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ENERGY

Storm at Baltic beauty spot over Germany’s gas plans

Melanie Schmid grows walnuts and keeps sheep at her organic farm by the cliff's edge above the port of Mukran on the German island of Ruegen in the Baltic Sea.

Published: 11 June 2023 09:31 CEST
Storm at Baltic beauty spot over Germany's gas plans
Setting sun colors the sky over the port of the small coastal village of Thiessow on the Baltic Sea island of Rügen. Photo: Christof STACHE/AFP.

The view across the bay to the resort town of Binz brought her here, but Germany’s plan to park two ships at the port for the import of liquefied natural gas may drive her away from the popular beauty spot.

To replace lost Russian supplies, the German government has been frantically installing LNG terminals along its coast. Over the last months, Berlin has inaugurated several with fanfare, and is planning for Mukran to be the next.

Berlin sees the new terminal as insurance against the risk of a potential gas shortage but residents remain unconvinced.

Due to the thrum of machines turning LNG back into gas, 59-year-old Schmid says she fears she “simply won’t be able to sleep here anymore”.

Noise pollution is however only one concern for the organic farmer, who has joined a campaign to stop the project that brings together environmental groups and local politicians worried about the effect on the destination’s health and prosperity.

“Are there not other locations on the Baltic coast or the North Sea that would have less of an impact on nature, on people, on tourism as the island of Ruegen?” Binz mayor Karsten Schneider tells AFP.

‘Security buffer’

Piled up next to the port, the pipes that would connect Mukran to the gas network are leftovers from the construction of Nord Stream 2.

The controversial pipeline, which would have relayed gas from Russia to Germany, was mysteriously sabotaged last year before it was ever put into use.

Approval for the energy link was blocked by Berlin amid tensions over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, while Moscow slowly dwindled gas deliveries to Europe, plunging the continent into an energy crisis.

To make up for the drop in Russian supplies, Germany quickly began to develop the capacity to import LNG.

Government-backed floating terminals are already in operation in ports on the North and Baltic Seas, with a total of five planned — including in Mukran.

The drastic expansion is a necessary “security buffer” and a safeguard against the risk of import drops “due to accidents, sabotage or other exogenous events”, according to the economy ministry.

To placate residents, Economy Minister Robert Habeck travelled to Ruegen in May for discussions, following which he agreed to almost halve the capacity of the terminal at the site.

A swift decision must be made on the site if LNG is to arrive via Ruegen in the winter, he wrote in a letter in May to the region’s economy minister following the visit. But after Germany steered clear of its worst-case shortage scenario earlier this year, locals are questioning whether the Mukran installation is really necessary.

“It really looks like we will get through the next winter without any big problems,” says Binz mayor Schneider.

Local challenge

Unmoved by the government’s arguments, resistance continue to build up. Residents have petitioned parliament, while the local government has filed an injunction against the terminal’s accelerated planning approval.

Arguments for surplus capacity are “incomprehensible and not at all acceptable”, says Thomas Kunstmann, 64, one of the organisers behind the local campaign group “Liveable Ruegen”.

Opponents of the planned terminal are concerned about the environmental impact of building new gas infrastructure.

“Most of us are against LNG because it is a fossil fuel that is harmful to the climate,” says Kunstmann.

Concerns for nature abound, too. A new pipeline around the island could likewise disrupt wildlife, running straight through spawning grounds for herring, Kunstmann says. “An industrial port simply does not belong here.”

The area’s natural bounty is why Binz attracts so many tourists. Increased shipping traffic and noise disruption “doesn’t fit with the reasons why people come here on holiday”, says the resort’s tourism director Kai Gardeja.

Already gas import vessels are anchored just off the coast and in sight of the beachfront.

The sight of the new terminal across the bay could “scare some tourists away”, says 25-year-old Kai Birkholz from Mannheim, out for a walk on the Binz pier.

Other visitors are less troubled. Pensioner Manfred Steiner, 88, says he would come again. “It’s just tremendous here.”

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ENERGY

In climate push, German chemical maker swaps oil for sugar

At one of Europe's largest chemical complexes, German group Covestro is trialling the manufacture of a key product using sugar as a base material instead of oil, as the industry seeks to reduce its carbon footprint.

Published: 10 March 2024 13:02 CET
In climate push, German chemical maker swaps oil for sugar

The pilot project involves producing “aniline”, a chemical used in making foams — used widely in mattresses and armchairs, as well as building insulation.

While large-scale, commercial production is probably years away, the experiment marks a small step in the chemical industry’s battle to slash carbon emissions as Earth faces a dire climate emergency.

Of the 100 million barrels of oil produced worldwide every day, “a quarter goes directly into the chemical industry,” said Walter Leitner, from Aachen University, which has been involved in the aniline project for a decade. “The chemical industry needs to be completely rebuilt.”

Plastics manufacturer Covestro — a former division of chemical giant Bayer — started trials at its complex in the western city of Leverkusen at the end
of 2023, after laboratory tests.

In a 100-square-metre (1,080-square-foot) room, aniline, a transparent fluid, is extracted from a 600-metre network of intertwined pipes.

Using a process developed by University of Stuttgart researchers, fermented sugar is treated with chemicals to make the product. Aniline is used as the base ingredient for chemical MDI, which is an essential material in manufacturing foams.

Traditionally, aniline has been obtained from crude oil derivatives like naphtha and benzene, but producing it emits large quantities of carbon dioxide, a key greenhouse gas.

Around six million tonnes of aniline are produced globally a year, around one million tonnes of it by Covestro. So far, the pilot project in Leverkusen produces just a tiny part of this, extracting just half a tonne of aniline a day.

Punishing energy costs

Some experts are sceptical about such an approach. The use of plant matter in manufacturing may cut out fossil fuels but whether it can lead to carbon neutrality “is often questionable”, Jens Guenther, from Germany’s Federal Environment Agency, told AFP.

This is particularly the case when it comes to the use of “so-called cultivated biomass like maize, sugar cane and sugar beet,” he said.

Janine Korduan, from environmental NGO BUND, pointed out that industrial agriculture generates “CO2 and methane emissions through land conversion and
the production of fertilisers and pesticides”, and also leads to “major losses of biodiversity and high water consumption”.

Nevertheless, Guenther said the use of plant matter in production processes would likely produce significantly lower greenhouse gas emissions than using fossil fuels, although opting for waste materials rather than crops produced in large-scale farming would be preferable.

Other German companies are experimenting in the area. Chemical giant BASF is seeking to use organic waste, agricultural products or vegetable oils to produce basic chemicals like aniline.

There are many barriers to taking such projects further, however. These range from the availability of the necessary organic matter, which is in great demand as the green transition gathers pace, to higher costs when compared to producing such chemicals with oil.

Scaling up the process will only be justified if it leads to “significant CO2 savings” in the manufacturing process, said Thorsten Dreier, a member of Covestro’s management board who is overseeing the technology.

There will also need to be proof that money “can be made in a competitive environment, in order to finance research here”, he said.

And for Germany, a major challenge will be persuading manufacturers to set up costly new sites for processing chemicals. The energy-intensive chemicals sector in Europe’s top economy has been facing a crisis since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine curtailed cheap Russian gas imports, sending power costs soaring.

Many companies are now more focused on shifting production to cheaper locations overseas, rather than expanding at home.

“Energy costs in Germany are currently three to four times higher than in the United States,” while a bloated bureaucracy is also weighing on industry, warned Dreier.

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