Europe’s energy crisis is rooted in a love of natural gas, and citizens are now paying the price for their dependence on gas supplied by Russia. At the same time, European lawmakers and businesses are looking for alternatives to help the continent meet its climate change goals while keeping homes warm and factories powered.
One answer may lie in a fuel that burns like natural gas but uses hydrogen to help the continent meet its carbon targets. At a proposed hub on Germany’s north coast, Marco Albera plans to supply such gas. It is a clean, affordable synthetic alternative to the fossil fuels that Europe imports in large quantities at high cost.
Over lunch over pizza at his company’s store in the port city of Wilhelmshaven, Alvera, 47, said, “We have the cheapest alternative to oil, gas and coal without changing the way we think about energy.” It’s a method,” he said. A city in northwestern Germany. “We can go to the same ship, the same pipe, the same factory.”
Hydrogen, an emission-free fuel made from water, is prominently featured in plans to run factories, power planes and heat homes in the future, and the European energy crisis is a concern of its own. However, the electrical process for producing hydrogen gas usually produces large amounts of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas. Hydrogen can be produced cleanly using renewable electricity, but has been too expensive to date.
Alverà and his company, Tree Energy Solutions (TES), are developing synthetic “green” methane (the main component of natural gas) from hydrogen made using renewable energy and carbon dioxide produced as a by-product. I’m trying to overcome these issues by generating a of different manufacturing processes. This fuel can be used where natural gas is used, but emits less greenhouse gases. And it’s not from Russia.
To minimize the cost of producing clean hydrogen, the company has signed contracts to use huge solar power plants in sun-drenched parts of the world like the Persian Gulf and in hydro-rich areas. tied. The gas can be liquefied and transported in tankers like liquefied natural gas.
The plan is ambitious and faces environmental and technical obstacles. However, it has recently secured serious support from the German government, signing a contract with TES to help build and operate a floating liquefied natural gas terminal in Wilhelmshaven. It’s his fifth terminal approved in recent months as MPs race to find an alternative to Russian gas.
Ultimately, this floating unit will be replaced by a permanent facility built with an initial investment of €1.5 billion (approximately $1.5 billion). The terminal can handle conventional liquefied natural gas as well as Alverà’s green gas, with the capacity to capture his 10% of the energy needs of Europe’s largest economy.
TES Is Attracting Investors, Announced Funding In July €65 million At the second fundraiser. Part of the appeal is that Germany and Europe will need to import alternatives to Russian gas and other fuels that they are phasing out due to climate change and geopolitical concerns.
Governments in Europe and elsewhere are preparing to commit significant sums of money to support hydrogen, although it is not clear how it will be produced, transported or used. Some say Arbella’s plan points the way.
Patrick Lammers, Chief Operating Officer of Germany’s leading utility company E.ON, said:
There are several reasons why E.ON is putting some of its chips into Alverà’s project, including Wilhelmshaven’s promise as a route of entry into Germany’s industrial heartland. Lammers said TES offers a fuel that is “very similar in technology” to liquefied natural gas, so it won’t need much adjustment.
The initiative was boosted on Wednesday when Fortescue Future Industries, managed by Australian mining tycoon Andrew Forrest, who turned green energy advocate, invested €130 million for TES and the Wilhelmshaven terminal. said to invest. The companies have agreed to develop a facility in an as-yet-unnamed location that will provide enough hydrogen to power over a million homes.
Mark Hutchinson, CEO of the Australian company, said:
The TES approach requires little adaptation by heavy industrial users of natural gas. The fuel can be transported by existing ships and pipelines and can utilize existing multi-billion dollar gas liquefaction plants. Companies are reluctant to build more of these plants despite pressure to find alternatives to Russian gas.
The proposal may also allay concerns among green voters in the German government that the energy crisis has derailed efforts to reach ambitious climate goals.
“Importing liquefied natural gas will reduce Russia’s reliance on imported pipeline gas,” German Minister of Economy and Climate Change Robert Habeck said in a statement. “At the same time, we are accelerating the import of green hydrogen.”
Majid Kübler, managing director of Berlin energy consultancy Team Consult, said the deal for LNG imports would give Arbela’s group a “special window”. Then you are in the game. After that, you can access administration to discuss other projects.
Until this year, Alverà was CEO of Italian gas transport company Snam. In that role, he was responsible for several of Italy’s major energy installations, including his LNG terminal, and was keen to replace natural gas with hydrogen while maintaining the existing gas his pipelines and infrastructure. advocated.
Alverà plans to build a vast and circular industrial ecosystem. His venture will collect carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, from emissions-emitting power plants and factories in Germany, pipe it to Wilhelmshaven, and ship it to countries that can produce green hydrogen cheaply. It was something. There, carbon dioxide is converted to methane and fused with hydrogen. It is then cooled to a liquid like liquefied natural gas and exported to Europe and other places that need energy.
Synthetic fuels are already made this way. Kiwi, a company in the rural town of Welte, about two hours south of Wilhelmshaven, mixes carbon dioxide from agricultural waste with hydrogen to produce enough methane to heat about 800 homes. to generate Kiwi founder Hermann Pengg believes Alverà thinks that significantly scaling up this kind of process may ultimately make economic sense, but it’s too much. He said doing it too quickly would increase the risk.
Some producers of large amounts of carbon dioxide, such as cement and fertilizer makers, say they are intrigued. These companies are under pressure to cut their emissions or face higher carbon taxes. At the same time, they want to make changes with minimal disruption to existing processes.
What TES proposes is “one of the very few concepts that promises that large natural gas consumers will avoid greenhouse gas emissions in the future,” says Lutherstadt. said Matthias Misling, technology business manager at SKW, which manufactures chemicals for Wittenberg, southwest of Berlin.
Around 2025, Alverà said the first liquefied fuel made at least partly with hydrogen could be brought in at a cost of €100 per megawatt hour. This is about 40% lower than the current futures price for natural gas in Europe, but higher than the current pre-crisis normal price for gas.
If customers choose, they can also receive pure hydrogen separated from imported green gas. Some major industrial users, such as ArcelorMittal’s steel plant in the port of Hamburg, plan to switch from natural gas to hydrogen to reduce emissions.
Environmentalists are skeptical that natural gas can be green.
“In my opinion, even the name Tree Energy Solutions is like greenwashing,” said Stefanie Eilers, head of the local chapter of German conservation group NABU.
The site in Wilhelmshaven, where TES will build the gas treatment facility, is located in a protected area rated as a bird habitat. The company suggests acquiring new habitat elsewhere in the area to address this issue.
“It’s never a good idea to replace one good area with another,” said Aylers. So far, however, German environmental groups have been reluctant to thwart government efforts to address what is widely considered a national energy emergency.
There are other questions about Mr. Arbella’s plan. He said he was concerned about the availability of electrolysers (devices that separate hydrogen from water) and solar panels to meet his needs.
He’s also shy about where hydrogen and synthetic methane will be made, but a deal with Fortescue is starting to solve this problem. He mentions countries such as Egypt, Oman and the United Arab Emirates, which are rich in sun-drenched desert areas, but which can involve difficult politics that can increase costs and risks.
The key, he said, is to be location agnostic. “The sun is everywhere,” he said.
Melissa Eddy contributed to the report.