New route between Barcelona and Marseille and it will be capable of transporting first gas and hydrogen in the future.
Translation in the comments.
New route between Barcelona and Marseille and it will be capable of transporting first gas and hydrogen in the future.
Translation in the comments.
6 comments
Spain, France and Portugal have decided to bury the MidCat gas pipeline project, which Paris fiercely opposed, and have committed to offer a “greener” alternative that will pass through Barcelona to Marseille. The new project, a “green energy corridor”, was agreed at the meeting held in Brussels on Thursday between the Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, the French Prime Minister, Emmanuel Macron, and the Portuguese Prime Minister, Antonio Costa.
“We have reached the agreement to replace the MidCat project with a new project that is going to be called the green energy corridor and that is going to link the Iberian Peninsula to France and, therefore, the European energy market,” announced Sánchez as he entered the summit of European heads of state and government.
As he explained, a “green hydrogen pipeline” will be built between Barcelona and Marseille, although, in view of the energy crisis underway, it will also be able to transport, in a “transition” period, the gas needed by the European energy market.
Although until recently Sanchez was still betting on MidCat as the main proposal for energy interconnection, the head of the Spanish government has celebrated the agreement with Paris and Lisbon as “very good news” both for the three countries involved and, above all, he said, for Europe. “We are making an exercise of solidarity, of solidarity commitment with the rest of Europe and that solidarity is consistent with our commitment to the green energy transition, to the ecological transition,” he said.
On MidCat, Macron has shown unbeatable resistance to all kinds of pressure, including that of the other major European powerhouse, Germany. Although at the Prague summit two weeks ago, great expectations were raised in the Spanish delegation for the meeting, since it was Macron himself who proposed the tripartite meeting and raised that it should be in Paris, something that has finally been discarded, the Elysée had since been in charge of stifling expectations that Macron could change his mind on his frontal opposition to MidCat.
“Our position on the MidCat is constant, it has not changed and resides on the realization that this project does not present economic and environmental feasibility as far as we are concerned,” settled sources of the French presidency on the eve of the meeting. “We know that the prospects of the MidCat project are for five or six years, which contributes nothing to energy security, neither for France, nor for the Iberian Peninsula, nor for Europe in the short term,” insisted the Elysée. It was also significant in this respect that Germany was not invited to the meeting in Brussels prior to the European meeting at which, in the end, a new gas pipeline was chosen.
Literally greenwashing, any gas pipeline can transport hydrogen if properly modified. It looks like Germany won. Good.
Perfect! France can import cheaper renewable energy from Spain and Portugal and export mor expensive nuclear based electricity to the rest of Europe.
It’s a win – win. France wins and also France wins!
Hydrogen is very niche when it comes to energy applications. For transportation, they could work out economically if the vehicles are expected to be used continuously with a priority on minimizing downtime. More so if vehicles change drivers after shifts. The advantage tilts further in favour of fuel cell vehicles if we are talking about heavy duty vehicles in addition to the above requirements. Heavy duty vehicles here meaning where the battery-electric counterpart would need battery packs in the hundreds of kWh each.
For battery-electric vehicles to compete in these niches, they would need big vehicles with big batteries that could recover enough range in minutes. This may require such vehicles to have even bigger batteries or have the batteries be of a technology that allows 80% recharge in 10 minutes at most. These would ned to be paired with Megachargers with charging power exceeding 1 MW. While these do exist, they are in the early phases of being rolled out. Furthermore, it’s not clear how much these MW charging stalls cost per kW of charging capacity. The grid infrastructure costs also need to be factored in.
As far as electricity generation goes, green hydrogen could work as peaking power plants that operate around 1% of the time annually [like with Distillate power plants in South Australia](https://opennem.org.au/facility/au/NEM/PORTLCN/?range=1y&interval=1d), commanding prices of over EUR 511/MWh (Equivalent to AUD 800/MWh).
I also hear about fuel cell trains but I don’t really understand any specifics on what may give them the edge over simple electrification.
Barcelona/Marseille is a compromise between Midcat and Barcelona/Italy basically.
It already makes more sense if you consider the existing interconnections in the Pyrenees, which were not at full capacity anyway, and the existence of steel mills and heavy industry around Marseille.
Nevertheless, I still don’t see the French interest in it, since it is expected that we will decrease our gas consumption.
Inshallah it’ll get shot down later.