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EUROPE GOES BACK TO CARBON?

Carbon (coal) goes back to the scene after the war in Ukraine and sanctions from the European Union.



Using Carbon available in Europe is becoming a handy way to delay the entrance of the continent in the recession expected (and coming) due to the situation with Russia in terms of the actual shortage of supply of Energy: Oil and Gas.


The images of trains and ships transporting Carbon to Germany are one of the most curious news that business people can see nowadays, after all the years of talks and debates (in special in Germany) about climate change.


Germany's former Christian Democrat government decided to sleep with Russian provision of energy for its boosting economy and industry, created a diplomatic relation without having an army to answer in case of failure of the empowered counterpart, and decided to innovate at maximum in terms of developing a green economy, free of Carbon, and supposedly free of climate change under investments in technology for renewable energy development.


Now, all that sounds like a broken promise.


The Social Democrats are in power, and they are acting on realistic grounds, going back to Carbon in order to keep the economy working.


The problem is that winter will come soon, and even in the midst of 40 degrees (Celsius) temperatures nowadays, the social unrest is something they do not want to risk, in a socio-political-economic situation where Italy and the UK have had to change their prime minister (all during July 2022), and where Sri Lanka shows like the real failure of the socialist experiment playing with extreme environmentalist green-red policies conducting to famine and the change of government in the hands of the population.


Reports from economic analysts have measured all the countries in an index of vulnerability, and have shown that the case of Sri Lanka is something that most of the countries in poor zones of Africa, Asia, and America should expect: higher temperatures, water shortages, less food, higher prices, social unrest, political instability, violence, human rights violation, and political crises, if not civil war, migration, and a full third world war knocking on the doors of the NATO from Ukraine, and Europe vs Asia.


Assian Russia is playing its cards against European Russia in the middle of this crisis and has activated all the mechanisms that it invested in, during decades from the Kremlin, in order to gain global dominance under an "unlimited" alliance with China against NATO, including a new version of the old Cold War with the USA.


From America, the somewhat naïve position of Germany in that expected game has failed.


Joe Biden seems to want to walk that walk anyway, together with the United Nations that is expected to come into crisis, following the same of the European Union after the Brexit.


The Euro falls to parity with the US Dollar, while the British Pound stibilizes against the Euro after all the losses after the Brexit:


The governance of a Europe that chose a 40-years game of diplomacy, peace, economy, technology, research, investment, and development for managing the crisis shows the mistake that a Germany without army made at the hour of not negotiating well with the UK during the last 5 years:

The UK shows now more resilient than Europe during the last 5 years.


On the other hand, the USA shows more resilient than the UK during the last year.

The Euro has failed: Germany, Italy, France, and other countries' policies for relying on the state and on bureaucracy have failed:


At this moment, Christine Lagarde, European Central Bank President talks about the TPI (Transmission-Protection Instrument) that will lead Europe to exit negative rates and make sure that will create price stability in a moment when she recognizes that food and energy, under war, are the key problem.


Market dynamics will talk during these days over this TPI as a regional monetary policy, but in reality, the ships bringing the old good carbon to the economy of Germany talks better about the reality of the European economy, than what the Central Bank can do.


Is it time to hear more from the markets, the Anglo-Saxon business leaders, and less from the Central Banks, the Ministries of Finance, and the Presidents and Primer Ministers?


Is it time to embrace communities from business and invest directly, with impact, asking the governments to cut taxes?


Here, for that, a proposal that read today would be a solution for Europe, without taking Carbon out of Europe, but using it in Europe...


Please read this quoted article in the light of trading carbon inside Europe instead of taking it abroad...


"OIL REPORT, MAY 15, 2009. 10:07 AM / UPDATED 13 YEARS AGO Shippers eye carbon freight market in Europe

By Jonathan Saul 5 MIN READ * Ships could be short-term solution to CO2 transport * Oil, gas infrastructure a longer term answer in NW Europe"


 

"LONDON, May 15 (Reuters) - Shipping groups are looking into providing vessels capable of transporting carbon dioxide to offshore disposal sites as part of the European Union’s push to curb greenhouse gas emissions, ship industry officials say. Carbon capture and storage (CCS) could keep up to a third of manmade carbon dioxide (CO2) out of the air by trapping and then burying emissions from fossil fuel power plants, analysts say. The EU has an ambition to have up to 12 demonstration plants using CCS by 2015. “In the short term shipping could well be looked at as a way to get CCS off the ground -- particularly for continental EU demonstration projects wishing to utilise distant North Sea storage,” said Malcolm Ricketts, principal carbon analyst with energy consultants Wood Mackenzie. Pipelines already in place to bring oil and gas from the North Sea to Germany, Britain and Norway were a likely longer term solution to transport greenhouse gases the other way. Power stations, industrial sites and municipal buildings participating in the EU’s Emissions Trading Scheme put out about 600 million tonnes of CO2 in 2008. Norwegian shipping group IM Skaugen IMSK.OL said there was commercial scope for the ship industry. “The first CCS projects are very likely to happen in western Europe and the short distance to transportation of waste carbon dioxide will happen towards the North Sea as a kind of centre for this,” said Per Arne Nilsson, VP business development CO2, with IM Skaugen. “There are some ideas that we are aware of where in the short term CO2 that is captured in smaller scale projects -- pilot projects -- could potentially be shipped to storage locations.”

STORAGE POTENTIAL

Nilsson said the group had six ships in its fleet currently used to transport ethylene and other petrochemical gases but were also internationally certified to carry CO2. Four of the vessels are 8,500 cubic metres with two at 10,000 cubic metres. “This is interesting as such because it actually opens in the very short-term to deploy one or two of these ships in early trials,” he said. Units of Danish oil and shipping group A.P. Moller-Maersk MAERSKb.CO are also looking into the commercial potential of CCS. Maersk Tankers is focused on the transportation of CO2, while Maersk Oil is looking into the storage aspect of CCS projects. Christian M. Ingerslev, director of gas with Maersk Tankers, said the two divisions were in talks with utility companies in Europe without giving further details. “If we look at the North Sea alone there are good storage opportunities,” he said. “There seems to be a willingness within the European Union to invest in this and to enforce new rules.” Maersk has estimated that shipping CO2 by tanker from Denmark to the North Sea would cost about $12 per tonne. Maersk has said a ship of 20,000 to 35,000 cubic metres that can hold 25,000 tonnes of CO2 would be best suited for the job. Wood Mackenzie’s Ricketts said the main storage areas in the EU were predominantly offshore, and mainly in the central and northern North Sea via saline aquifers -- which are deeply buried porous sandstones filled with salt water. The UK -- particularly Scotland -- as well Norway had potential to store CO2 in such aquifers while the Netherlands and Germany had smaller potential to store CO2 mainly in depleted gas fields, he added. “Using shipping for transporting CO2 may be initially competitive in terms of capital costs, but in the medium to the longer term if these projects are up and running, pipelines will be more attractive for a full scale CCS network owing to lower operating costs,” he said. The shipping sector contributes about 3 percent of the world’s emissions of CO2, and environmentalists have questioned whether using vessels to ferry emissions is a positive step. David Santillo, senior scientist with Greenpeace research laboratories at the University of Exeter, said: “The very fact that this is going to be shipped around in concentrated form in vessels on a marine environment, which is naturally a very hazardous place, gives additional cause for concern over and above the fact you are dealing with a means of transport which is relatively carbon intensive anyway. Editing by Keiron Henderson"

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