According to minister for ecological transition Cingolani, energy security depends on the regasification terminals in Piombino and Ravenna. But at what cost?
Update of 25 October. The Tuscany Region has voted to grant authorisation for the Piombino regasification terminal. "I have just signed the authorisation for the installation of the regasification terminal in the port of Piombino. The realisation of this major project means that 60 million Italians will be able to lower their bills and receive gas without depending on Russia," explained the president of the Tuscany Region, and commissioner for the project's implementation, Eugenio Giani.
The authorisation is tied to a memorandum consisting of 10 points, including funding to complete the port infrastructure both for the regasification terminal's quay and for local activities such as fishing, fish farming and tourism; concessions of at least 50% on energy bills for businesses and families residing in the municipalities included in the complex industrial crisis area of Piombino; funding of 200 million euros for the removal and management of the so-called ex-steelworks waste heaps stockpiled in the public areas of the SIN (outside the perimeter of the JSW Steel Group); funding of 100 million euros for the renewable energy park for Piombino and the Val di Cornia, connected to both photovoltaic and wind installations. The mayor of Piombino, Francesco Ferrari, of Fratelli d'Italia but opposed to the project, has announced that he will appeal to the TAR.
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National security depends on two regasification terminals. In the week that effectively closes his tenure as minister for ecological transition, Roberto Cingolani has taken stock of Italy's energy supply capacity, and after explaining that for the winter of 2023 we should be in good shape, he announces that for the near future we cannot feel equally at ease. Unless, that is, there is an acceleration in the regasification of liquefied natural gas (LNG) arriving from the United States. "All other countries are doing something similar, everyone is shifting the focus towards LNG," says Cingolani, speaking at the Green Talks di Rcs Academy. Repower EU towards the energy union. "It is extremely urgent that from the beginning of next year there is at least the first regasification terminal, the one in Piombino with a capacity of 5 billion cubic metres, and by the beginning of 2024 the second."
First of all, what is a regasification terminal. It is a facility capable of converting liquefied natural gas (LNG) back into gas through a multi-stage process: the liquefied gas is transported in ships at a temperature of -162°C, necessary to maintain its liquid state, and is then reconverted into gas through a controlled heating process carried out inside a vaporiser. The heating occurs by passing the liquefied natural gas through pipes submerged in seawater, which is at a higher temperature. This is why the facilities are located on the coast or at sea a short distance from the shore (offshore platforms).
To date, Italy has replaced the 29 billion cubic metres per year of gas it used to source from Russia with 18 billion cubic metres of gas from other countries, through recourse to renewables and by running coal-fired power stations at full capacity. There is still a shortfall of 11 billion cubic metres, which would be almost entirely covered by two new facilities: in practice two ships, already purchased by Snam (the leading European operator in the transport and storage of natural gas) to be positioned off the coasts of Piombino and Ravenna and decommissioned after 3 years. In addition, of course, to the three facilities already in operation at Panigaglia, in the province of La Spezia, in the waters of Porto Viro, in the province of Rovigo, and off the coast of Livorno. But then why do many people, especially environmentalists and associations from the affected areas, not want these ships?
The most striking case is that of Piombino, where the first of the two new regasification terminals is to be located. According to the four local committees that have formed against the project and have also launched a petition on Change.org, there are issues significant enough that they cannot be accepted. Indeed, "the possible risks are many: hundreds of thousands of cubic metres of liquefied gas which, upon returning to its gaseous state, increases in volume by up to 600 times."
Furthermore, the ship "will have an inevitable impact on the environment: the heat exchange at the heart of the regasification process involves the use of seawater, which will result in the discharge into the sea of large quantities of cold chlorinated water and foam in a gulf with poor current circulation, with consequences for the ecosystem and marine fauna." Finally, "we wonder what the safety buffer could be for the port of Piombino, given the heavy maritime traffic and the proximity of the quay to the mainland."
But that is not all. The authorities would in fact like to carry out the project without conducting the customary environmental impact assessment, which is carried out in advance of every project, on grounds of urgency. Furthermore, the committees explain, the LNG tankers that come alongside the regasification ships could interfere with tourist traffic, such as the Elba ferry. And lastly, the regasification terminal could interfere with fish-farming activities.
Then there is the economic question. And the geopolitical one. And the environmental one. As the Istituto per gli studi di politica internazionale recalls, Europe from an energy standpoint is increasingly shifting its dependency from Russia to the United States, from which a large share of the liquefied gas comes and will continue to come: the agreement signed between the European Commission and the White House stipulates that Europe will purchase at least 50 billion cubic metres per year until 2030.
But apart from the fact that the US has been accused of extracting its gas in Alaska using fracking (the controversial practice of drilling into the ground to reach natural gas deposits, accused of polluting groundwater and triggering earth tremors), the greater reliability of the new partner also comes with a higher price.
Owing to the double conversion process from gaseous to liquid state and then back from liquid to gaseous, and to transport by ship, LNG costs far more than Russian gas. In December 2021, before the gas bubble burst, the price of American LNG was 415.3 dollars per thousand cubic metres of gas, that is 34.4 euros per megawatt-hour; that of the gas supplied by Gazprom through pipelines was 273 dollars, i.e. 22 euros per megawatt-hour. Could this be why Eni chief executive Claudio Descalzi, also yesterday, said that "the winter of 2023–2024 will be the most expensive"? So, given the necessity of breaking free from the dangerous dependency on Russia, why not invest instead in renewables?
Also because the cost is not only economic — there is also an environmental one: according to a report conducted by the Carbon 4 research centre on French energy supply in 2019, the carbon footprint of LNG proved to be 2.5 times higher than that of gas transported by pipeline. There is nothing to suggest that the impact in Italy could be any lower. Not to mention that liquefied natural gas, in terms of its impact on the climate, is not much better than coal.
Yet, despite the protest demonstrations (the most recent on 9 October in Piombino), the project is pressing ahead: on 13 October an important meeting was held
between all the relevant ministries (ecological transition, economic development, infrastructure), the Istituto superiore di Sanità, the Ministry of Economic Development, Ispra together with the Soprintendenza archeologica belle arti e paesaggio delle province di Pisa e Livorno, the basin authority and the Livorno customs office.
Then on 21 October the final meeting of the services conference took place, and finally by the 27th Eugenio Giani, simultaneously president of the Tuscany Region and commissioner for the regasification terminal, will have to issue the final opinion on the project. "I think that morally it is the Italians paying ever more exorbitant bills who are asking us to do this," said Giani yesterday, following Cingolani's remarks, "businesses facing growing difficulties amid the energy crisis we are living through, and in general the common sense understanding that Italy too must achieve ever greater self-sufficiency, and the two regasification vessels at Ravenna and Piombino. We all realise how important it is to be able to activate them as soon as possible." The conclusion, then, appears to be a foregone one.
