On Saturday, campaigners from Ineos Will Fall moved from the Provincial House to the Port House, the Scheldt bend and the site for the new Ineos factory in the port with a tender sign. With this fictitious construction, the members of the group wanted to draw attention to some information about the project they are very concerned about: the planning application for the new ethane cracker from chemical giant Ineos.
The sign stated that the plant will have a consumption of up to 720 cubic meters of drinking water per hour and 1,910,000 tons of ethane gas per year. The new ethane cracker would also emit 454,000 tons of CO2 and 167 tons of nitrogen oxide annually.
© Jan Van der Perre
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The arrival of the ethane cracker has already had quite a few feet in the ground. Let’s take a look at some things again. Chemical giant Ineos wants to build an ethane cracker in the port of Antwerp. That installation would produce ethylene, a basic chemical product that is used, among other things, in the production of plastic.
The arrival of this new factory was fiercely contested from the start by environmental organizations, but in December last year it received a permit from the Province of Antwerp. Albeit under the condition that Ineos should strive to become climate neutral within ten years.
“Objections ended up in the trash”
But that is not enough, according to Ineos Will Fall, among others. “617 appeals were filed against the factory, but when we read the county’s decision, we can only conclude that all these citizens’ objections to the construction of this project have ended up in the trash. However, there were very strongly substantiated objections that put forward very worrying data about climate effects and pollution,” says Arno Kempynck.
The activists do not intend to stick to their silent protest on Saturday. The group is planning a protest at the cabinet of Minister of Environment Zuhal Demir (N-VA) on January 28 at 12.30 pm. With that protest they want to put forward one clear demand: “Say no to INEOS’ ethane cracker”. “If the deputation does not listen, we hope to seek redress from the competent minister Demir. She has to reverse the decision. It has blocked gas-fired power stations because of their high nitrogen emissions, but this project also causes enormous emissions of the same nitrogen. Then she should stop this project too.”
Profession
An appeal procedure will follow from a number of environmental and climate associations and the province of Zeeland in the Netherlands will also appeal against the environmental permit of the deputation. The Dutch province is afraid that the controversial squatter will release too much nitrogen for Zeeland nature reserves in the vicinity.
“For us it’s simple, even under certain conditions you simply cannot produce plastic with fossil fuels in an environmentally friendly way. The factory will therefore not be built,” Arno concludes.
It just wants to make the chemical industry more sustainable. “With Project One, Ineos is just now bringing technological innovation to Europe to make a difference for the climate today. We are not doing that just a little, but significantly: after all, our ethane cracker will have the lowest CO2 emissions in Europe,” says Nathalie Meert of Ineos.
“With the hydrogen we use today, we can already replace sixty percent of the natural gas that we would normally need. The cracker has been designed in such a way that it is already technologically possible today to run the installation completely on hydrogen. However, there is still not enough green and affordable hydrogen available today. If much more green hydrogen becomes available in Antwerp, we will eventually be able to replace the remaining 40%. It is also assumed that plastic, plastics, are by definition bad and that ethylene is used exclusively for single-use plastic. That is doing violence to the truth. Ethylene is a necessary raw material for countless sustainable applications that are undoubtedly also in the living rooms of the activists. During the pandemic in particular, it has become apparent how important they are for all kinds of medical applications, from hand gel to blood bags, and COVID self-tests,” said Meert.
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