La biomasse, activité alternative au développement des zones rurales

c) A potential abundance

At present, the renewable sources of energy are exploited in an unequal and insufficient way in the European Union. Although the number of them are available in abundance and that their real economic potential is considerable, the share of the renewable sources of energy in the total of the rough domestic consumption of energy of the Union, which should progress regularly in the future, is only poor : 6%. A joint effort of the Community and Member States are necessary to take up this challenge. If the community does not manage to satisfy a part definitely more significant of its energy demand for resorting to renewable energies during the next decade, it will let escape an important chance of development and in parallel, it will be increasingly difficult for him to respect the commitments which it undertook so much at the European level than on a world level relating to the environmental protection.

The share of renewable energies in the energy balance of the Community is thus very modest compared to the technical potential which they conceal. One notes however the signs of a change, if slow is it.

One knows the bases of resources better, technologies are in constant progress, the attitudes towards their use change and industries of production and services in this sector are riper. But renewable energies have still sorrow to take off in term of marketing. In fact much of technologies would need only one small blow of inch to become competitive. In addition, the biomass, the wind power and solar energy offer a technical potential up to now unexploited. The current tendencies show that considerable technological progress was made during last years in the field of renewable energies. The costs decrease quickly and by many sources of energy, for little that the conditions are met, reached economic viability or approach some. Certain technologies, in particular the biomass are competitive and viable right now the from an economic standpoint.

The question of the renewable energy resources arises only for those which function apart from the natural elements, like the biomass (biocarburant included/understood). It is clear that there is not, in theory, real quantitative problems of provisioning. Domestic waste is in constant growth and could offer an appropriateness use considerable as well as the by-products of industry of wood and agroalimentary. But their use is not without damage for the environment and can develop only thanks to high technology. «  The Community resources in conventional primary energies do not allow, in the current state of technologies, to consider an energy autonomy for Europe. Only the renewable resources of high technologies can limit the tendency towards an increasing energy quantitative dependence »^25(*).

The evaluation of the local resource starts with the examination of the use of the grounds, in particular the types of practiced cultures and the possible presence of unutilised residues (forest waste, straw, cores of olives for example). If it proves that there is a large quantity of residues available, he can be interesting to recruit a consultant to calculate the total annual resource and his energy content, which strongly varies from one resource to another. The output and the economic viability of the energy cultures differ according to nature from the ground, of the climate, the type of culture, the technological penetration in the area. Each project is the subject thus of a pragmatic evaluation of the resource really which can be developed.

* ²⁵ Deliver green  for a Community strategy, «  Energy for the future  : renewable sources of energy  », p 13