Macron and EU leaders launch €2.5bn hydrogen pipeline between Spain and France
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Leaders of France, Spain and Portugal said on Friday that an ambitious underwater pipeline to carry hydrogen from the Iberian Peninsula to the rest of Europe will be completed by 2030 and will cost around 2.5 billion euros.
An underwater pipeline carrying green hydrogen between Spain and France will cost around €2.5 billion, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said on Friday, hoping the European Union would partially finance the project. I added that there is.
The pipeline between Barcelona and Marseille will have a capacity of 2 million tons per year and will be ready by the end of 2010, Sanchez said at the Mediterranean European Union summit in the southeastern Spanish port city of Alicante. said in
“This will be Europe’s first major hydrogen corridor. It was brought about when we accelerated the plan for
“Hydrogen is a game changer in Europe,” said von der Leyen. “We want hydrogen to be a central part of the energy system in the transition to climate neutrality.”
Green hydrogen is made from electrolyzers using renewable energy. Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa said the abundance of sun and wind on the Iberian Peninsula, harnessed for renewable energy, would make hydrogen production competitive.
French President Emmanuel Macron said the pipeline could also be used to send in the reverse direction hydrogen produced in France from nuclear energy, so-called red hydrogen.
“window decoration”
The subsea pipeline was proposed in October as an alternative to the so-called MidCat gas pipeline project across the Pyrenees.
Paris opposed the plan, arguing that two existing pipelines across the Pyrenees Mountains that separate the Iberian Peninsula from France are already underutilized.
Costa said the new underwater pipeline was originally proposed to carry natural gas as well, but is now set to carry only hydrogen to meet EU funding standards.
Some observers are skeptical about H2MED’s chances of success, and Faig Abbasov, director of the shipping program at the Brussels-based NGO Transport & Environment, said it would reduce the political tensions caused by MidCat. That’s why we call H2MED “window dressing”.
“Why should we build an undersea pipeline when we already have an onshore pipeline?” Abbasov said. “Spain would be better off exporting by sea.”
(Reuters)
https://www.rfi.fr/en/france/20221210-macron-eu-leaders-launch-%E2%82%AC2-5billion-hydrogen-pipeline-between-spain-and-france Macron and EU leaders launch €2.5bn hydrogen pipeline between Spain and France
