The floating terminal off the North Sea coast of Lower Saxony is intended to help close the gap in Germany’s gas supply caused by the lack of deliveries from Russia. The heart of the terminal is the almost 300 meter long special ship “Höegh Esperanza”, which converts the liquefied natural gas delivered by tankers into the gaseous state and feeds it into the German gas network.
For the conversion, the liquefied natural gas has to be heated with North Sea water. After all, the natural gas was previously cooled to around minus 160 degrees in order to be able to liquefy it. However, to ensure that the evaporation ship does not become overgrown with algae, mussels or barnacles during heating, chlorine is needed, which is used as a biocide for cleaning. That’s the only way it can stay operational. At least that’s what the operator, the German gas company Uniper, says.
Warning of “creeping chemical accident”
According to the Lower Saxony State Office for Water Management, Coastal Defense and Nature Conservation (NLWKN), Uniper applied for the discharge of up to 178 million cubic meters of biocide-treated seawater annually. According to environmental aid, this is ten times more than the Australian authorities had previously considered acceptable at a comparable location.
As early as October, the German Environmental Aid (DUH) warned of a “creeping chemical accident”. The new report sets out the possible problems in more detail.
Criticism of the LNG terminal in Wilhelmshaven
The LNG terminal in Wilhelmshaven has been the subject of criticism since it went into operation in December. Liquefied natural gas is converted into gas on the ship “Höegh Esperanza”. For cleaning the seawater system, chlorine is used as a biocide to control pests, which consequently ends up in the sea. A new report has now confirmed that chlorine-containing sewage pollutes the sea.
Damage to ecosystem feared
Continuous chlorination “cannot be regarded as the best available technology,” according to the statement by the Hamburg laboratory LimnoMar published by environmental aid on Thursday, which is available to the German Press Agency. The procedure is neither compatible with national laws nor with the EU Water Framework Directive, it said.
Among other things, damage to the Wadden Sea ecosystem adjacent to the Jade River is feared. “Electrochlorination is an outdated technology, extremely harmful to the environment and also not legally permissible,” says DUH energy expert Constantin Zerger, summarizing the results.
Environmentally friendly cleaning process required
The authors recommend changing the process to at least one shock chlorination – i.e. only using chlorine if the growth pressure of algae and mussels requires it. In the long term, according to the expert opinion, an environmentally friendly cleaning process based on ultrasound, for example, should be used instead of chlorine.
The association asked the Lower Saxony approval authority again to order retrofitting to a different cleaning process. “Otherwise, based on the report, we will initiate further legal steps to protect the Wadden Sea National Park from the introduction of the toxic biocide,” said Zerger.
Ministry: Statements of the report “not applicable”
However, according to the approval authority NLWKN, the chlorine-based cleaning system does correspond to the “state of the art”. The Lower Saxony Ministry of the Environment also distances itself from the statements in the report that they are “inaccurate”. The basis for determining the “state of the art” are technical environmental standards of an internationally recognized standard. This recommends for a floating LNG import terminal (FSRU), “(…) that if seawater is used as a heating medium, a chlorination system should be available”.
Terminal operator Uniper said on request that the use of other cleaning methods, such as ultrasound, had been investigated. So far, no alternative procedure has met the “special requirements” of the ship. However, the approval authority has obliged Uniper to make proposals by the summer on how the use of biocides can be reduced. To this end, Uniper and the Höegh shipping company are “currently in numerous talks” with manufacturers, suppliers and experts.
Effects on climate
Imports of LNG to Europe last year increased by 60 percent compared to the previous year, according to the think tank Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. The majority came from the United States, which increased its deliveries by 143 percent.
But the increased LNG exports also have an impact on the climate. As Le Monde Diplomatique (LMD) writes: “The biggest hypocrisy in decoupling Europe from Russian oil and gas supplies concerns environmental policy. The production and transport of LNG from the USA has twice the carbon footprint of conventional Russian gas.”
