[Skybird]

Germany wants to impose anti-atom-ideology onto all others. Thankfully it looks that it fails in that. That is relevant, very much so, since fusion energy, if it ever comes, still is many, many decades away.



The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes:
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Paris threatens Berlin with pipeline blockade


The dispute over hydrogen from nuclear power is coming to a head: Just three weeks ago, the disagreements between Germany and France seemed to have been resolved. Now there is no sign of that.

Just three weeks ago, the differences between Berlin and Paris seemed to have been smoothed over. At the Franco-German Council of Ministers, President Emmanuel Macron and Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) demonstrated unity after a series of disagreements. Harmony was exuded in particular by a compromise on the question of whether hydrogen, an energy carrier considered indispensable for decarbonization, should be classified as climate-friendly only on the basis of wind and solar power.

Paris has been pushing for months for hydrogen produced with nuclear power to be given such a rating - and believed it had convinced Berlin of this at the Council of Ministers. It would "ensure that both renewable and low-carbon hydrogen can be taken into account in the European decarbonization targets," was the wording in the Franco-German statement, whereby "low-carbon" should be translated as "of nuclear origin" and, according to reports, should only not be called that at the insistence of the Greens. In return for this concession from the German side, Paris gave its green light to the extension of the planned Spanish-French hydrogen pipeline H2Med to Germany.

Now, however, the Franco-German hydrogen compromise is wobbling. Berlin is not sticking to the negotiation result, Europe Secretary Laurence Boone said Monday, threatening to block the construction of H2Med. "France agreed to the H2Med project when it became clear that the pipeline could also be used to transport low-carbon hydrogen, not natural gas," she told the F.A.Z. newspaper. France had agreed to the project only after a long hesitation, because it does not want to be only a transit country.

Earlier, French Energy Minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher had already indirectly accused both Berlin and Madrid of breaking their word. Despite the latest agreements, Germany and Spain continue to oppose accepting hydrogen from nuclear power plants as "green". In doing so, they are targeting the ongoing discussion on the EU's "Red III" directive, which sets higher targets for the share of renewables in the energy mix. "These negotiations are not taking a satisfactory turn," Pannier-Runacher said in early February. She called it "incomprehensible if Spain and Germany would carry different positions to Brussels and not keep their commitments."

The German government sees no contradiction with the January statement. Renewable and "low-carbon" hydrogen had been explicitly distinguished from each other in the text. Therefore, the energy carrier derived from nuclear power can precisely not be considered renewable or "green," as France claims, it said in Berlin on Monday. The French nuclear energy, as mentioned in the text, at best serves the "European decarbonization goals," but not the expansion of renewable energies agreed upon in the EU. That's why the statement also says very clearly that they are sticking to the "general ambition level of renewable energy targets."

Government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit recalled that Germany and France "have set out their respective divergent or different positions on the use of nuclear energy." Both countries could pursue their own path "as far as climate-neutral economies are concerned," he said. It is in the interest of all EU governments to get the hydrogen economy up and running in general, he said. Only in the second step, he said, is it a matter of how it is produced. For Germany, renewable sources are crucial, "others have other priorities there."

The Franco-German dispute is breaking out at a time when Paris has won an important stage victory on hydrogen classification - which is of great importance to investors. In a so-called delegated act published Monday, the European Commission stipulates that in addition to hydrogen from renewable energy sources, those from nuclear energy will also be classified as "green."

Specifically, it says that countries with a low-carbon electricity mix (i.e., with a high proportion of nuclear power) will be exempt from the so-called "additionality rule" for a transitional period. This regulation states that green hydrogen will only come from "additional" sources of renewable electricity. It is intended to prevent hydrogen production from "eating up" the use of renewable sources for other purposes, thus promoting electricity generation from fossil fuel power plants.

The main beneficiaries of the new regulation are France and Sweden. Both derive a high proportion of their energy from nuclear power. Originally, the Commission had only wanted to classify hydrogen as sustainable if the electricity required for it consistently came from wind and solar parks that were additionally built. The European Parliament, on the other hand, had advocated a less restrictive regulation in order to accelerate the growth of the young industry.

Green MEP Michael Bloss called it a "scandal" that this should now also apply to hydrogen from nuclear power. "The label fraud continues," he said, referring to the fact that the Commission had already classified investments in gas and nuclear power as "green" in its "taxonomy" in January 2022. The EU needs hydrogen from renewables "and not incentives to keep outdated nuclear reactors online," Bloss said. The legislation published by the Commission can only enter into force if a majority of member states and the Parliament have not objected within two months.

According to reports, the French Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton in particular lobbied for the exemption. Accordingly, the legal act in the house of Energy Minister Pannier-Runacher on Monday in conversation with journalists as a "French victory". However, the discussion about the recognition of nuclear power in the Renewable Energy Directive has not become superfluous.

The French energy ministry is calling for the logic underlying the legal act to be applied to "Red III" as well - in other words, for hydrogen from nuclear power to be recognized in the renewables targets as well, instead of being blocked for ideological reasons. This is not an equation of renewables and nuclear energy, but is simply reasonable for decarbonization.
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