LAV Magazin 2021

Net Zero Carbon Nachhaltige Logistik vorantreiben Mit unserem Net Zero Carbon-Programm ermöglichen wir eine CO2-Reduktion bei Trans- port- und Logistikdienstleistungen weltweit. Als ein global führender Logistikdienstleister und Pionier in Sachen Umweltschutz haben wir uns verpflichtet, die Dekarbonisierung in un- serem Unternehmen für unsere Kunden und letztlich zugunsten unserer Umwelt und unseres Planeten, voranzutreiben. Erfahren Sie mehr unter: → de.kuehne-nagel.com in the electricity sector in 2019 alone. Denying the use of natural gas as part of climate friendly bridge technology to achieve the energy transition puts the industrial locations at risk: In Ger- many, the amount of industrial elec- tricity generated from natural gas has almost doubled in the last ten years. Thus, the energy transition there can only succeed if it considers the triad of security of supply, competitiveness (of industry) and social acceptance (for private households). The last point is even more vital to many countries in Latin America, where large portions of the daily basic energy supply heavily depend on natural gas. Being clean is what matters All of us from the business and politics sphere, we must collaborate: As CEO of the leading independent European gas and oil company I assure you, that we want to make an important contri- bution to decarbonising the European continent and will do so in all the re- gions, we operate in. On this matter, we are committed to the European climate targets and have presented an ambitious programme to reduce our emissions. During the next ten years, Wintershall Dea intends to invest around € 400 million in reducing and offsetting greenhouse gas emissions. Our company aims to achieve net zero operations by 2030. Strict emissions management (e.g., increasing energy efficiency) shall be pursued further. This will be complemented by in- vestments in nature-based mitigation solutions, like forest protection and re- forestation, as well as the development and use of new mitigation technolo- gies. These include technology neutral approaches to support hydrogen gen- erated from both renewable sources and natural gas and carbon capture storage projects (CCS). Various international studies in recent months have shown that CCS is vital if we want to achieve our climate tar- gets. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, for example, made it clear that the target for limiting global warming can only be achieved using CCS. This technology enables unavoidable emissions from industry (the steel, chemicals, or cement sec- tor) to be reliably captured and stored long term. We as Wintershall Dea re- cently kicked off a joint pilot project in Denmark aiming at demonstrating that CO2 can be injected into offshore reservoirs in a cost-effective and envi- ronmentally safe manner. All member of the consortium involved believe that the project may in future be able to safely store up to a quarter of all Danish emission. Hydrogen is a low-carbon intensive energy carrier of the near future. This element has the potential to put the energy transition back on track. How- ever, we must quickly establish a resil- ient market to unlock this potential. For this, it is not crucial how hydrogen is obtained. Being clean is what mat- ters – it must be produced in a climate neutral manner. While hydrogen produced from re- newables is currently neither compet- itive nor available in sufficient quan- tities, hydrogen from natural gas can help to quickly establish a market for hydrogen. For this to happen, policy- makers must set the right course now. We need a technology neutral energy policy that does not rashly exclude any potential. Therefore, Wintershall Dea and ener- gy company VNG AG will cooperate more closely in the field of hydrogen in the future and are planning to build a facility to produce climate-friend- ly ‘turquoise’ hydrogen as a first step. In the methane pyrolysis process, the natural gas is split into hydrogen and solid carbon at high temperatures. The hydrogen can then be used as a decar- bonised energy source. The solid car- bon, on the other hand, can be used as a valuable raw material in industry, for example in the construction industry. These are just a few ideas on what could be possible today. The energy transition as part of the global climate goals is a long-term project, to be rath- er achieved sooner than later. On the other hand, as I mentioned above, the energy transition worldwide can only succeed if we assure the triad of se- curity of supply, competitiveness, and social acceptance and I believe natural gas can deliver all of that. It can reli- Mario Mehren CEO of Wintershall Dea ably kick-start our economies after the pandemic, help the industry become greener and reduce its emissions and could on the long run provide hydro- gen as a decarbonised energy source. 40 Wintershall Dea