Drills, regasifiers, renewables:the Ravenna case and the environmental, economic and social risks

The weekly round-up on the climate crisis and data on carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere.

In the language of today's politics there is an expression that is indicative of a certain sloppiness, and it is the "vocation of the territories".It is a captivating formula that is repeated by representatives of all political colors and latitudes.Easy to grasp (and wear), the vocation of the territories is to be understood in the religious sense, as something immutable and to be adhered to uncritically.But which in reality becomes the pass to try to impose one's own vision of the world.Except that the territories, the ways in which we imagine them and the ways in which we transform them, they are the result of certain choices, daughters in turn of mediations and conflicts - even abandonment is a choice, as demonstrated for example by the case of Abruzzo and inland areas.In this sense, the Italy that we are trying to outline in this eternal post-pandemic and post-conflict present is a paradigmatic test bed, it is enough to mention the Meloni government's idea of ​​dusting off the project of the gas hub and the consequences on the territories affected.However, there is one case that, more than others, summarizes the opportunities and contradictions of this vocation:it is Ravenna's attempt to transform itself into the Italian energy capital.In a few square kilometers the Romagna city intends to launch four mega projects:a regasification plant, new extraction platforms, a wind farm, a plant for the capture and storage of carbon dioxide.To be the capital of gas, CO2 and renewables at the same time.Possible?Desirable?Is the best energy choice the one that includes (almost) all of them?

Four energy mega-projects and a community (maybe)

In April 2022 the mayor of Ravenna Michele De Pascale, belonging to the Democratic Party, writes a long post on social media with which he explains the meaning of the proposal which intends to revitalize the energy centrality of the Romagna city:

For five years the entire Ravenna community - local institutions, businesses and unions together - has denounced the complete absence of a national energy strategy that rigorously addresses the issues of economic and environmental sustainability and security of energy supplies.In this moment of emergency, tragic for the world and very difficult for the country, in which all the very serious errors that political choices (and non-choices) have determined are coming to light, we are called to find extraordinary solutions and totally new, with short, medium and long term strategies.

At this juncture there is a territory that is united and ready to implement 4 strategic actions to radically change course, four yes, for the economy and the environment:

1. Resumption of mining activities to draw on the natural gas resources in the upper Adriatic with complete liberalization of new activities beyond 12 miles and efficiency/strengthening of existing ones.In the upper Adriatic, a potential of between 350 and 500 billion cubic meters is estimated.

2. Installation off the coast of Ravenna of a FSRU offshore (floating regasifier) for a potential of 5 billion cubic meters per year

3. Creation of a offshore wind farm with 600 megawatts of power with attached 100mw floating photovoltaic system (AGNES project)

4. Creation of a CCUS system to capture CO2 emitted by the "hard to abate" sector and inject it into exhausted methane deposits and/or use it in circular economy processes.

THE fears local they focused above all on the three fossil-brand projects (regasifier, platforms and CCUS plant for the capture and storage of carbon dioxide) which are also partially public due to the participation of the energy giants ENI and Snam.While, almost a year after Mayor De Pascale's announcements, all four are recording steps forward, albeit slow and partial.

As regards the resumption of mining activities at sea, the conversion into law of the so-called HELP decree quater, which took place in mid-January, lowers the ban on research and exploration at sea from 12 to 9 miles and overcomes some constraints dictated by PiTESAI, the Plan for the Sustainable Energy Transition of Eligible Areas which had been approved just a year ago.The aim of the Meloni government, it is worth remembering, is to double national gas production within a couple of years, going from just over 3 billion cubic meters of gas in 2022 (Exactly 3,341, essentially breaking even compared to 2021) to 6-7 billion, to be allocated above all to the so-called energy-intensive industries, with regulated prices guaranteed (and paid) by the State.The role of Ravenna, according to some reconstructions journalistic, would be to start a new production through the creation of new offshore drilling rigs and, above all, of revitalize the historic industrial district, made up of around sixty gas extraction platforms along the entire Northern Adriatic, of which at least half are currently inactive.

If in Piombino the opposition to regasification ship of SNAM, the Golar Tundra, has been more extensive and currently also sees the participation of the mayor Francesco Ferrari, in Ravenna the protests against the twin facility in the Tuscan city they were much more feeble - even if the Romagna environmentalist galaxy has announced which will converge at the national demonstration on March 11th in Piombino.From Ravenna on consent to the FRSU ship, which should arrive from Egypt in 2024 and will be parked eight kilometers from the beaches of Punta Marina, it was almost transversal.So much so you think even to have the Romagna city also host the Piombino regasification terminal at the end of the third year of activity, as established by the agreements between the government and the Tuscany Region.With Davide Tabarelli, president of the Nomisma Energia think tank, who it pushes even to ask for "three or four" in the same strip of territory.

Without considering that, again in the same stretch of sea, the third energy project is planned, known by the name of Agnes:two wind farms, north and south of Ravenna, a floating photovoltaic plant and an electrolysis plant for the production of green hydrogen.A project that is being discussed for years, recently presented to the Economic Policies Commission of the Emilia Romagna Region, and that in the next few days, according to a detailed anticipation de Il Resto del Carlino, will be presented to the Ministry of the Environment and Energy Security for the start of the Environmental Impact Assessment:

If everything goes smoothly, the authorizations to continue should arrive by the summer.But the other news that further strengthens the Agnes project is the now imminent entry into the corporate structure of an investment fund specialized in systems for the production of energy from renewable sources.Despite the secrecy surrounding the news, the most likely to enter into the operation - whose costs are approaching 2 billion euros - is F2i 'Energy for the transition'.This fund is one of the divisions into which the investments of F2i Sgr are divided, which has Cassa Depositi e Prestiti, banks and banking foundations among its shareholders.To give an example, it has Sorgenia in its portfolio, one of the main operators in the energy sector in Italy, and is also present in Spain.

At the same time, in the Senate session of 2 February, the undersecretary for businesses and made in Italy, Massimo Bitonci, responding to a parliamentary question signed by M5s, stated made known the state of the art of the fourth energy project that is intended to be implemented in Ravenna, perhaps the biggest one discussed and “mysterious”, with the first authorization presented to ENI dating back to 1998, i.e. the plant for the capture, use and storage of carbon also known by the English acronym CCUS (carbon capture use and storage):

The project is a candidate to have the status of a common European project, i.e. to be part of those projects that will be able to access the tender for obtaining funding from the Connecting Europe Facility, the EU fund aimed at strengthening energy infrastructures and digital transport which for the period 2021-2027 it assigns a budget of 5.8 billion euros to the energy sector.In particular, the coordination with Liquid Air France, in collaboration with ENI and Snam, with a view to supra-territorial project sharing, has the objective of developing infrastructures for the import/export of CO2, placing the city of Ravenna at the center and specifically the offshore gas fields being depleted under concession to ENI, which would be transformed into sites for the storage of CO2 of Italian and foreign industrial plants.

After having obtained the authorization from the Ministry of the Environment and Energy Security for the start of the pilot project, which involves the storage of 25 thousand tons of CO2 coming from the Casalborsetti power plant in the exhausted Porto Corsini west sea field, in December 2022 ENI and Snam have signed a joint venture for what will be the first ccus project in Italy.

Is that enough?No. Pending that the implementing decree on energy communities arrives, together with the release of the 2.2 billion euros foreseen by the PNRR for the development of renewable source plants intended for self-consumption, in Ravenna too we are moving to activate an energy project different from the four projects mentioned previously, united by their adherence to a centralized model managed by multinationals in the sector.

From Europe to Italy:renewable energy communities are an example of decentralization, energy sharing, self-production and territorial leadership

 

In fact, in the launch of the initiative for the construction of an energy community, in May 2022, it was read That:

We believe that Ravenna has enormous potential to act as a laboratory of new social and economic models, of new methods for the development of a sustainable economy linked to the world of energy, a world that has always characterized the economy of this city.We believe that the cultural backwardness of our ruling class, especially on environmental issues, is an element to be combated proactively by building models that can be made available to the city and can be taken as an example and improved by other citizens, contributing to a change which, we believe, must necessarily come from below.We are building a platform project for the development of local communities and we would like to experiment it in our city.

The Romagna city is already an energy model.Because the near future of Ravenna follows a path that has already been traced.It remains to be seen whether it is a unique or a replicable model in the era of the climate crisis.

Is the past the future?

To explain Ravenna's energy bulimia it is necessary to go back to the Second World War, when the nascent ENI, then a state company, discovered the presence of methane.It was 1952 and, yesterday as today, gas was described as the fuel of the future.In a 2016 story, entitled “Once upon a time Ravenna and the drills”, in which the personal and the collective were mixed, the long-time politician and environmentalist Massimo Serafini he remembered That:

The history of methane in Ravenna is not a trivial story and deserves more serious defenders.I understood that there was methane underground in my city, like many of my peers, from the taste of the water that flowed from a fountain in Marina di Ravenna.It was called "pisciolina" water precisely because it tasted of methane and since popular belief attributed prodigious virtues to it, in short it helped to grow well, it was mainly us boys and girls who paid the price, forced to drink it by our parents.A torment every time dad accompanied us with his little mouse to the sea.The fountain was a few hundred meters from the sea, which should have made us understand that the seabed also contained gas.However, no one thought that it was a resource, in fact it seemed strange to many that someone would have thought of extracting it to make money.Surely no one would have imagined that taking it out would literally overturn the landscape of Ravenna and its countryside.

Over the years the so-called drills arise like mushrooms on the sea.Other smaller Italian and foreign companies are associated with the six-legged dog.However, ENI's presence in the area is not limited to activities upstream, how remember the same company:

The large petrochemical center of Ravenna was strongly supported by Enrico Mattei who decided to build the first synthetic rubber factory in the country here, importing the technology from the United States.The choice fell on Ravenna, both for its strategic position, thanks to the port, and for its proximity to the sources of raw materials.These were in fact the years of exploration activities in Emilia Romagna, with the first discovery of the Ravenna Terra gas field.The construction was entrusted in 1954 to Anic.In the 1960s, the production of PVC, acetates and fine chemicals (DMC) was added.In 1983 the activities passed from Anic to Enichem.With the sale of the Agriculture business unit to Hydro Agri Italia, the vinyl acetate to Vinavil and the diphenols to Borregaard, the industrial scenario of the plant gradually began to change in the 1990s.

Up to this point, however, the history of Ravenna is similar to that of many other industrial sites - from Porto Marghera to Gela passing through Taranto.Just like similar it is the fate of the eternal reclamations that become a mirage for these territories, classified by the State in 1998 Sites of National Interest.The specificity of Romagna is that, unlike the places mentioned, the Ravenna area immediately manages to bring together industry and tourism.The two sectors may not talk to each other but they don't hinder each other either. It was worth it even for (and up to) the roaring 80s of seaside tourism and it would seem worth even today, despite the obvious differences:

It is not just tourism that gives prestige to Romagna and the projects in the pipeline for the energy transition - from the regasification plant off the coast of Punta Marina to the Agnes project for the largest offshore solar-wind farm in Europe - are destined to profoundly change the image of this territory "between the Po and the mountain and the marina and the Rhine" (to quote Dante) known to most for its Byzantine mosaics and the Adriatic coast.A vast area of ​​over one million inhabitants which proudly claims the hyphen that separates it from Emilia and which is determined to seize this moment of global difficulty to transform it into an opportunity for relaunch.

Not just new energy projects they outline hundreds of jobs and further industrial settlements but, above all, all four promise not to affect the tourist share of the Ravenna area, which still remains significant.The fears, thus, focus on something else, such as the possible subsidence that new explorations could cause (denied several times by mayor De Pascale).The fact remains that in Ravenna the combination between industry and tourism is not questioned, unlike what happens in any other area when a new energy project is discussed.

However, the exceptional nature of the Romagna capital is not without consequences, at least if you read the data Urban Ecosystem 2022, the annual report on the environmental performance of 105 provincial capitals which takes into account 18 indicators, distributed across six thematic areas:air, water, waste, mobility, urban environment and energy.The document - created by Legambiente, Ambiente Italia e Sole24Ore - you see Ravenna is in last place among the capitals of Emilia Romagna, mid-table compared to the national picture (52nd out of 105 Municipalities) and below the passing mark, with a score of 53.29%.

It is difficult not to imagine that concentrating so many mega energy plants in a single area would have clear environmental, economic and social consequences.Furthermore, by further strengthening the Romagna hub, the political risk is to exacerbate the rift between Southern and Northern Italy also from an energy point of view.The acceleration of the climate crisis, however, imposes other routes:it is no longer necessary for each territory to do it for itself or to support vocations which, after all, have only a few years of history behind them, what is needed is rather a wide-ranging strategy that brings together the needs of the territories in a framework where the common interest prevails .

Preview image via key4biz.it