A letter from the Greens to the EU Parliament asks France, Germany and Italy to stop funding the Russian Arctic LNG2 pipeline in Siberia. An energy match (because it uses fossil fuels) but also geopolitics (looking at Baerbock). Meanwhile, the hydrogen race continues between Washington, Berlin and Rome
There is mail for Mario Draghi. The European Greens are counting on Italy to stop the construction of the Arctic Lng2, the $ 21 billion Russian gas pipeline built by Novatek off the Yamal Peninsula, in Siberia, which from 2025 will produce and export around 20 million to Asia and Europe. tons of liquefied natural gas per year.
In a letter addressed to the Prime Minister, to the Minister of Ecological Transition Roberto Cingolani and to the Minister of Economy Daniele Franco, together with the leaders of the French and German governments, the Greens group in the European Parliament, including its four Italian MEPs (the former Cinque Stelle Corrao, Pedicini, Evi, D’Amato), invites Palazzo Chigi to “refuse to support this project and to identify a new standard by putting an end to any export guarantee for fossil fuels before COP26 ”.
Behind the pipeline in the Arctic is a consortium of companies led by Novatek and made up of the Japanese Mitsui and Jogmec and the Chinese CNPC and CNOOC. Italy is a party to the project that will allow the Russian government to extend its dominance of the energy market to the liquefied gas sector. On 19 December 2018, in the presence of Giuseppe Conte and the then Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Economic Development Luigi Di Maio, the representatives of Novatek signed an agreement at Palazzo Chigi with Saren, Sace and the historic Florentine foundry Nuovo Pignone for a total of approximately 2.7 billion euros.
Undeniable press sources reported on an ongoing investigation by Sace, a joint-stock company of the Cassa Depositi e Prestiti group, for the issue of a guarantee of approximately one billion euros in favor of the companies involved in the project, such as Saipem, and banks that could be interested in financing it, such as Intesa San Paolo.
There are two criticisms leveled by the Greens on the Russian gas pipeline. The first looks to the environmental side. Extractive activities and the production cycle of liquefied gas often have negative impacts on the environment and on global warming, not to mention possible losses due to accidents. “This project will produce 19.8 million tons of LNG every year, and this so-called” natural gas “is a source of important carbon emissions with methane spills along the entire production chain”. A reality that, the Greens accuse, goes in the opposite direction to the EU’s (and Italy’s) efforts to drastically cut CO2 emissions by 2030 and reduce them to zero by 2050.
The second critical face concerns safety. One fifth of Arctic Lng2 gas will be destined for the European energy market, accentuating its dependence on Russian supplies. And Russia “has shown many times to be an unreliable and politically problematic supplier, especially in recent months”.
The letter confirms the Greens’ great skepticism towards Russia’s Vladimir Putin, already openly expressed for a much more important game of European energy geopolitics, the one that surrounds the Russian gas pipeline to Germany North Stream II, which in the past ended up under American sanctions.
In a recent interview with Formiche.net the president of the EU Greens Will Keller he said that the pipeline “must be stopped” because it was built “with the aim of damaging and isolating Ukraine and Poland”. The political knot is not trivial, because in September with the elections for the chancellorship, Germany is preparing to enter the post-Merkel era and the polls favor the Grünen candidate Annalena Baerbock, very strict with Russia and its quasi-monopoly in the energy market in Europe.
Nobody misses the (geo) political game that lies behind the debate on the green transition and the use that must be made of the 700 billion euros of the Recovery Fund. In fact, if Russian primacy in the Old Continent over fuel gases is now irreversible, a new global competition has opened up over hydrogen that sees the United States, and the EU itself, in full swing.
In July 2020, the European Commission published the “Hydrogen Strategy” with the aim of producing “up to 10 million tons of renewable hydrogen” by 2030. At the same time, investments in hydrogen are at the heart of the $ 2 trillion renewable energy plan announced by the US president Joe Biden since the beginning of the electoral campaign with the promise of zero emissions by 2050. “Hydrogen is a huge opportunity” for the oil sector, the Secretary of Energy said on Saturday Jennifer Granholm. But the trend is global: large groups in the Russian and Chinese energy sector such as Rosatom and Sinopec are already starting green hydrogen projects.
Europe is also on the map. It is news of these hours that Germany has launched 62 projects for a total of 8 billion euros within the Ipcei hydrogen, launched by the European Commission at the end of 2020. The plans range from the inauguration of new plants to the construction of gas pipelines and should activate 33 billion euros in investments.
In Italy, the Ipcei are coordinated by Enea and among the national companies ready to take the field for the IPCEI are Eni, Snam, Tenaris, Edison and Fincantieri. The dossier is on the desk of the Minister of Economic Development Giancarlo Giorgetti, who discussed it in a recent meeting in Via Molise with the French finance minister Bruno the Mayor. On that occasion, the number one of Palazzo Bercy had defined the IPCEI on hydrogen as one of the “four pillars” of European strategic autonomy.