ADVOCACY: Rising to the challenge: meeting energy needs

To deliver on the energy transition, we must foster economic growth and technological innovation 

Global leaders today must reconcile the priority of fighting climate change with supporting economic growth and development. While they strive to drive their countries to reach emissions goals, they must also ensure the competitiveness of their economies, as to do otherwise would potentially undermine the consensus around decarbonisation. 

Technology will be key to delivering on the energy transition goals and enabling the creation of new businesses. Central to our vision for a sustainable energy future is the development of innovative and more sustainable value chains. Moreover, new, breakthrough technologies hold the promise of providing virtually limitless energy. As a global energy technology company, Eni continues to invest in cutting-edge research and development to shape the energy system of the future, with the potential to provide safe and clean energy to the world, while, at the same time, improving the available and scalable technologies to preserve the competitiveness of the industry and the existing infrastructure.

We are accompanying the energy system through its transformation with strategic collaborations and a steadfast commitment to innovation. We are supporting this effort with a distinctive organisational and financial model, our ‘satellite model’, which entails creating separate companies that can independently access capital markets to accelerate the financing and roll-out of innovative solutions for decarbonisation.

SATISFYING DEMAND

In the short and medium term, the energy transition has to embrace a variety of initiatives and technologies which reduce emissions in different use cases while satisfying the existing demand.

As the world still relies overwhelmingly on fossil fuels, natural gas, whose combustion emits about half of the carbon dioxide released by the burning of coal, can still play an essential role in the energy transition. Natural gas provides security and balance to the power system, necessary conditions for the growing penetration of intermittent renewables; their smooth integration into the existing industrial economy contributes to curb emissions and provide clean electricity. 

Eni is partnering with hard-to-abate sectors to find the proper solutions for their decarbonisation path. Safeguarding the continuity of these industrial processes is a critical element to ensure the social and economic sustainability of the transition. Industries such as cement, steel and chemicals have a carbon footprint mainly related to their own industrial processes, rather than the forms of energy they use, and – as of today – they have limited solutions to decarbonise. 

A practical way to substantially reduce their emissions is to capture the carbon dioxide generated from their operations and bury it in depleted reservoirs: this is the process called carbon capture and storage. CCS and its role in the decarbonisation of industrial clusters has been recognised by the most relevant international organisations such as the International Energy Agency, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the International Renewable Energy Agency. 

Eni is already involved in large scale CCS projects: HyNet in the United Kingdom and Ravenna CCS in Italy are the cornerstones of our commitment to playing a leading role in CCS, thanks to which we will collect the CO2 captured in industrial districts and pipe it into exhausted natural gas deposits thousands of feet below the seabed. The definition of dedicated institutional and fiscal frameworks for CCS is a key enabler to further incentivise these kinds of groundbreaking projects that are critical to address the climate challenge.

TOWARDS NET ZERO

The decarbonisation of the transport sector is another crucial step towards net zero. Beside the progressive rollout of energy carriers such as electricity, biofuels play a critical role as a drop-in solution that can be already implemented with current technologies and infrastructures, especially for long-haul and heavy transport that is hard to electrify.

Eni has been advancing its unique vertically integrated feedstock strategy for the production of biofuels which involves communities, mainly in Africa, generating positive impacts on the local economy and employment. The model sees local farmers producing oilseeds, not in competition with the food chain, from marginal and degraded lands – identified in agreement with local authorities – to be then processed in dedicated agri-hubs before being used as feedstock for biofuel production. 

Eni contributes to a just and equitable transition, striving to eliminate energy poverty. To this end, in the countries where we operate, we prioritise the local sale of gas resources and we develop energy infrastructures with the aim of generating long-term value for local populations and improving their access to energy. Moreover, we promote initiatives to boost economic diversification, education, health, water management and sanitation.

While pursuing our distinctive approach, we remain committed to maximising the engagement of our relevant stakeholders, such as governments, local communities and companies. 

We strive to develop new successful businesses in a robust and competitive market to provide abundant, reliable low-carbon energy and decarbonisation solutions to our customers, in the context of a growing global population which will push further up the demand for energy.