The flare-up of inflation that has swept the world could really run out in six months, as central banks in Europe and America believe (or are they just hoping?). But what if it were not transitory as they say, especially in its component linked to energy? A round of phone calls to various economists does not reassure. After all, the incentives for renewables that we Italians pay in our bills are structural, not contingent, moreover the European regulations to promote the green transition intentionally aim at making energy from coal and hydrocarbons more expensive, of which (at the moment and for quite a while ‘) we cannot do without; a 4 or 5 year transition with high energy prices could be inevitable. Furthermore, emission rights, which are very expensive because they are designed precisely to discourage the emissions themselves, are downloaded, and will continue to be, on the final customers of the large companies on which they weigh, and will soon be extended to medium-small ones and domestic users, extending the inflationary effect. As for electric and hybrid cars, much more expensive than traditional ones, forecasts diverge: there are those who say that economies of scale will lower the price lists, and those who warn against being fooled, because electric propulsion and batteries at its service do not they have great intrinsic room for improvement.
The president of Nomisma Energia Davide Tabarelli sees black, more than green: “The current flare-up of inflation risks becoming a high and lasting fire. The basic problem is that for ten years we have no longer invested in traditional energies, because everyone says they are obsolete, they are discouraged in every way, so now in the world there is a serious shortage of oil, gas and coal which we cannot to do without, and consequently energy prices explode, discharging themselves on the whole economic system ”. Tabarelli does not believe that renewables can come to the rescue: “To subsidize them, in Italy we have been paying an extra 10 billion euros a year in our bills for years. There are two cases: either we continue to support alternative energies with more and more family money, or let’s say enough. But since we began to cut subsidies, no one has built wind and photovoltaic plants, and this contributes to raising the bills ”. Emission rights will impose a ferocious selection among economic activities: “If in steel they amount to 40% of the cost of production and in fashion to 3%, certain things can still be produced in Italy while for others it will be very difficult”. Little confidence from Nomisma Energia on electric motorization: “In recent decades the energy efficiency of petrol and diesel engines has greatly improved, and little that of electric batteries. There is no great room for improvement. Certainly there will be economies of scale with the increase in sales, but much less than we imagine ”.
Some consent to Tabarelli, but a lot of dissent, comes from Andrea Boitani, economist of Cattolica and pluri-decennial consultant of government and parliament on transport: “It is true that for a few years, until we have green hydrogen and fourth generation nuclear power, we will pay plus energy, but the problem is that so far we have refused to pay the external costs of fossil fuels, as we should have started doing already in the 1980s ”. A similar mix of consensus and dissent on electric cars: “It is true that they have limits and they do not represent the end point of the energy transition in transport. They are only an intermediate phase, while the final solution will be green hydrogen “. As for emission rights, Boitani believes (positively) that “they will entail an adjustment in relative costs and will tend to shift consumption to less energy-intensive and cheaper goods”.
Giovanni Battista Zorzoli, professor at Sapienza University and president of the Italian Association of Energy Economists, is the most convinced of the convenience of long-term renewables, although he does not deny short-term price problems: “In 2030 in Europe most of the electricity supplies will be with long-term contracts from green sources, while at the present time it is the prevalence of contracts spot to accentuate volatility. Then it is not true that the blocking of photovoltaic and wind power plants in Italy is linked to the cut in incentives: in reality there is a total of 6,000 MegaWatts of power for which an authorization has been requested which is slow in arriving; the desire to build these plants is there, it is only the bureaucracy to hold them back. And in batteries, the learning curve of this technology is similar to what there was in photovoltaics “.
A look at fossil energies. Last week there was a setback in the run of the oil price, due to the US and China that have dented the reserves. Even before, however, the rise in the price of crude oil had not been as traumatic as that of methane and coal, which in 2021 did not simply increase, but multiplied their prices. Why this difference? Davide Tabarelli observes that “in oil there is OPEC which works to avoid excessive swings in prices upwards or downwards. He doesn’t always succeed, but we usually work towards this goal ”. Could it be that the American producers of “shale oil”, that is oil from shale and other unconventional sources, have begun to extract crude oil at a reckless pace, ruining the market once again? Tabarelli says no: “Following repeated corporate failures, a large part of the American production of shale oil has ended up in the hands of the great traditional comrades, who are much more cautious in their approach to the market”.