To underline its importance, the announcement on Monday February 8 of the alliance between Air Liquide (21.9 billion in sales, 67,000 employees) and Siemens Energy (28.8 billion in sales, 90,000 employees, of which 7,800 positions will be eliminated) was co-signed by the French and German Ministers of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire and Peter Altmaier, in their from CEOs Benoît Potier and Christian Burch.
It aims to intervene in many European projects, only one of which is now official: the one with which Air Liquide joined on January 20, by acquiring 40% of H2V Normandy, company created by Caen industrialist Alain Samson.
This involves investing 230 million euros in Port-Jérôme, between Le Havre and Rouen, in a plant capable of producing 28,000 tonnes of “green” hydrogen per year. This by electrolysis of water and no longer by the very polluting process of steam cracking of fossil natural gas. This will prevent the release of 250,000 tonnes of CO2 per year in the atmosphere. Hydrogen is widely used in the Seine estuary for oil refining or the production of fertilizers.
Without Air Liquide having yet joined in, H2V wants to install a plant of the same type in the port of Dunkirk, where ArcelorMitall wants to reduce CO emissions.2 of its blast furnaces by injection of hydrogen. A technology that Air Liquide is already testing with the German steelmaker ThyssenKrupp.
An ally of renewable energies
While the global production of hydrogen releases so much CO2 that the United Kingdom and Indonesia combined, Air Liquide has committed to reducing its emissions by 30% by 2025 compared to 2015.
For its part, Siemens Energy is at the forefront of help germany to stabilize its availability in electricity from solar and wind sources, intermittent, hydrogen being used as buffer energy. Its Spanish subsidiary Siemens Gamesa, from its factory in Le Havre, must supply the wind turbines for the marine parks of Dieppe, Fécamp, Courseulles, Saint-Brieuc and Noirmoutier. Very advanced, it has already developed wind turbines directly producing hydrogen and, in Chile, synthetic gasoline, for Porsche.
The European Commission, with the support of States, subsidizes the production of “green” hydrogen to reach 1 million tonnes in 2024 and 10 million tonnes in 2030, the equivalent of 350 factories such as those in Port-Jérôme. In 2050, this gas should represent 14% of European energy mix against 2% currently.
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