A Devil of a Time With EU Mandates

What do you do when you're new to the EU and face that 20% renewables target by 2020?  Ask Kaunas, Lithuania's second largest city and the country's largest logistics and economic hub.  Home to 350,000 people--10% of whom are students--Kaunas faces difficult choices in the next several years as Lithuania struggles to meet EU regulations.

 

It will not be easy:  like many post-Soviet states, Kaunas is laden with buildings of that era which were poorly built and are costly to renovate.  The region has very little wind, and solar is expensive.  Kaunas has an impressive public transport system of its size, with electrified trolley buses and microbuses (think shared taxis), but there's no budget, nor urgency, to build rail.  Over 90% of Lithuania's energy needs are imported; the country has almost no energy sources of its own.

 

The only non fossil-based fuel source to which Kaunas has access is energy from wood and straw, which can be processed into pellets.  Some government and NGO studies have advocated that farms in the Kaunas region grow crops that can be processed into biofuels, but this is a worrisome option as food prices climb in and outside of Lithuania's borders.  Pilot projects such as a Danish-led biogas plant that converts pig manure into gas that is funneled to Lithuania's energy grid have shown some promise, but still are not enough to meet the country's needs.  Finally, a hydropower plant built in 1954 has recently been retrofitted, but still only contributes 2% of the energy Lithuania consumes.

 

The Kaunas region's largest renewable energy project, which will harness geothermal power, will open in 2013.  The US$434 million dollar project will replace the electricity capacity generated by an outdated nuclear power plant that local office have slated to shut down.  However, there's a slight caveat:  the largest investor is Gazprom, the Russian behemoth that has frayed Europeans' nerves the past few years.  Lithuanians leery of a future with potential show-downs with Russia and mindful of their painful Soviet past are pushing for a waste-to-energy plant that would generate enough electricity for Kaunas' needs, but so far they have not been able to attract investment.  Throw the recent economic volatility into the mix and you see a nation flummoxed by the mandates that wealthier nations to the west have mandated for all EU members.

 

One of Kaunas' best attractions is the MK Ciurlionis Velniu Muziejus or Devil Museum, a collection of 3000 or so icons that a local painter collected as a silent protest against the Soviet regime.  It's one of the best little secrets in the Baltics . . . the expressions on many of these icons are priceless.  In fact, they are almost symbolic of what Lithuanian leaders are sorting out as they struggle with balancing a lack of resources with the expectations that they generate more renewables in their nation's energy portfolio.