Source: Energy & Management Powernews, August 12, 2022
At his summer press conference in Berlin on August 11, Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) pleaded for the construction of a gas pipeline from the Iberian Peninsula via France to Central Europe.
For a well-connected European gas network, a pipeline from the Iberian Peninsula to Central Europe would be useful to make liquefied natural gas (LNG) landed in ports available. "Such a pipeline should have been built and is now missing," said German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) at his summer press conference in Berlin. He had therefore already campaigned with his colleagues in Spain, Portugal and France, as well as with EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, to tackle such a project.
The MidCat project for a gas pipeline from Spain to southern France was stopped a few years ago because it was considered uneconomical at the time, partly because of cheaper natural gas from Russia. In view of the Russian war of aggression on Ukraine, however, the pipeline could now help make Europe less dependent on Russian gas. There were still 226 kilometers to go from Hostalric in Catalonia across the Pyrenees to Barbaira in France. However, the construction time would be at least two years, Scholz explained. Spain wants the EU to finance the construction.
To date, there are only two smaller gas pipelines from Spain across the Pyrenees to the north with a total capacity of 8 billion cubic meters per year. By contrast, the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which has not been put into operation because of the war, would have a capacity of 55 billion cubic meters of natural gas alone. Scholz objected to the suggestion that such infrastructure only solidifies dependence on fossil fuels. "In the future, terminals and pipelines created for the import of LNG can be used for the import of hydrogen," the chancellor argued.
Use pipeline later for hydrogen
Hydrogen will become an important raw material for industrial production and industrial processes in the future, he said, and should be produced in part on a large scale in non-European countries with high production from renewable electricity for Europe and Germany.
Such renewably produced hydrogen is seen as the energy carrier of the climate-neutral future, especially for industry and heavy-duty transport, and as a storage medium for times of high electricity yield from the sun and wind. To achieve the goal of a climate-neutral economy, Germany is therefore massively expanding its renewable power generation capacity in the future. The chancellor expects electricity demand to rise from 600 billion kWh today to 800 billion kWh by 2030 and 1.6 trillion kWh by 2050.
Author: Susanne Harmsen
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