More Problems For Italy -- December 9, 2017

Two days ago we posted this screenshot with regard to a pre-alert in Italy: Cold in Europe? Italy at pre-alert level for natural gas withdrawals, from Twitter:

Update, December 12, 2017 at this link. 

Now this: yesterday, this story appeared in Argus Media: Italy "will struggle" to meet the country's national energy strategy to phase out coal.

• Italy's goal: coal-fired power phase-out targets by 2025
• why will Italy have problems meeting those targets? their only option is natural gas
• why? there is no scope for further hydro capacity expansion; and, solar and wind face problems such as land use objections
• authorization for a gas-fired plant takes at least eight years; not enough time to meet the 2025 phase-out goals
• gas-fired capacity needs to increase by 3.4 GW to facilitate the phase-out and renewable target
• then this: the EU plans to push for complete decarbonisation by 2050 -- this timeline would make it impossible for new gas-fired facilities to be completely amortized: this would make it hard to find investors and any extra costs could be passed on to consumers

Bottom line: what a mess. No wonder Great Britain wants to exit the EU.