The Meloni government's energy and climate plan that only ENI likes

In Italy, as we know, plans are announced but not respected.This is the greatest risk that hovers over the PNIEC, the National Integrated Plan for Energy and Climate that the Meloni government sent to the European Commission in recent days.The strategic document that defines a country's medium and long-term energy and climate policy, writes the Ministry of the Environment and Energy Security, "confirms the objectives achieved in the first proposal transmitted in June 2023, in some cases even exceeding the community targets, in particular on renewable energy".

With the sending, which took place on 1 July (and a correction which we will talk about shortly), Italy is one of the few European countries - together with Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Sweden - to have respected the deadline set by the Commission .But he did it to the detriment of transparency and participation, setting a month-long consultative questionnaire in March 2024, without adequate publicization of the initiative and without explaining how the information would be collected and received.Accusations that to the newspaper Renewable Matter Minister Fratin returned it to the sender, stating that "there were online consultations, the stakeholders who wanted to make observations had a year, since it was a high and complex topic, not everyone wanted to participate in the draft of the PNIEC".

In recent days the Plan has been widely discussed, especially due to the most substantial of the changes compared to the previous draft, namely the inclusion of nuclear power among the energy sources that can be used to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.“According to the scenario hypotheses developed - specifies the MASE - nuclear energy from fission, and in the long term from fusion, could provide approximately 11% of the total electricity required by 2050 - with a possible projection towards 22%”.Certainly optimistic projections for a country like Italy which it closed its own power plants in 1987 and whose process for identifying a national repository for nuclear waste is on the high seas, even more so if we consider that after sending the PNIEC to the European Union, Minister Gilberto Pichetto Fratin he pushed himself to indicate for the Italian energy mix "a minimum forecast of 8 gigawatts of nuclear power" by 2050, with which "a significant contribution can be made, between 15/20% of the actual consumption demand".

However, nuclear power constitutes only an example from which to start to identify the greatest criticality of the Italian PNIEC, that is, the reliance on a sort of "magical thinking" or "optimism of the will" for which the important thing is to set objectives without specify clearly and in detail how to reach them.A practice that was already seen with the Plan dedicated to adaptation to climate change.Also in this case a plan without modalities which in some passages becomes a mere list of intentions.Only in the PNIEC launch press release does it read that:

• In the field of energy efficiency, thanks to the measures envisaged, there has been a significant reduction in primary and final energy consumption, but to achieve the objectives, raised in consideration of the growth scenario of the gross domestic product, we will need to continue working.
• Even in the "non-ETS" sectors (civil, transport and agriculture) there has been a substantial improvement in emission indicators and to reach the European targets that are still too challenging today, it will be necessary to invest further energy.

One could argue that after all a press release cannot provide detailed information.But since the devil is in the details, it is at the very end of the press release that an element worthy of note emerges:it is the Ministry itself that informs that on 3 July a new version of the PNIEC, sent just two days earlier, was sent to the Commission, "to which some corrections were made due to editorial typos".Not exactly the best way to communicate seriousness and competence.

Criticism of the PNIEC comes from all sides

The latest version of the Integrated National Plan for Energy and Climate is first and foremost the re-proposal of environmental mantras of the right in government for almost two years that we have learned so much about:pragmatism, a technologically neutral approach, sustainability which must also be economic and social, the maintenance of competitiveness and employment.

The scam of conservative ecology, the green thinking of the right in power

Looking at the scenario indicators and the 2030 objectives, we realize that it has remained unchanged the approach of the previous draft, based on directions with little explanation.The differences between the reference scenario, i.e. the forecast net of the actions envisaged by the Plan, and the policy scenario, which integrates the technological and programmatic improvements not yet achieved, are in some cases very marked.

For example, the share of hydrogen from renewable energy (the so-called green hydrogen) compared to the total used by the industry should go from the current 0% to 54% in six and a half years.Despite the doubts on the environmental consequences andabsence of adequate investments, it seems to understand that the focus is above all on the former Ilva of Taranto.In fact, the PNIEC states that:

The dedicated hydrogen infrastructure planned for the Hydrogen Valley in Puglia was included by the European Commission among the IPCEI hydrogen projects approved in February 2024 as part of the Hy2Infra wave.The infrastructure designed by Snam is part of the broader framework of the development of the hydrogen supply chain which involves other primary industrial operators active in Puglia.The project, whose operational phase is expected in 2028, has the ambition of transporting renewable hydrogen produced in Puglia to decarbonise the industry and mobility of the region in the Taranto hub through 100 km of pure hydrogen pipeline, largely reusing an existing pipeline.

Can we be satisfied with a brief description, which opens more questions than provides answers?Just to give an example, the total conversion of a gas pipeline into a hydrogen pipeline is a process yet to come, we are talking about it for years and currently they are on the Mediterranean in cbear feasibility studies by the sector operators themselves.Once again:pure optimism of the will.

There are nine pages of the PNIEC dedicated to the main measures envisaged to achieve the objectives.But if you look carefully you realize that it is a simple list that puts together old and new measures (the latter with the specification indicating "update" when not yet implemented) without indicating costs, sources and impacts for each, not even potential ones.It is around this lack that the main criticisms made by ECCO, the think tank dedicated to the climate, which for Daily fact describes the weak points of the Italian PNIEC:

1. It has no legal force nor a coherent implementation framework.Dedicated resources and policy impact assessments are not clarified;
2. A vision of the country's energy transition and economic transformation path is missing, not identifying strategies for abandoning fossil fuels, as required by COP28, nor "national plans, policies and actions for exiting fossil fuels" as agreed upon at the meeting G7 in Venaria;
3. The ambition on renewables is not supported by the development of a coherent framework of policies, leading to risks of non-competitive electricity prices for the production system and for the country system;
4. Electrification is not identified as a lever for decarbonisation.The regulatory framework remains inconsistent, placing solutions that are not aligned with the objectives on the same level as those that are more efficient from an energy and emission point of view.This applies, for example, to support for gas heat pumps and endothermic engines in the transport sector;
5. What is missing is an organic vision of industrial transformation in decarbonisation that can build the foundations for competing in new international markets, framing industrial development within the net zero perspective adopted by Europe, the United States and China, starting from diversified strategies that focus available technologies and their potential, setting the path for solutions that are not yet mature or economical;
6. There is no plan to guarantee social sustainability in the face of the great technological and market changes that will affect people and businesses.Despite the great gas price crisis of 2022-2023 and in the face of technological innovation which, if not managed, risks strong socio-economic impacts, the PNIEC does not offer the necessary protections and alternative opportunities to accompany the various segments of society in exit from the fossil economy

Furthermore, the criticism coming from the main environmental associations, which they had already received in recent months, is not surprising disputed, among other things, the public consultation launched by MASE.In a joint statement Greenpeace Italia, Kyoto Club, Legambiente, Transport&Environment and WWF Italia define the "irrational" PNIEC, lash out against the return of nuclear power and reliance on fossil fuels, while at the same time defining the development objectives of renewables as "weak".

Even Confindustria, however, does not appear satisfied with the government's plan, at least on the renewables front.The greatest stress he arrives from Elettricità Futura, the main association of the national industrial electricity supply chain, which represents over 70% of the Italian electricity market:

Elettricità Futura had proposed to MASE to make the PNIEC 2024 consistent with the decarbonisation potential of the national electricity industry, for example by raising the 2030 target for reducing CO2eq emissions for the Italian electricity sector which had been indicated in the previous version of the Plan, the PNIEC 2023.It is surprising that, on the contrary, it was lowered.We had also asked to increase the target of renewables in electricity consumption, in line with the 2030 Electricity Plan which reflects the vision of the operators in the sector that Elettricità Futura represents.On the contrary, this target was also revised downwards.The further complexity of the regulatory framework that has been added with the introduction of the Suitable Areas decree does not bode well.It is a measure that should have accelerated the installation of renewables and which, in reality, is complicating the possibility of building the systems and adding extra costs that will have a domino effect, increasing the cost of the electricity produced.Furthermore, we do not find any unity between the target of new renewable power to be installed by 2030 indicated in the Eligible Areas Ministerial Decree, i.e. + 80 GW, and the target indicated in the PNIEC, +73 GW.

A similar, or rather even more extreme, example can be given for the introduction of the aforementioned targets relating to nuclear power.Here, however, we do not want to discuss the opportunity in itself of adopting this energy but the failure to define a roadmap.In the current version of the PNIEC the occurrences of the word "nuclear" are 88, almost triple compared to the 2023 version, where they stopped at 30.

However, the feeling remains that there is still little compared to the announcements, so much so that on several occasions there is talk of "possible production", with a view to placing nuclear power alongside renewables which would potentially be able to reduce the use of gas and bioenergy .The hypothesis put forward by the National Platform for Sustainable Nuclear Energy, established by MASE in November 2023, identified a long-term scenario (from 2035 to 2050) containing "a share of generation from nuclear sources, as a possible further contribution to decarbonisation".Relying, we read in the PNIEC, on "small modular fission reactor technologies (with installation starting from 2035)" and "fusion reactors (with installation starting from the second half of the 2040-50 decade)".A scenario that comes rejected by the association Energy for Italy:

Will our country alone realistically be able to launch in the next 25 years an amount of nuclear power that is five times all that installed in the entire European Union in the last 25 years?And what's more, can it do it using technology like that of SMRs (small modular reactors, i.e. the small modular fission reactors cited by the PNIEC, editor's note) which is still embryonic?We remind you that the term "modular" implies mass production, but at the moment we are still at prototype level:it is not possible to predict whether large-scale production can actually be achieved from these prototypes.Furthermore, our country has now lost much of the technical-engineering skills to build new nuclear reactors.And unfortunately, for decades, it has not even been able to identify a site where to build the national repository for radioactive waste.How much more time will it take just for a large number of sites for new nuclear power plants to be designated?

In a long post dedicated to the "creative" PNIEC numbers on renewables, too The lawyer of the Atom, the best-known information and promotion page for nuclear energy, contests its casual entry into the government's objectives:

For the post-2030 plans, the PNIEC recognizes a role for nuclear power, without specifying what technology it would be (but it also raves about fusion towards 2050, the same week in which ITER announces a 4-year delay on the roadmap) , and above all without even specifying the amount:we are talking about 8 GW which would cover 10% of demand by 2050 (8 GW would produce 64 TWh, i.e. little more than what is currently the electricity imported annually from Italy), with a hypothetical scenario of 16 GW which would cover 22 % of the question.Given that a serious decarbonization plan would require at least 30-35 nuclear GW (35-45% of demand), the PNIEC essentially does not specify the criteria on the basis of which one or the other scenario would be adopted:everything is postponed to the future.Perhaps next year, when the document "Long-term strategy for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions" should be released, perhaps to the next government, perhaps to next February 31st:we do not know.

And so, paradox of paradoxes, without going into the merits, the Italian PNIEC managed to attract opposites.

More than energy poverty:still ENI, always ENI

It should be remembered that the current version of the PNIEC, which goes from 424 to 491 pages, should have responded to the detailed observations made in December 2023 by the European Commission.One of the main objections it was about the lack of adequate attention to energy poverty.Even in Italy there is still no official definition, despite the EU recommendation 2023/2407 please Member States to "adopt rapid measures and transpose and implement the definition of energy poverty into national law".For the European Union, in any case, "energy poverty is a multidimensional phenomenon" which is mainly determined by three root causes:high expenditure on energy compared to the family budget, low levels of income and poor energy efficiency of buildings and appliances.

The 2023 PNIEC, according to the Commission, had not defined the situation of the families involved and had not even indicated a specific reduction objective that was measurable.Furthermore, details were also requested on the role and tasks of the National Observatory of Energy Poverty, which can be found on the MASE website. there are no traces if not the establishment of the components with two decrees dating back to August and September 2022.

On this last point, in the new version of the PNIEC, the MASE limits itself to listing the functions and indicating generically that the Observatory "will present proposals to the Government for transposition and implementation (so in the text, ed) in the national framework of the definition of energy poverty".A definition, however, which, more than six months after the Commission's request, continues to be missing and which the text promises to "formalize in the national decree transposing the new Energy Efficiency Directive (EU) 2023/1791 of 13 September 2023" , without indicating the times.

However, there are other innovations that occur between one version and another of the Integrated National Energy and Climate Plan.As remember the specialized portal Daily Relay, Italy has significantly reduced its dependence on Russian gas, but not according to PNIEC forecasts:

The decrease in domestic demand played a greater role than expected, exceeding estimates of reduction in consumption.Imports from Africa were lower than expected, while those from Norway and the United States increased significantly.The discrepancies between PNIEC forecasts and actual flows highlight an overestimation of imports from Algeria and Qatar and an underestimation of pipe and ship supplies from Norway and the USA.

Despite this, the idea of ​​wanting to make Italy a gas hub is once again confirmed.Again from the latest version of the PNIEC:

The current search for diversification of gas supply sources can lead Italy to position itself as a hub in the Mediterranean, becoming a point for the introduction of gas and its conveyance towards other European countries (Malta, Slovenia, Slovakia at the moment) , also through the strengthening of some cross-border and internal infrastructures (towards Austria) (Adriatic Line).

On gas imports from Africa and the Middle East after the war in Ukraine, how we had pointed out also to Blue suitcase, the Draghi and Meloni governments have relied on ENI.And it is precisely the largest Italian energy company that is the element of continuity between the old and the new PNIEC.Indeed, in this latest version his role is further expanded.

Despite not mentioning it, in fact, it is ENI that the government thinks of when it talks about nuclear fusion:not only because the multinational is among the few in Italy that has the financial resources to be able to face the amount of investments that this technology requires but also, and above all, because for some time ENI has included it as an objective in its energy mix after 2050.Which, coincidentally, is the same time horizon indicated by the PNIEC.Moreover:in April of this year, in the drafting phase of the new energy and climate plan, in a hearing in the Senate at the Environment and Public Works commissions, representatives of ENI and Edison they illustrated the potential of nuclear fusion for energy production.Even ENI has indicated to plan to build the first industrial fusion nuclear power plant in the early 1930s (thesis disavowed in a heated manner once again from The Atom Lawyer).

A direct reference to the Italian energy company is instead related to the capture and storage of carbon dioxide, the main plant of which is being built in Ravenna.Between one draft and another of the Plan at the Ministry of the Environment and Energy Security is born the CCS committee which will examine requests regarding the capture and geological storage of CO2.This is a technology on which the PNIEC is focusing a lot:

To achieve the objective of containing emissions, particularly in the industrial sector, it will also be necessary to resort to the capture, transport and storage/use of CO2 (CCUS).To this end, specific objectives will be established for the capture and storage of CO2 based on the geological characteristics of the relevant storage sites which will be made operationally available by 2030 and a legislative and regulatory framework will be introduced aimed at creating favorable conditions for the development of projects relating to the capture, transport, storage and use of CO2.

And between one draft and another, as the PNIEC still recalls, the European Union itself accelerated two projects concerning Italy, one of which, the one relating to the collection of carbon dioxide, is precisely the one that he is working on ENI, in tandem with Snam:

The PCI projects (projects of community interest), included in the list which came into force at the beginning of 2024, concerning the Mediterranean region (the “Callisto Mediterranean CO2 Network” and “Prinos CO2 storage” project), are specifically designed in a cross-border context and involve Italy at different levels.The CALLISTO Mediterranean CO2 Network project falls within the broader scope of the Italian Ravenna CCS project, which aims to provide large-scale open access infrastructure, offering industries and power plants located both in Italy and Southern Europe with CO2 emissions difficult to overcome a timely and economical decarbonisation solution on a transparent and non-discriminatory basis.The Callisto project involves Italy along the entire CCS supply chain, providing a significant commitment to the development of infrastructure for the capture, transport and storage of CO2 in Italy.In this project, Italy is the recipient country of CO2 emissions from other countries, becoming the hub of the supply chain through its geological storage site in the Adriatic Sea.On the other hand, in the Prinos CO2 storage project Italy is part of the process as an emitter country, since CO2 storage is planned at the Prinos storage site (Greece).

Finally, the role of biofuels is confirmed and indeed further expanded in the new PNIEC the main manufacturer in Italy it is once again ENI.For advanced biofuels, i.e. those that are obtained through production techniques that do not involve subtraction of agricultural land from food production or changes in agricultural use:

It is expected to exceed the specific objective set by the RED III directive, equal to 5.5% by 2030 (cumulative target with renewable fuels of non-biological origin, of which 1% is mandatory by the latter), through an update of the mechanisms incentives provided for advanced biomethane and other advanced biofuels (with Ministerial Decree2 March 2018, Ministerial Decree 15 September 2022, Ministerial Decree 16 March 2023 and Ministerial Decree 20 October 2023) until a target of around 11.6% is achieved.

This is a significant fact:not only because it is one of the few environmental fields in which Italy even plans to double the European targets but also because it constitutes a further increase compared to the 10% quota set in the previous version of the PNIEC.And this happens close to a significant financing of the Italian Climate Fund to ENI's projects for the biofuels supply chain in Kenya.When it comes to programming.

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