Stimulating environmental protection activities in the energy sector

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Introduction
Reliable provision of current and future generations of earthlings with energy resources is a global interpretation of the concept of "energy security".Energy security is an essential component of national security, since reliable energy supply is one of the basic conditions of life for a modern person, one of the main factors in material production and the functioning of society as a whole.It is also part of the global energy policy aimed at ensuring that producing countries of excess energy resources and electricity for their own consumption have sufficient stability of prices and their incomes, and consumer countries have stability of supplies at the lowest possible prices.
The basic principles of ensuring energy security include the guarantee of energy supply to the economy and population of the country, state control of reliable energy supply to facilities that ensure the security of the country, and the maximum possible use of domestic equipment in all energy and technological processes.
The concept of "energy security" began to be widely used after the first oil crisis of 1973-1977.The first to experience the negative impact of interruptions and restrictions in energy supply were the territories (regions) with a low level of provision of their own fuel and energy resources, and those in the most difficult economic situation due to the combined influence of unfavorable factors [1].

Experimental research
The hopes that the decline in industrial production, the general "fading" of business activity and the resulting reduction in energy consumption in the 90s would protect the country from the energy crisis, and the fuel and energy complex from acute problems, did not come true, as a number of other factors (some of them continue to manifest themselves to this day) [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9]: • close interdependence of economic and energy factors in shaping the state of security of territories; • decrease in the level of energy efficiency during the period of general stagnation; • increasing influence of economic performance indicators of energy systems on the degree of security threats, such as chronic underinvestment in fuel and energy sectors, non-payments, etc.; • excessive load on the fuel and energy complex as the "locomotive of the economy"; • high level of monopolism in the fuel and energy sectors; • uneven territorial distribution of fuel and energy resources and productive forces, both of natural origin and due to the dominance of an administrativecentralized management system for many decades; • distortions in prices and tariffs for energy resources, etc.
The extreme importance of energy security stimulated scientists and specialists to develop this issue and adapt the achievements of world science, and government bodies to develop and adopt relevant documents.
They consider energy security as one of the main goals of national energy policy.It also plays an important role in making decisions on the functioning and development of the fuel and energy complex itself, which must be provided with resources for normal functioning and development [10][11][12][13][14][15].
For the population of our country, the high rate of growth in domestic prices for energy and energy raw materials for the support and development of the fuel and energy complex is unacceptable, since the level of wages is several times lower than in the most developed countries.The rate of price growth should not exceed the rate of growth of labor productivity.Otherwise, inflation will rise in the country to the extent that the cost of energy resources increases.Under these conditions, energy saving and reducing the specific energy intensity of goods and services are the only way to the energy security of the country and its regions [16][17][18][19][20][21][22].
Saving a unit of energy at the final stage of its consumption leads to savings on average of 3-4 units of primary energy resources, and average specific capital investments in energy-saving measures carried out by end consumers are many times lower than the expected capital investments in the production of an equivalent amount of energy resources.However, even these "many times lower" capital investments mean that to increase the energy efficiency of the economy to the planned level, capital investments estimated at US$50-70 billion are required in the period up to 2020.
The state of the human environment today is such that the church has not remained aloof from this universal problem [23].
Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' Kirill believes that "... the economic crisis (Greek court) is a worldly court, and the environmental crisis is God's court.This is punishment for grave sins, when in our acquisitiveness and passions we forget about the planet that gave us life." The Vatican has included environmental pollution among its deadly sins.
The global economic crisis that erupted in the second half of 2008 has also increased the threat to the environment.The reduction of industrial production in a crisis does not reduce the technogenic load on nature, but, on the contrary, causes an avalanche-like increase in the total volume of pollution and the threat of an environmental crisis.This is happening due to the reduction of environmental programs, the curtailment of projects and plans to introduce new treatment facilities, and in some cases, the shutdown of existing protection systems in order to save money.
In order to avoid excessive spending in the state budget on energy supply and solving environmental problems and to prevent a slowdown in the growth of public welfare, it is necessary to debug a system in which the "culprits" will bear responsibility for the negative consequences of energy production and consumption [24][25][26][27][28][29].
Today, two methods of limiting the negative impact on the environment are most widespread in developed countries: a) establishing a tax on CO 2 emissions and b) limiting industrial emissions of pollutants (NO x and SO x ) using quotas.The implementation of both methods relies on effective monitoring -accurate, uniform and transparent collection and recording of data on emission levels.
The republic traditionally artificially lowers costs associated with energy consumption, since the costs of negative effects on the environment and, as a result, on public health due to emissions of harmful substances (primarily SOx and NOx) by energy facilities are not included in energy prices.Without a system for effectively taking into account these negative external factors (through energy and "green" taxes, including the costs of environmental measures in the cost of goods and services, quotas for greenhouse gas emissions), it is impossible to fully realize the potential for increasing energy efficiency [30][31][32].
It is advisable to combine measures to improve the energy efficiency of technological processes and equipment with work to improve environmental performance, and conduct energy and environmental audits simultaneously and, if possible, jointly (clause 4.4).On the other hand, one of the ways to practically implement the environmental potential of ES PEE should be the inclusion in regional and other environmental programs of energy-saving measures that ensure a qualitative improvement in the state of the natural environment.
Tightening requirements for enterprises regarding emissions of pollutants into the atmosphere and their discharge into soil and water and a corresponding increase in fines for exceeding their permissible volumes force them to carry out a number of organizational measures: inventory of sources and volumes of pollution; providing information to nature conservation committees; coordination of draft standards for maximum permissible emissions (discharges).
Electric power industry enterprises began to pay great attention to environmental monitoring as the first step towards the implementation of environmental protection measures.At power plants -the main sources of polluting emissions and discharges -monitoring and control is carried out by sanitary-industrial laboratories, which are certified and equipped with all the necessary equipment.If necessary, industry enterprises provide for the deployment of mobile laboratories.Air monitoring services, which are part of industrial sanitary laboratories, carry out air sampling according to a developed schedule and act accordingly.24 hours a day.Enterprises have organized control over compliance with established standards for emissions and discharges of harmful substances, over the rational use of natural resources and the disposal of industrial waste.
A well-functioning dispatch control and management system makes it possible to timely detect and identify the causes of failures in the operation of the power system, take measures to prevent and eliminate emergency situations, preventing unauthorized pollution of the environment.In addition, all production facilities of thermal power plants where accidents with environmental consequences may occur are insured.
A tool for solving these problems should be fullfledged environmental engineering, which is fundamentally different from engineering in other areas of activity, since its goal for the customer (enterprise) is to ensure the required quality of the natural environment and atmospheric air, and not to make a profit at any cost.Therefore, the active participant in the process, in addition to the customer and the contractor, must be the state.It is this that, through organizational, legal and other mechanisms, initiates the process of engineering environmental protection systems, for example, gas purification of atmospheric air.It is necessary to create a state inspection to control gas treatment facilities.And, what is especially important, is economic stimulation of environmental protection activities of industrial enterprises [41][42][43][44].
In recent years, an environmental quality management system has been formed, and international standards ISO 14601:2004 have been introduced [33][34][35].

Conclusion
To implement an environmental program in the field of energy, national programs for reducing negative impacts on the environment are needed, brought to specific installations at specific stations.An important element of such a program should be inter-budgetary relations and rules for financing environmental projects, providing for shared participation of funds from the federal budget and the budgets of constituent entities.This approach is consistent with the environmental doctrine, which states that "...priority for funding at the federal level will be projects focused on structural transformations in the dirtiest industries," which, as noted above, includes thermal energy.
In conclusion, it should be noted that social norms in our country also do not stimulate energy saving and caring attitude towards the environment.International agreements on environmental protection can serve as basic documents for creating a system for stimulating the development and implementation of energy-and environmentally efficient technologies.