MadridTeresa Ribera (Madrid, 1969) receives the ARA at the headquarters of the Ministry for Ecological Transition when there is only one day left for Spain, France and Portugal to seal the H2Med (also known as BarMar) agreement, the maritime hydroduct that will connect Barcelona with Marseille. In this legislature, his portfolio had before him to manage the deployment of renewables, but also policies to deal with climate change. His plans, however, have been disrupted by a war and an unprecedented price and energy crisis.
France has announced possible power cuts this winter. Can Spain be calmer?
— The situation in France is very delicate, it has between 35 and 55% of its nuclear park stopped. It is not Spain’s. We do not have a supply problem in any case, but a price problem. The risk is how well or badly our neighbors fare. So also for purely selfish reasons it is in our interest that they do not need us or that they do not generate pressure on the prices of raw energy materials.
The war in Ukraine has given wings to the current energy crisis. What mistakes have been made that cannot be repeated?
— Europe’s big mistake is addiction to cheap fossil fuels, cheap, stable and constant natural gas from Russia. There were warnings that it was worrying, and despite everything, there was no adequate reaction. Today we realize that the economic and social impact is so great that the most important recipe is to find how to break this dependence on fossil fuels and, in the meantime, facilitate a diversification of suppliers. Nor can we help as we could have helped if we were well interconnected.
With the H2Med, the underwater hydroduct that will connect Barcelona to Marseille, have they removed the thorn from the Midcat?
— The two projects have in common the conviction that there must be a much stronger interconnection. It is a European project, not a collaboration between two countries. In this I think we have removed the feeling that at a certain moment there may be a difficulty, due to a national interest, to approach European projects. But the Midcat project was designed for natural gas, now what we are doing is anticipating the next energy revolution. Hydrogen plays an important role in decarbonisation. Transporting hydrogen by pipe is more efficient and this makes us think that we have to build the whole skeleton and ensure that the Iberian Peninsula is not left detached from the rest of Europe, because we have a very high production potential.
What will the infrastructure mean for Barcelona?
— Barcelona ends up being the port of departure for renewable hydrogen from Spain to the European continent.
And what does that mean?
— Investment, jobs, an industrial activity that is associated with the entire energy revolution we are experiencing. Natural gas will continue to be a relevant source in the transition years, but in the medium term we will go from a mixture between natural gas and hydrogen to an increasingly pure solution. If hydrogen makes the qualitative leap it is expected to make, we will need many more professionals, much more variety and much more industrial production.
Europe has had an addiction to cheap fossil fuels”
What are the advantages of hydrogen?
— It is essential to decarbonise the economy. We want to have the equipment to produce it or consume it under safe conditions. We will see if it is produced in Spain and we do not have to import the machinery. We also have to test it and see its uses. We need to develop the regulatory framework and ultimately see how it is best transported. This is where the idea of a network of corridors in Europe arises, among which there is the one that crosses the Iberian Peninsula and reaches the continent via Barcelona.
It was intended to carry natural gas. Do you trust that Europe will finance it?
— Europe finances the projects it considers to be of community interest, in more than one country, as long as certain conditions are met, and one of those that has recently been imposed is that these infrastructures must not be associated with fossil fuels, but to hydrogen. And yes, we think there is a lot of interest [en l’H2Med].
His ministry has taken center stage. With this political climate, of tension, do you work well?
— The question is the opposite. What else could we do if we pooled our efforts instead of devoting some of our energy to responding to denialists, retards, or behaviors that are not always polite or constructive?
A few days ago the president of Madrid, Isabel Diaz Ayuso, went talk about “big scam” in reference to climate change. What do you feel about these statements?
— What saddens me is that statements of this type are not answered by a party [el Popular] who has been in government and aspires to be the alternative.
The war has pushed renewables, such as wind or solar, but there is always a price to pay. Should we assume that it will lead to landscape changes?
— In Spain, Catalonia, Valencia and Castellón… It is absurd to think that this will not be the case. We have a very short memory, we have forgotten what the coal-based energy system represented in quality of life, in human lives even. Today we have alternatives. Of course, they are fixed to the ground, and they can be seen, but they have much less impact from an environmental and social point of view. We must be extraordinarily respectful of the areas that we have considered sanctuaries of our biodiversity, but I think it is naive to think that a modern society can satisfy its energy solutions only from the roofs.
It is naïve to think that a modern society can meet its energy solutions from roof decks alone”
Is it favorable to the fact that the wind turbines are distributed throughout the territory?
— The place where there is a wind resource does not necessarily coincide with the place where there is demand for wind to generate electricity. Nature offers us what it offers us and we have the margin of management that we have, it is not infinite. There must be a tendency to try to balance and sometimes we will not have wind, but we will have sun, biomass or energy from the sea. Our electricity system will be this, it is no longer 20 power stations for the whole of Spain, there are thousands.
Some of the renewable energy projects that depend on your ministry affect Catalonia. This is the case of the Roses marine wind farm, which has also generated social rejection. When will a decision be made?
— It is true that we have had a small delay in the approval of the plans for the management of marine spaces. We think it will be ready at the beginning of the year, around January at the latest. In Catalonia, at Cap de Creus, we have seen how it has generated a controversy that is now more muted. We have worked a lot with the local actors, also with the Generalitat, which has also been changing its position. The small fishing communities have always worked in the short distance from the coastline and without much competition and suddenly there was some tension. It was essential to be able to offer guarantees. At one point we came across letters from the French government telling us where their offshore wind developments would be. This meant that either we agreed on Spain’s role, or the visual impact would be the same, but the benefit would be exclusively for France.
We have had a small delay in the approval of marine space management plans. We think it will be ready at the beginning of the year”
Another of the projects they have on the table is the high voltage line Tarragona – Aragon.
— [El tràmit] it has an environmental impact. It is enormously complicated that this can go ahead, but the outcome cannot be prejudged. They are entitled to the procedural guarantee.
A debate that is still alive in Catalonia is the expansion of El Prat airport. What is your opinion?
— Environmental regulations must be complied with and from here our role is to see if the proposals presented make sense or not.
There was a proposal of Aena .
— What I know is that, for whatever reason, at the local level, it went viral. Our obligation is to ensure that all environmental commitments are respected, and there were a number of conditions that came from before. It is an issue in which the most important thing is social consensus. Obviously, our role is to be there as a visible face in front of the European institutions to ensure that things work well, but it seems to me that the debate has not reached this point yet.
The price of electricity is going up again. What can we expect in the coming months?
— It depends on the price of gas and that is worrying. Fortunately, [amb l’excepció ibèrica] we modulate the impact of the gas price so that we only pay for what we actually consume, while the rest will pay a very high cost, regardless of consumption. We must make it clear that we are not willing to pay any price for this gas. When in September the president of the European Commission announced that we would correct the system and Germany announced that it had full warehouses, the price collapsed. When we have not been able to agree, he has climbed up again. It is essential to make it clear that we will control the price through a regulatory measure, not through subsidies, because there are no public budgets that can subsidize a skyrocketing price and there is no industry or households that can bear such a high price. It needs to be corrected as soon as possible.
Catalonia is very concerned about the drought, and precisely water is the other major resource needed to produce green hydrogen. Where will we get it?
— I would say that they are different subjects. Drought is an extraordinarily sensitive issue, ever more recurrent, and for this reason the entire new cycle of water planning is designed for extreme scenarios, of prolonged drought, torrential rains and floods. But it is a mistake to mix it with the hydrogen debate. In Spain there will not be a water problem. Hydrogen is proposed in the Atacama desert and in Saudi Arabia, because what is more expensive at the moment is the energy to produce hydrolysis [el procés per crear hidrogen]. Solutions can be found.