Mining could cause the seabed to sink
Double the Italian national gas to counter the expensive bills: the minister’s plan Transition Ecological Roberto Cingolani has gaps. In fact, according to many technicians, there are two fundamental problems: long lead times and environmental risks. To double the gas production it would take at least 24 months, while the extraction activity could cause a considerable lowering of the seabed.
He writes it Republic che remembers that “against the dear energy, the government has just approved a series of aid to businesses, 1.7 billion for the cut of bills. On the other hand, those structural interventions that the Minister of Ecological Transition Roberto Cingolani had also spoken about on several occasions have not been approved. First of all, the possibility of increasing the national production of natural gas “.
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From here, continues the newspaper, “a great debate, starting from a simple assumption: in the face of the explosion of gas prices on the markets, which in Europe have risen by up to 600 per cent in one year, could it not be possible to increase the share extracted from the Italian subsoil? Being an internal resource, the energy bill would benefit, reducing the extra costs of transport and the surcharge due to imports. The request was made loudly by the business world, as well as by some of the operators in the sector oil & gas“.
According to the numbers, on the side of internal production the Italian gas covers just 4% of the national demand. The rest 96% is imported, mostly from Russia and Algeria, plus smaller shares from the North Sea, Azerbaijan, Qatar and Libya. The newspaper then asks: “Could national production increase and in what times? “
“According to the experts, continue Republic, the resources already discovered could lead in the short term to the doubling of production, reaching at least 7-8% of the national demand. And in the long run, even 14-15%. But however short the period is, the technicians speak of at least 18-24 months to bring the first extracted gas into the network. It is not a question of increasing production from existing plants, but of digging new wells. Provided, in the meantime, obstacles relating to mining permits are removed from the government, primarily a series of environmental constraints “.
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“THE already identified deposits are found in the Adriatic and, in part, in the Ionian Sea. To be exploited it is necessary, first of all, to overcome two obstacles “, recalls the newspaper.” The first of environmental character: in the Upper Adriatic, for some time, experts – geologists and university professors – have been debating the phenomenon of subsidence, which can cause a lowering of the seabed and that – in this case – could be caused by mining. Citizens of those areas and environmentalists have obtained that in the Upper Adriatic, where the possible deposits are close to the coast, no new wells are dug “.
“Then, concludes the newspaper, there is the extraction limit within 12 nautical miles a measure reinstated in 2015 and which represents one of the most severe restrictions on the exploration of hydrocarbons in the world “.
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