Governors, businessmen and women, ambassadors of imperialist powers and executives of global capital meet with an eye on hydrogen generation. What transition do they plan and what do we need?
“We do not want to be a sacrifice zone for other regions to live better”. The one who uttered the phrase is not an activist against mega-mining in Chubut, but the governor of Río Negro, Arabela Carreras. And among those listening to her were not anti-extractivist activists, but rather representatives of mega-mining giants such as Fortescue or oil companies such as France’s Total (among other multinationals such as Toyota, CWP Global -devoted to windmills- or the financial giant McKinsey & Company).
It happened this Monday at the emblematic Hotel Llao Llao, in the city of Bariloche, where the opening of the National Hydrogen 2030 Meeting was held, dedicated to the development of hydrogen production.
Along with Carreras, the opening panel included the Minister of Production Matías Kulfas; the governor of Neuquén, Omar Gutiérrez; of Jujuy, Gerardo Morales; the vice governor of Santa Cruz, Eugenio Quiroga; the Secretary of Strategic Affairs of the Nation and president of the Economic and Social Council, Gustavo Béliz; and the general secretary of the CGT, Héctor Daer, who joined virtually, as well as the governor of Tierra del Fuego, Gustavo Melella. Ambassadors from countries such as Korea, Japan, among others, were also present.
Carreras stated that green hydrogen “must be an opportunity to modify the way in which the world has distributed its wealth, its energy, its consumption”, and continued affirming that “the trend of the consumption system poses an alarming scenario, with lack of energy and food. It makes us look for urgent alternatives. The world is calling for an agenda to reduce greenhouse gases and concrete projects for the way forward. “The political forces have a unique agenda on hydrogen, in the medium and long term, and transversal. We hope that this unanimity is transferred to the national level, to sustain the economic equation that must be given for the feasibility of this industry”, she added. The governor also announced the creation of the Hydrogen Institute of Rio Negro and a Diploma in Green Hydrogen.
In the same vein, Minister Kulfas stressed that “This means adopting a global challenge which is the fight against climate change, using it as a vector for the economic and social productive development of Argentina. It is about generating a new stage of industrialization, of technological progress to provide answers from this part of the world”. And he added that “we are working on a consensual bill to provide fiscal certainty and stability, and incentives for investments. We are aiming at an exporting industry, with a positive contribution to our trade balance due to the income of foreign currency, and the generation of thousands of direct and indirect jobs”.
Corporate or bottom-up transition?
Hydrogen has the potential to function as an energy vector (it can transport energy), and it can be “green” if the energy it transports comes from renewable sources, so it does not emit greenhouse gases either in its production or consumption, something important in a context of climate crisis produced mainly by the use of fossil fuels.
But in itself, its production does not guarantee an energy transition for the country, nor does it necessarily guarantee economic or technical “development”: in the case of the investments of the Australian mega-mining company Fortescue, for example, as Kulfas points out, it has an export objective and the generation of foreign currency to pay the foreign debt with the IMF. It implies neither energy sovereignty (but export in the form of a new commodity), nor transition for the country, but, in any case, for third countries (or corporations); nor, above all, any kind of improvement in access to energy for the working majority of the country.
The Australian giant is guaranteed the concession of a territory of 625,000 hectares in Rio Negro, which is roughly equivalent to an area the size of El Salvador nestled in Patagonia (not counting the purchase of fields in the northeast of Chubut, already underway); tax exemptions and facilities to install the windmills and -supposedly, since there is a danger of targeting other subway sources- a desalination plant to generate the huge amounts of fresh water (and salt waste) needed to produce the Hydrogen. There are no environmental impact studies, much less consultations with the affected communities about the changes, and the risks (it is a highly volatile and dangerous gas) involved in such an infrastructure.
In fact, the governor of Neuquén proposed to produce blue hydrogen with gas from dead cow fracking and water from the Limay River, reactivating the Heavy Water Industrial Plant. In other words, more polluting fracking, more gases and greenhouse effect, more corporate profits and foreign currency for the IMF… and less water for the communities, in a context of water crisis.
On the other hand, Carreras’ Greenwashing discourse is exposed if we take into account, for example, that at the same time as this meeting, a public hearing will be held in Mar del Plata on offshore oil exploration on the Argentine coast, to extract even more fossil fuel (that is, more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere), with the help of companies such as Total (present in both businesses), Shell or Equinor. Or the impulse given (by all the political arc present) to the polluting and greenhouse gas generating fracking in Vaca Muerta; or to lithium mega-mining, a declared objective of Governor Morales in Jujuy, for which he is eager to send tweets to Elon Musk himself. In fact, the radical made a comparison as unhappy -for the green tonality sought- as recurrent in this type of extractivist promises, when he asserted that Argentina will become “the Saudi Arabia or the Arab Emirates of green hydrogen”.
What is underway is the business of the corporate transition, in the hands of the companies and with governments and the State as guarantors: a new opportunity for profits, dictated according to the interests of concentrated capital, and a new round of extractivist plundering in the country.
A sovereign and “just” energy transition (resulting in better living and working conditions and universal and cheap access to energy for the working majority of the country), beyond the energy vector used, should be in the hands of the workers of the energy system, the affected populations and communities, and aim at improving the living conditions of the majority (starting with their access to energy). The opposite of what is being announced, with a high level of cynicism, from the luxury of the Llao Llao.
