Latvian cars open their fuel tanks to Russian gas

Former Prime Minister Aigars Kalvītis, the representative of the interests of Russia's largest company Gazprom in Latvia, will soon have fulfilled the maximum program for the inflow of Russian natural gas into the Latvian transport system. By lobbying this goal in all government documents related to the climate and the fight against the Covid crisis, he has managed to use European Union taxpayers' money to increase Gazprom's wealth.

Lower taxes on autogas and gas-powered cars, state-paid gas filling stations and the purchase of special vehicles as a guarantee for permanent gas sales. For a couple of years now, Gazprom's derivative Latvijas gāze, led by Aigars Kalvītis, has been lobbying for making Latvia's transport sector more green, replacing petrol and diesel with gas. This is clearly a trick because natural gas is also known to be a fossil fuel. In part, he has already succeeded. Since January 1 this year, the rate of excise duty on natural gas used as fuel for transport has been reduced from 9.64 to 1.91 euros per megawatt-hour. So very significantly. For vehicles equipped with a gas fuel system, the vehicle operating tax has been reduced by 10%. However, this is not enough to lead to a massive shift to compressed natural gas in transport.

610 million. Pedal to the metal!

Last year, when the National Energy and Climate Plan for this decade was drawn up, Latvijas gāze, together with new car dealers, tried to insert a ban on the import of used cars into Latvia. With the idea of ​​forcibly changing the fleet, including requiring state institutions to use fossil natural gas-powered cars. However, they did not really manage to push Russian gas into Latvia's climate goals. After a major scandal, the national climate plan was rewritten in a much more moderate and sensible version. However, the gas people did not let up, and now they are pushing their strategic goals for the gasification of Latvian transport through the European Union's Recovery and Resilience Facility. In fact, they will take the taxpayers' money that is being given to the Latvian state to emerge from the crisis caused by the pandemic. For starters, the numbers are quite impressive. The Green Transition program has 37% of the funding or 610.5 million euros. More than half a billion. The planned distribution of money is marked in the presentation of the Ministry of Finance:

* Reduction of emissions in the transport sector - 295 million EUR

* Biomethane “flagship” project - 40 million EUR

* RES, the greening of production and energy efficiency - 183 million EUR

* Rescue services - 36 million EUR

* Environmental adaptation measures - 54 million EUR

On the same team as the mandatory procurement component supporters

Climate and sustainability funding lines are related to the use of biomethane as a transport fuel. Investments in biogas production equipment, filling stations, purchase of special transport - for firefighters, municipalities, schoolchildren. Why is it so of interest to Russian gas traders? Because the car engines, gas plants and filling stations do not care what kind of gas flows through the pipes - biomethane from the fermentation of livestock manure and maize, or compressed natural gas from Russia.

Aigars Kalvītis himself explained it on state television a week ago, saying:

"This is a new business segment that will obviously develop in Europe in the coming decades. And we are invested to make this segment also develop in Latvia.

Because more and more customers in Western Europe are interested in methane greening and natural gas greening. So it is purely our business. Well, not our business, but in the future, there could be one section of our business where we would also sell biomethane.”

This time, Latvijas gāze has taken the mandatory procurement component (OIK) producers as allies to achieve its goals. The same people to whom Latvians pay billions of euros for unnecessary and uncompetitive electricity and even less necessary heat. In biogas plants, to get the OIK, maize will putrefy alongside livestock manure, which is grown on huge areas - occupying the fertile lands necessary for food production.

Babbling about CO2

In order to ensure positive publicity for the transport gasification plan, at the end of last year, stakeholders drafted and submitted to the government a memorandum of cooperation on the decarbonisation of the transport sector through biomobility and biomethane. Of course, with the noble goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050. Signatories include natural gas companies, fuel traders, local NGOs, technology and vehicle suppliers, and agricultural and waste recycling companies. Basically, everyone who will benefit from the new OIK type scheme.

The Ministry of Environmental Protection and Regional Development has also distributed an article of praise for biomethane. Manure emits CO2, ammonia, warms the climate: “Fortunately, scientists have not been idle and have long been researching how to add new value to manure, while significantly reducing its negative impact on the environment and climate - producing the modern biofuel biomethane from manure, so that, in simple terms, we can use manure to drive vehicles and drive ecologically.”

The most important thing - the guarantee of consumption

However, in the glorification of biomethane distributed by the Ministry of the Environment, one different paragraph is more important:

“The EU Recovery and Resilience Facility Plan envisages investments in biomethane production and consumption in Latvia. The plan is based on the conversion of existing biogas plants to produce biomethane and the delivery of the produced biomethane to gas networks or filling stations, as well as ensuring a certain type of guaranteed consumption in Latvia.” So it is a matter of investing public money in a private business, and then a guaranteed purchase. There are currently 49 biogas OIK plants in Latvia. If the OIK is ever abolished in the future, as promised by the government, the golden business will fail. An alternative is needed. Otherwise, no benefit will come from giant vats filled with livestock manure and corn stalks. OIK supporters desperately need an alternative scheme. However, the biggest benefits of building infrastructure for gas to be used for transport will be for fossil natural gas traders. The state will have built gas stations, bought special transport, and forced everyone possible to switch to gas cars.

And then it won't matter if the compressed gas cylinders are filled with Russian gas in its pure form, mixed with some symbolic amount of Latvian manure gas.

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