The former TotalEnergies oil refinery in Grandpuits (Seine-et-Marne), currently undergoing conversion into a biorefinery, will house an Air Liquide hydrogen production unit by 2025 to produce fuel from less polluting air, they announced Tuesday, December 22. November the two companies.
Conversion to biorefinery
“As part of a long-term contract that commits TotalEnergies to buy” the hydrogen produced on site, “Air Liquide will invest more than 130 million euros to build and operate a new hydrogen production unit,” explain the two industrial groups. in a press release. .
TotalEnergies announced in September 2020 a project to convert this important refinery in Île-de-France, for more than 500 million euros of investment, so that it produces biofuels, that is, fuels produced in particular from old cooking oils, and not oil.
With Tuesday’s announcement, the site will eventually house, in addition to the biofuel plant, an Air Liquide hydrogen production unit, as well as a plastic recycling unit, a grain-based biodegradable and recyclable plastic production unit. and a photovoltaic plant.
Hydrogen will not be “green”, that is, its carbon footprint will not be zero. It will be made of water vapor and gas. This will be regular natural gas and gas from the biorefinery.
This hydrogen will then be used to produce “SAF”, “sustainable” jet fuel, with a lower carbon footprint than kerosene, and which airlines will increasingly buy.
The Air Liquide unit will have an annual capacity of 20,000 tons of hydrogen, covering the needs of TotalEnergies. The biorefinery will produce some 400,000 tons of different fuels, including 210,000 tons of “SAF,” site director Michiel Van Raebroeckx told AFP on Monday during a visit.
Part of the “captured” CO2
About 60% of CO2 emissions from hydrogen production, or about 110,000 tons per year, will be “captured” to reuse the carbon in “food and industrial applications.”
This volume represents a third of the total emissions from the Grandpuits site once it is fully operational, specified Michiel Van Raebroeckx, and a small proportion of the total emissions of the TotalEnergies group, assessed by him at more than 400 million tons of CO2. equivalent per year. in the world, which Greenpeace considers underestimated.
In total, 14 oil and gas depots at Grandpuits have already been completely dismantled, as well as two production units.
The reconversion of this refinery means the elimination of 150 jobs out of 400, between early retirement and “internal mobility” and therefore “no layoffs”, according to TotalEnergies.
Source: BFM TV
