connie Hedegaard, likes to claim that in energy and emissions Europe is “leading by example”. Uh-oh.
如果欧盟的这些政策能得到落实，可再生能源发电量将逐步在总的发电量中占有一个较大的份额。欧盟各国最终将采用一种非常环保的能源。但在此刻，欧盟的能源政策正在助推最不环保能源的使用，正在加大碳排放量，正在损害各供电企业的信誉，驱使能源投资项目转向其它地区。康妮•赫泽高（Connie Hedegaard）是欧盟气候事务专员，她喜欢夸耀说：在能源与碳排放方面，欧洲起到了“模范带头作用”。呕……哦。
欧洲令人不齿的秘密
The unwelcome renaissance
不受欢迎的复兴
Europe’s energy policy delivers the worst of all possible worlds
欧洲的能源政策可能产出世间极恶的后果
Jan 5th 2013 | BERLIN | from the print edition
《经济学人》杂志2013年1月5日文章；写于柏林
But wait—there’s more…
不要着急，还多着呢……
WHILE coal production and use plummet in America, in Europe “we have some kind of golden age of coal,” says Anne-Sophie Corbeau of the International Energy Agency. The amount of electricity generated from coal is rising at annualised rates of as much as 50% in some European countries. Since coal is by the far the most polluting source of electricity, with more greenhouse gas produced per kilowatt hour than any other fossil fuel, this is making a mockery of European environmental aspirations. How did it happen?
当美国的煤炭产量与消费直线下降之时，在欧洲，用国际能源总署的安妮索菲•科博（Anne-Sophie Corbeau）的话来说就是：“煤炭在我们这里还处于某种黄金年代。”在一些欧洲国家，煤电产量正在以50%的年增长率高速增长。由于煤炭是产电的最大污染源，生产每度电所产生的温室气体超过了任何其他种类的化石燃料，这对欧洲的环境目标而言，真是辛辣的讽刺。
The story starts, again, with American shale gas. As American utilities shifted into gas, American coal miners had to look for new markets. They were doing so at a time when slowing Chinese demand was pushing down world coal prices, which fell by a third between August 2011 and August 2012 and is below $100 a tonne. These prices make European utilities willing buyers. European purchases of American coal rose by a third in the first six months of 2012.
伴随着美国页岩气的大量生产，故事又开始了。由于美国的供电企业转向使用天然气，美国的煤矿主们无奈只能去开发新的销售市场。中国对煤炭需求的下降拉低了全球的煤炭价格。在2011年8月至2012年8月期间，全球煤炭的价格下降了三分之一，每吨煤的价格不到100美元。欧洲人就是在此时开始大量生产煤电了。欧洲发电企业以低价大量购进煤炭。在2012年度头六个月，欧洲人采购的煤炭数量上升了三分之一。
Compared with the rock-bottom price of gas in America, coal is not all that cheap. But it is a bargain compared with the price of gas in Europe. Although gas can be carted around in liquid form, that is expensive and the infrastructure required is still patchy; for the most part, gas is shifted through pipelines, and tends to be used close to where it originates. So whereas coal has world-market prices, gas has regional prices, often linked in one way or another to the oil price. Many European gas contracts were negotiated years ago with the Russian gas giant, Gazprom, and despite a wave of renegotiations European gas prices have stayed high. In the summer of 2012 they were more than three times the American gas price and more expensive than coal. Gazprom has said it will cut prices—probably by around 10%—in 2013, but that may make little difference.
与美国市场上的天然气底价相比较，煤炭并不便宜多少。但与欧洲市场上的天然气相比，煤炭则便宜的多。虽然天然气可以液态形式装在车上运输，但成本很高，而且所需的基础设施尚不完善。在大多数情况下，天然气都是通过管道来输送，在产地附近使用。因此尽管煤炭有一个全球市场价格，天然气只有区域价格，而且常常以某种方式与石油价格相联系。许多欧洲的天然气供应商多年前就在与俄罗斯天然气工业巨头——俄罗斯天然气工业股份公司（Gazprom）进行谈判。但尽管谈了一轮又一轮，欧洲的天然气价格依然居高不下。在2012年夏季，欧洲的天然气价格是美国的三倍，比煤炭要贵的多。俄罗斯天然气工业股份公司答应降低价格，在2013年度可能降低约10%，但这点降幅也许不会产生多大影响。
So coal is cheaper than gas in Europe and is likely to remain so, partly because Europe’s domestic shale-gas industry is many years behind America’s (and may never catch up) and partly because it will take time for Europe to build an infrastructure to import liquefied-natural gas in large amounts. The relative price of coal and gas is crucial to the health of European utilities. At the beginning of November 2012, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, a research firm, power utilities in Germany were set, on average, to lose €11.70 when they burned gas to make a megawatt of electricity, but to earn €14.22 per MW when they burned coal.
在欧洲使用煤炭要比用天然气省钱，而且很可能不会出现变化。其部分原因是欧洲各国的页岩气工业比美国落后很多年（也许永远也无法赶上）；部分原因是欧洲各国需要时间来大规模建设进口液化天然气的基础设施。煤炭与天然气的相对价格是欧洲各供电企业采用何种燃料的关键因素。彭博社新能源财经（Bloomberg New Energy Finance）是一家资讯公司。根据该公司的报告，在2012年11月初，德国的供电企业如果用天然气发电的话，每兆瓦电就要亏损11.7欧元。但如果用燃煤发电的话，每兆瓦电就能净赚14.22欧元。
No room for gas in the Energiewende
在德国的能源转型战略中没有考虑采用天然气
The difference reflects the prices of the fuels concerned. But there is more to it than that. Germany has an ambitious plan to shift from fossil fuels and nuclear power to renewables like solar and wind (this is called the Energiewende, or energy transformation). Electricity from renewables gets priority on the grid. That has allowed wind and solar to grab market share from fossil energy during the most profitable times of day, when utilities used to make most of their money and burning gas made sense (German electricity prices are at their highest in the middle of the day when solar generation is also strongest). By displacing conventional forms of energy this way renewables have undermined utilities’ finances. Moody’s, a ratings agency, recently said the whole sector’s creditworthiness is under threat.
这种盈利或亏损反映了发电燃料价格上的差异。但导致这种结果的还有其它因素。德国雄心勃勃，计划用太阳能和风能这类可再生能源逐步取代化石燃料和核能（这个计划被称作Energiewende，也就是能源转型）。利用可再生能源发电在电网上享有优先权。这使得风能与太阳能发电能在一天中电价最高的白天抢占化石燃料发电的市场份额。这段时间以往常常是供电企业盈利的黄金时刻，用天然气发电也有利可图（德国的电价在中午前后最高，而此时也是太阳能发电的最佳时间）。以这种方式取代常规发电，可再生能源发电就从经济上挖了电企的墙角。穆迪投资评级机构（Moody’s）最近的报告称，整个供电行业的信誉度受到了威胁。
In response, companies are switching from gas to coal as fast as they can, so renewables are in fact displacing gas but not coal. In Germany, RWE, the biggest user of coal in Europe, generated 72% of its electricity from coal and lignite (a dirtier, low-grade form of coal) in the first nine months of 2012, compared with 66% over the same period in 2011. Germany needs new capacity because it is closing down its nuclear plants: RWE is building a new coal-fired plant in Hamm, in North Rhine-Westphalia and another in Emshaven in the Netherlands. E.ON, Germany’s biggest power producer, is also building a new coal-fired plant in North Rhine-Westphalia. It and its partners are considering shutting down a gas-fired plant in Bavaria. Vattenfall, a Swedish state-owned company, has just completed a lignite-fired plant in eastern Germany and is building a coal plant near Hamburg. EnBW, based in southern Germany, is building a coal-fired plant in Karlsruhe, and another jointly with RWE in Mannheim.
作为回应，各公司尽可能迅速地从以天然气为燃料转为以煤炭为燃料。因而事实上可再生能源取代的是天然气，而不是煤炭。德国莱茵集团（RWE）是欧洲最大的煤炭用户，该公司在2012年度头9个月生产的电力中，72%是以煤和褐煤（一种低等级，产生污染物更多的煤炭）为燃料。而在2011年度的同期，这个数字只有66%。德国由于正在关闭核电站，因而需要新增发电能力。德国莱茵集团正在北莱茵威斯特法伦州汉姆市新建一座煤电厂，在荷兰的艾姆斯温（Emshaven）建另一座煤电厂。E.ON是德国最大的电力企业，该公司也在北莱茵威斯特法伦州新建了一座火电厂。该公司与合作伙伴正在考虑关闭一家位于巴伐利亚州的以天然气为燃料的电厂。大瀑布电力公司（Vattenfall）是瑞典的一家国有企业，该公司在德国东部的一家以褐煤为燃料的电厂刚刚完工；在汉堡附近正在建设一座火电厂。总部位于德国南部的巴符能源集团（EnBW）正在卡尔斯鲁厄（Karlsruhe）建设一座煤电厂；与德国莱茵集团合资在曼海姆（Mannheim）建设另一座煤电厂。
Even in countries that are not building new coal-fired power stations, the amount of coal burned is going up. In April 2012 coal took over from gas as Britain’s dominant fuel for electricity for the first time since early 2007. The amount of the country’s electricity provided by coal in the third quarter of last year was 50% greater than the year before.
即使是没有新建煤电厂的国家，燃煤的消耗也在增加。2012年4月，煤炭取代天然气，位居英国发电用燃料的第一位。这是自2007年以来的第一次。去年第三季度英国的燃煤发电量比前一年同期增加了50%。
Companies would be dashing for coal anyway because it is cheap, but the dash is made the more frantic by looming policy changes. Under a European Union directive which comes into force in 2016, utilities must either close coal-fired plants that do not meet new EU environmental standards or else install lots of expensive pollution-control devices. The deadline for companies to decide which course to take is this month. If a company closes a plant, it will be given a maximum number of hours to run before it must be shut down (depending on how much pollution it produces). This is a big incentive to burn a lot of coal quickly.
由于煤炭价廉，各供电企业当然要大量使用煤炭做燃料了。但由于政策即将改变，这个趋势就更加匆忙了。根据欧盟的一项指令，各供电企业要么关闭无法满足欧盟环境标准的煤电厂，要么就大量安装昂贵的污染控制装置。这一指令在2016年生效。本月就是各企业决定其取舍的截止月份。如果某个企业决定关闭一家发电厂，可以允许这个电厂尽可能长地延长其发电时间（取决于其产生的污染量）。这是快速大量使用煤炭的一个重大诱因。
Does this mean the current surge in coal demand is a blip? Tom Brookes of the European Climate Foundation, a non-governmental organisation based in The Hague, says yes. In 2008 Europe’s utilities had plans for 112 new coal plants. Since then, 73 have been abandoned and nothing further has happened with 14, so he reckons a huge amount of coal capacity will be lost as existing plants are shut down over the next 12 to 18 months. All the same, that still leaves two dozen new plants planned or under construction. Moreover, if you count the number of applications for permits to build coal-fired power stations—as the World Resources Institute, a think-tank in Washington, DC, does—the number of planned new coal plants in Europe is much higher: 69, with a proposed capacity of over 60 gigawatts, roughly equivalent to the capacity of the 58 nuclear reactors that provide France with most of its electricity.
这是否意味着目前对煤炭需求的暴增只是一个暂时现象，而无需多虑呢？欧洲气候基金会（European Climate Foundation）是总部位于海牙的一个非政府组织。该基金会的（Tom Brookes）认为情况确实如此。2008年，欧洲的各供电企业曾计划新建112家煤电厂。而自那之后，73家煤电厂的建设计划已被放弃，14家煤电厂的建设迟迟没有动工。因此，他认为在今后12至18个月内当现有的煤电厂被关闭时，大量的煤电生产能力也就随之消失了。但尽管如此，仍然保留了二十四、五个待建的或正在建设的煤电厂。此外，如果如世界资源研究所（一家位于华盛顿的智库）所做的那样，统计一下所递交的新建煤电站申请数量，就会发现欧洲计划新建煤电厂的数量高达69个，远超其它地区。计划新增的发电能力也超过了60千兆瓦，与提供了法国大部分电力的58个核电站所提供的电量大致相当。
So higher levels of coal use may continue for a while, at least in some countries. Bloomberg has looked in detail at the impact of EU environmental standards on the countries most affected: Britain, Germany and Poland. It reckons British coal capacity will indeed fall, from 33GW now to 14GW by the time the new rules take full effect. But Germany’s coal capacity will barely budge, because it is building new coal plants which meet the new standards.
如此大量地使用煤炭发电的现象也许还要持续一段时间，至少在一些国家是这样。彭博社仔细研究了受欧盟环境标准影响最大的这些国家：英国、德国和波兰。研究的结论是，英国的煤炭发电量确实会下降。到新规则完全生效时，会从33千兆瓦下降到14千兆瓦。但德国的煤炭发电量不会出现大的变化。因为德国正在新建符合新标准的煤电厂。
This coal surge is making a nonsense of EU environmental policies, which politicians like to claim are a model for the rest of the world. European countries had hoped gradually to squeeze dirty coal out of electricity generation. Instead, its market share has been growing.
政客们喜欢将欧盟的环境政策称之为世界其他地方的楷模，而这种煤炭消耗剧增的现象使这个政策变得荒诞不经。欧盟国家曾期望将污染环境的煤炭逐步挤出发电行业。但与之背道而驰的是，煤电的市场份额一直在增长。
The EU aims to reduce carbon emissions to 80% of their 1990 levels by 2020. Thanks in part to the recession, by 2009 it was most of the way there—a bit more than 17% down on the 1990 level. In 2010, though, emissions began rising. Bloomberg calculates that carbon emissions from power plants rose around 3% in 2012, pushing total emissions 1% higher than they were in 2011.
欧盟的目标是，到2020年，将其碳排放量降低到1990年的80%。部分要归功于这场经济衰退，到2009年时，基本上还是朝这一目标前进的：比1990年的炭排放量下降了17%还多一点。然而到了2010年，碳排放量开始上升了。根据彭博社的计算结果，2012年各电厂的碳排放量上升了约3%。与2011年相比，总的碳排放量被推升了1%。
In theory, Europe’s carbon price, provided by a cap-and-trade system, the emissions trading scheme (ETS), should have stopped all this from happening. The ETS carbon price should in principle go up when emissions do, as more emissions mean more demand for the carbon credits that the scheme works with. So you might expect the carbon price to have soared in 2012. In fact the price was flat for most of the year, trading between €6 and €8 per tonne (see chart).
从理论上讲，由“总量管制与排放交易体系”，也就是碳排放交易机制（ETS）提供的欧洲炭价本应该制止住这种状况的发生。当碳排放增加时，对这个机制采用的碳信用的需求也随之增加，ETS炭价原则上也应该上涨。因此应该能够预料到2012年的炭价会出现暴涨的局面。事实上也确实如此，这一年的大多数时候炭价都处于高位，交易价格位于每吨6至8欧元（见上表）。
Carbon beyond price
炭是无价之宝
The problem is that when the system was set up, regulators allowed companies overly generous permits to pollute, in part because of lobbying and in part because the effects of the recession were not foreseen. This oversupply has swamped the impact of emissions from coal-fired power plants. On November 12th the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, proposed that some of the excess carbon credits be withdrawn. But the proposal, which has been held up by opposition from Poland, might not do all that much.
问题是，当这碳排放交易机制建立起来后，监管者们过于慷慨地批准了各公司的碳排放量。部分原因是游说的结果，部分原因是没有预料到这场经济大萧条的到来。供过于求的局面掩盖了煤电厂碳排放的影响。去年11月12日，欧盟委员会（欧盟的行政机构）建议将部分超量的炭信用予以收回。但这项提议（由于波兰的反对而被搁置了）可能也无法解决所有这些问题。
Policy uncertainties are growing. The EU has a lot of other things on its plate, so no one has much appetite for tough decisions about energy at the moment, such as how to save the ETS. In 2014 there will be a new European Commission and a new European Parliament, which means Europe-wide decisions about energy risk being put off for a couple more years at least. As Europe’s energy targets (on renewables use and efficiency) are supposed to be met by 2020, this timetable suggests there will be years of policy delay followed by a last-minute scramble.
政策的不确定性正在增加。欧盟还有其它急需解决的问题堆积着，因而此刻没有谁愿意去推出一个能量方面困难的决定（就像如何拯救碳排放交易机制这类问题）。2014年欧盟委员会及欧洲议会将换届，这意味着欧洲国家对能源风险的共识与集体决定被推迟了至少两年以上才能得到落实。当人们认为欧盟在可再生能源与高效利用能源方面的目标能够在2020年实现之际，这个假定的时间表经过最后一刻的讨价还价后，将由于政策的变动而出现数年的延迟。
Faced with such uncertainties, businesses are doing what you would expect: going elsewhere. Jesse Scott, the head of environment policy at EURELECTRIC, an association of electricity producers, asked European energy utilities which also have an international portfolio where they were expecting to invest over the next few years; 85% replied “outside Europe”.
面对这样的不确定性，你可以想象商人们会做出何种反应：到欧盟外去投资。“欧洲电力”是一个发电行业的联合会，耶西•斯科特（Jesse Scott）是该组织环境政策制定委员会的负责人。他向欧盟各能源企业（这些企业也有一个国际组织）进行询问调查：今后几年您的公司打算到哪里去投资？85%的被调查对象回答“欧洲之外”。
If policies work as intended, electricity from renewables will gradually take a larger share of overall generation, and Europe will end up with a much greener form of energy. But at the moment, EU energy policy is boosting usage of the most polluting fuel, increasing carbon emissions, damaging the creditworthiness of utilities and diverting investment into energy projects elsewhere. The EU’s climate commissioner, Connie Hedegaard, likes to claim that in energy and emissions Europe is “leading by example”. Uh-oh.
如果欧盟的这些政策能得到落实，可再生能源发电量将逐步在总的发电量中占有一个较大的份额。欧盟各国最终将采用一种非常环保的能源。但在此刻，欧盟的能源政策正在助推最不环保能源的使用，正在加大碳排放量，正在损害各供电企业的信誉，驱使能源投资项目转向其它地区。康妮•赫泽高（Connie Hedegaard）是欧盟气候事务专员，她喜欢夸耀说：在能源与碳排放方面，欧洲起到了“模范带头作用”。呕……哦。