«I have the feeling that we are failing in energy policy. We have to decarbonize with technology but not with ideology. And from a humble position I don’t know what the path is, but we have to rethink it because the results are not good. We have to be very ambitious in decarbonisation but without forgetting the security of supply”, Josu Jon Imaz pointed out this Thursday. The CEO of Repsol made these statements during a conference he gave today at the Bizkaia Technology Park, as part of the celebration of the 40th anniversary of the creation of Sprilur, the Basque Government company dedicated to promoting of industrial land.
“We forgot that energy had to be cheap. And in decarbonization we are also failing because CO2 emissions have dropped because we are exporting industry to other countries. And we do not count these emissions”, he pointed out to describe as “hypocritical” a strategy that involves moving polluting emissions from place.
safety and price
The chief executive of the multinational oil company has called attention to the need to “bet on security of supply and that is why the Basque Country made a very strong commitment to gas. Also for sustainability and for a cost that the population can pay. We have forgotten about security of supply, also about price, and we have been concerned only with decarbonization. We cannot make a transition for the rich. We have created dependence on Russia, we burn more coal than ever », he said. He also lacks security regarding what is going to happen in the short and medium term and believes that there is excess uncertainty “because there comes a time, with some political statements, that people do not know what car they have to buy.”
“We have to make a bet on synthetic fuels and we are lucky that one of the pioneering projects is in Bizkaia,” he pointed out, regarding one of the bets that Repsol has made and that is beginning to have a place on the scene. . The European Commission has already telegraphed its willingness to accept a proposal promoted by Germany and Italy to allow certain combustion engines to survive in the car industry after 2035. Initially, they only wanted to authorize the electric motor from that year, but the EU has opened the door to use synthetic fuels. That is, fuels that use CO2 captured from the atmosphere or from industrial processes that is mixed with hydrogen. If the production of hydrogen is carried out with electricity from a renewable source, the product is carbon neutral, since it absorbs the same that it will later release in its combustion.
The Repsol group has decided to set up an experimental plant for the production of synthetic fuels in its Basque subsidiary Petronor, to which it will allocate just over 100 million euros. The objective is to scale this experience to production levels within a few years, after developing the necessary technology to make the production of this type of fuel competitive, called to replace current gasoline and diesel.
Bet on Petronor
Along these lines, Imaz has welcomed the position of the Italian and German governments “and also the Basque government with its support for the automobile industry”, because, it has indicated, it may allow rationality to be introduced into the transition process. “No one in the United States would dream of banning the combustion engine, although they are making a strong commitment to the hydrogen industry and renewable generation,” he said to highlight that “many companies are thinking of reinforcing our investments in that country . Despite this, he has guaranteed that Repsol will maintain its commitment to investing in Petronor and especially in the use of new technologies that are moving towards emission neutrality.
«The industry is what has allowed us to have a welfare society with the current one and we want our children and grandchildren to have it too. Much has been theorized about the disappearance of the industry to move to the GDP of services. But that is not modern society. Germany, Korea or the Czech Republic have increased their industrial GDP”, Imaz assured in defense of maintaining the commitment to the industry. “It is what allows us to have quality and well-paid jobs,” he recalled.
He has also called for the “social recognition of the entrepreneur” because it is the key to the creation of companies and with it employment. “I know that we are living in difficult times and some populist governments try to put a shield between themselves and inflation and divert attention to businessmen. It is dangerous », he has pointed out.
Imaz has been in favor of discriminating in the taxation of companies “so as not to treat those who invest and those who do not, or those who are committed to sustainability and those who do not, in the same way.”