Sunday, September 19, 2021

WW3.0

LEFT COMMUNIST RESPONSE TO #AUKUS

Anti-China Military Alliance  between the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom? 

A significant step in the dynamics of generalized war


(press release of September 18, 2021) 

The 'sudden announcement of the creation of a military alliance between the United States, Australia and Great Britain, the Aukud, a kind of Asian and uniquely Anglo-Saxon NATO represents a step, if not a leap, of extreme importance in the march towards generalized imperialist war. The event seemed to us of such importance that we considered it essential to modify the contents of our review REVOLUTION or WAR  Journal of the International Group of the Communist Left (IGCL) 19 at the last moment and to delay its release for a few days. 


Its editorial, written the day before the alliance's public declaration, underlines once again, as we have already done in previous issues, "that the push for generalized imperialist war is exerting increased pressure on each national bourgeoisie, to begin with by the most powerful, to the point that the outlines of a polarization, which is also in the process of becoming, military and ideological, seem to be emerging around the United States, bringing together the so-called democratic imperialist powers and China, behind which the so-called powers would be aligned.


The new military alliance is an expression and an accelerating factor. If in any doubt of the gravity of the decision, just look at the Chinese reaction: "If Australia ventures to provoke China even more openly over this (...), China will punish it mercilessly. . (…) Since Australia has become an anti-Chinese spearhead, the country must prepare for the worst. (Global Times, Chinese newspaper, 9/16/21, emphasis added) 


With the new alliance and the nuclear armament of the Australian navy (among other military decisions), the USoffensive containment, that one even that the United States had waged in the 1930s against Japan, tightens its grip on China even more. The first imperialist power cannot let it take its place at the risk of precipitating its own downfall. But sooner or later, the infernal dialectic of imperialism and like Japan at Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Chinese imperialism will be forced to try to loosen the tourniquet by which American imperialism seeks to suffocate it. The gear is relaunched with the Aukud and the endowment of nuclear submarines to Australia can only cause a redoubling of the arms race both in the so-called Indo-Pacific zone and on all continents. 

 

The real scale and significance of the "catastrophic" - catastrophic for the Afghan population - withdrawal of the American army from Kabul is becoming clearer: the American anti-Chinese offensive is the top priority and everyone must choose their side, for or versus. "Europeans want to delay the moment of truth, not to make a choice between the two, " said Thomas Gomart, director of the French Institute of International Relations, or IFRI. The Biden administration, like the Trump administration, is forcing the moment to choose. " (Quoted by the New York Times, 9/17/21) French imperialism, the most pro" European defense ", has just suffered a masterful snub - to the point of recalling its ambassadors in Washington and Canberra - who say so. long both on its own limits and its weight on the world stage and on its inability to convince its “European partners”, Germany, to assert a substantial European imperialist pole. 


Today, in the speed race between the two dynamics and the choice of the historical alternative revolution or war, the march towards war tends to take the advantage. Time is playing against the revolutionary proletariat. To conclude, we reproduce below the position taken by the revolutionary group Emancipation (Nuevo Curso). It defends an internationalist position and shares with us the historical significance of the creation of the Aukud and the danger of the march towards generalized imperialist war. So, since it is possible, speaking with one voice not only to raise high the banner of proletarian internationalism but also to dismantle and shed light on the infernal mechanics of imperialism constitutes for the communist groups and the proletariat a first class response.  

The IGCL, September 18, 2021 

intleftcom@gmail.com,

website : www.igcl.org




TEXT TRANSLATED FROM FRENCH USING GOOGLE TRANSLATE  
EWP

Aukus, the new military alliance between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States: a step towards 3rd world war


(Emancipation) 

he official European media headlines “US, Australia and UK make pact against China” bluntly warns of the danger of the Aukus deal and how it marks the end. entry into a new phase of nuclear proliferation. It is true that this is one 

more step towards war, but if it marks a limit, it is only because the European powers have been excluded by the United States from the secondary arms market. they were counting on until Wednesday. 

However, the organization of Aukus as an “English-speaking bloc” is neither new nor limited to armaments. It is the core of a trading and war bloc. 

Australia: “an alliance for the next generations” 


The most significant aspect of this agreement is that it expresses Australia's final choice of a long-term alliance with the United States against China. The Australian press, following Prime Minister Scott Morrison, speaks of a "deal for life" which is "destined to last for generations." Over the past three years Australia has tried to maintain an autonomous imperialist course - with increasing difficulty. On the one hand, its most basic industrial supply routes were becoming more openly threatened by China, its main customer. On the other hand, attempts to find a regional alternative in terms of routes and markets as part of the American attempts to create their own Indo-Pacific alliance have been thwarted by India's reluctance. 


“The 2018 fuel supply crisis - perhaps a quiet Chinese signal - made it clear to the Australian bourgeoisie that something was wrong. Australia is supplied by Asian refineries (especially China, Singapore and South Korea). Even if it changed suppliers and developed its own refineries, it would need a "safe corridor" from Japan to the Persian Gulf. The problem is that the economic-military dimension of this corridor, QUAD, the Australia-Japan-India-United States partnership, was attractive to Australian capital primarily as a means of rebalancing Chinese exports with others to the United States. India ... But when Trump has raised regional tensions, Modi [Indian Prime Minister, ndt] - fearing to rally against Beijing - quickly made to distance India. Clearly, the opening of free trade negotiations with the European Union (EU) shortly thereafter was in turn intended to compensate for the loss of perspective from the Indian markets. But neither the possible volumes, nor the negotiation times, nor even the transport costs, allow them to be compared. » (Émancipation, Australia y la guerra comercial, 2019) 


It is in this context that the rapprochement - inevitably unsatisfactory - with the EU in 2019 took place. Australia - which then suffered a blockage of its coal exports and of wine to China - is looking to Europe for an agreement to expand its submarine fleet, as it does not want to go into open conflict just yet. Its first candidate supplier was not France. Germany had hoped to build the 12 submarines for the Australian Navy, but it was ultimately Paris that won the contract.  


France, the European Union and the “deal of the century” broken by Aukus The American announcement of the birth of Aukus came this week, just as the EU presented its “Indo-Pacific strategy”. The new strategy is to extend and make permanent the presence of a European navy in maritime conflict zones. A dangerous game of challenge and pressure on Beijing in which France and Germany played a leading role. This “coincidence” did not go unnoticed by Europeans

Yesterday the French government called the Aukus and the resulting cancellation of the submarine deal a "stab in the back" and Mr Borrell, on behalf of the EU, " regretted "that the United States left the Europeans out of the Aukus, implying that relations with Washington would never be the same again. 

But what hurt Paris and Brussels the most was the breach of the contract to extend the Australian submarine fleet. Australia had planned to obtain French technology to set up its own domestic production of submarines. The starting model was the Shortfin Barracuda, the diesel version of the French nuclear submarine of the same name. Australia gained strategic autonomy by purchasing production capacity and not the end product, and reserved the subsequent conversion to nuclear. 


“The amount of the bill initially estimated at 34 billion euros, suffered several budget overruns and months of delay, which aroused the wrath of the local Australian press and the Labor opposition. Meanwhile, outside of radars, the United States has interfered in the negotiations, and torpedoed 'the contract of the century', offering to provide the Australian Navy with eight atomic-powered submarines capable of patrolling at very long distance. " (The French review Marianne, Submarine contract broken: "The United States has opened Pandora's box", 9/16/2021)) 


From the Franco-European point of view taken up by the media, it seems that the United States has excluded the 'EU of Aukus only to "steal" the contract from the submarines. This is not the case. The choice of armaments generates operational links, allows the exchange and joint training of crews and facilitates the coordination and complementarity of operations. Choosing armaments means choosing allies on the battlefield, selling them, promoting future joint operations. 


From an Australian perspective, it is understandable why a turnkey American submarine has become more valuable than a European technology shipyard on national soil. War in Asia seems closer and closer, a matter of years, not decades. And the United States is a vector, with a capacity of projection of troops and ships much greater than that of a distant and less well-equipped Europe. 

The evolution of American alignments against China in the Pacific and the origin of Aukus The "surprise" of Borrell and the European Commission is not very convincing either. For the United States, Aukus means giving up - reluctantly - having the main Asian states as the main military and commercial vehicle in their confrontation with China. They take a step back and decide to relaunch their "hard core" of alliances with other English-speaking countries where their influence has always been predominant, in order to advance in their encirclement of China. 


The specific objectives of the Aukus, namely "to deepen cooperation in areas such as cybernetics, artificial intelligence (AI) or quantum technology" by promoting a "new security framework" in the Indo-Pacific region, are a development of the “Five Eyes” alliance: the United States, Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. This alliance, whose origins date back to the Pacific War, is a military intelligence club that has been operating continuously since the Korean War. 


For a year and a half, the "five eyes" have been proposed as the basis of an anti-Chinese bloc in the Indo-Pacific region and China has seen there the nucleus of an Anglo-Saxon bloc which was already coordinating in the trade war. But the United States, for reasons of economic strategy and political positioning in Asia, did not want the new “Asian NATO” to emerge from an alliance of only Anglo-Saxon countries, as is ultimately the Aukus. This is why its primary objective, both under Trump and under Biden, was to consolidate the QUAD (United States, India, Australia and Japan) as a military alliance and economic trade bloc, and to rely on this core. by incorporating South Korea, Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia.  


But South Korea, engaged in its own rivalry with Japan and having more than notable investments in China, did not want to be in the game and categorically refused to be part of an enlarged Quad. India also refused under Trump's presidency. And if the United States was hoping for a change with Biden, it was wrong. The Modi government only agreed to participate in the joint military exercises when it was clear that they would take place under French leadership, which now takes on its full significance. And in April of this year, India reaffirmed its alliance with Russia. 


The United States then considered including Japan in the "five eyes" group. But when the friction between Japan and South Korea nearly blasted the G7, it seems to have become clear to Biden's advisers that there is no relevant subset of Asian countries in which alignment with the United States was stronger than the imperialist quarrels between them. Japan allowed Vietnam to be added - something Washington needed Suga [the Japanese prime minister] for - but subtracted Korea and the Philippines.  


The strategy of creating an imperialist bloc in Asia and the Indo-Pacific region was redefined at the White House: it was better to return to the safe ground of the "five eyes" - from which the Aukus originated - and regroup the rest of the countries. which confront China on the basis of bilateral military agreements such as the one recently concluded with Indonesia. 


It is so important to ensure the “governance” of the alliance that the United States has left Canada outside the Aukus - with which trade disputes have not abated since Biden's arrival - as well as New Zealand and its Prime Minister who was too little hawkish in Washington's eyes. 

Aukus: a coup by the USA to force the constitution of an imperialist bloc in the southern hemisphere 


Yet it is not as if Great Britain, the third leg of the Aukus, is unconditionally in the alliance no more. The Afghan experience, in which the United States left the British military in a difficult situation by withdrawing without coordination or consultation, is all too recent. And in yesterday's parliamentary debate, Theresa May, in no way suspicious of pacifism, asked Johnson if membership in Aukus would not drag Britain into a war for Taiwan in the short term.


The question is far from being exaggerated. For months, Washington has concentrated pressure and weaponry on the Taiwan Strait. Beijing, especially since the last edition of the "two sessions" in question its belonging to China. The two camps have been continuously mobilized for months and dream without shame or prudence of the consequences of a defeat of the other. 


Over the past four years, we have seen the trend of bloc formation strengthen with each stroke of the crisis. Aukus represents, at the very least, a further step. There was no change to be expected from the Biden presidency in this regard. And indeed, what is now becoming clear is that persevering on the path of war is the main strategic commonality of the various factions of the American ruling class. 


Within the American ruling class, pre-war emergencies serve to mend the tear that the Trump administration has represented. The internal logic of this situation is fueling the acceleration of militarism and imperialist tensions with China.  


“The Biden administration justifies US policy in terms of infrastructure, economy and even public services by the need to strengthen the country to better compete with China. American foreign policy is increasingly organized as an attempt to counter the rising great power. President Joe Biden keeps repeating that he had to withdraw from Afghanistan because China liked the United States to get bogged down in it. Take some of the most important issues rocking Washington, the Covid-19 pandemic and the fight against climate change, and China is at the center of those. (…) The idea that [China] poses a threat is the only point on which Republicans and Democrats, supporters of Trump and Biden can agree. Biden has placed the promotion of democracy at the center of his presidency, there is no need to guess why ... ” (CNN1). 


This process has its immediate translation in the whole of the American imperialist policy and in particular in the relations with its “historical allies”, not only in Europe but also in the rest of the world. When the French foreign minister called the formation of Aukus and the breach of the naval contract "unilateral, brutal and unpredictable" (France Info), the implicit reference to Kabul sent a message to the other European states which Paris will present to again the idea of ​​a European army in 2022: “the EU cannot count on the United States to defend its interests if it does not have a position allowing it to defend itself. 


"Butwhen he found that the behavior of the US towards Europe was"very similar to Mr.Trump, "hestressed that Washington does not simply continue the" me or China ”, but leaves less and less room for an imperialist policy independent of the European states. In the words of CNN: “The leaders of the European Union have been more cautious [of China than the United States], apparently seeking a middle path between two great powers. The past few days show that making such a decision has consequences. 


"TheFrench capital has faced the obvious: the policy of" with me or against me "applies already in Asia. Aukus is actually a hit on the table on the most sensitive stage for Washington in its rivalry to China. Its aim is to precipitate by force the formation of an imperialist bloc in the Pacific and to force all the states which want to play in the region to come out for or against the USA. 


And this is only the first step. In the rest of the world, even for countries on the fringes of the Indo-Pacific conflict, Aukus is likely to become the nucleus of an “alternative” to China in an option that will increasingly be “all or nothing”. The tension in the Falklands and the Sickle Sea has been a dress rehearsal - so far inconclusive - of what the Aukus might entail in the southern cone of South America and in Antarctica. But sooner or later we'll see the alliance move across the southern hemisphere.  


Emancipation (https://es.communia.blog/aukus/), September 17, 2021,

1. CNN,






 IGCL

OUR POSITIONS

 • Since World War 1, capitalism has been a decadent social system which has nothing to offer the working class and humanity as a whole except cycles of crises, wars and reconstructions. Its irreversible historical decay poses the single alternative for humanity : socialism or barbarism. 

• The Paris Commune of 1871 was the first attempt by the proletariat to carry out this revolution, in a period when the conditions for it were not yet ripe. Once these conditions had been provided by the onset of capitalist decadence, the October revolution of 1917 in Russia was the first step towards an authentic world communist revolution in an international revolutionary wave which put an end to the imperialist war and went on for several years after that. The failure of this revolutionary wave, particularly in Germany in 1919-23, condemned the revolution in Russia to isolation and to a rapid degeneration. Stalinism was not the product of the Russian revolution, but its gravedigger.

 • The statified regimes which arose in the USSR, eastern Europe, China, Cuba, etc., and were called 'socialist' or 'communist' were just a particularly brutal form of the universal tendency towards state capitalism, itself a major characteristic of the period of decadence. 

• Since the beginning of the 20th century, all wars are imperialist wars, part of the deadly struggle between states large and small to conquer or retain a place in the international arena. These wars bring nothing to humanity but death and destruction on an ever-increasing scale. The working class can only respond to them through its international solidarity and by struggling against the bourgeoisie in all countries. 

• All the nationalist ideologies -'national independence', 'the right of nations to self-determination', etc.- whatever their pretext, ethnic, historical or religious, are a real poison for the workers. By calling on them to take the side of one or another faction of the bourgeoisie, they divide workers and lead them to massacre each other in the interests and wars of their exploiters. 

• In decadent capitalism, parliament and elections are nothing but a masquerade. Any call to participate in the parliamentary circus can only reinforce the lie that presents these elections as a real choice for the exploited. 'Democracy', a particularly hypocritical form of the domination of the bourgeoisie, does not differ at root from other forms of capitalist dictatorship, such as Stalinism and fascism. 

• All factions of the bourgeoisie are equally reactionary. All the so-called 'workers', 'Socialist', and 'Communist' parties (now ex-'Communists'), the leftist organizations (Trotskyists, Maoists, anarchists) constitute the left of capitalism's political apparatus. All the tactics of 'popular fronts', 'anti-fascist fronts' and 'united fronts', which mix the interests of the proletariat with those of a faction of the bourgeoisie, serve only to smother and derail the struggle of the proletariat. 

• With the decadence of capitalism, the unions everywhere have been transformed into organs of capitalist order within the proletariat. The various forms of union organization, whether 'official' or 'rank and file', serve only to discipline the working class and sabotage its struggles. 

• In order to advance its combat, the working class has to unify its struggles, taking charge of their extension and organization through sovereign general assemblies and committees of delegates elected and revocable at any time by these assemblies. 

• Terrorism is in no way a method of struggle for the working class. The expression of social strata with no historic future and of the decomposition of the petty bourgeoisie, when it's not the direct expression of the permanent war between capitalist states, terrorism has always been a fertile soil for manipulation by the bourgeoisie. Advocating secret action by small minorities, it is in complete opposition to class violence, which derives from conscious and organized mass action by the proletariat. 

• The working class is the only class which can carry out the communist revolution. Its revolutionary struggle will inevitably lead the working class towards a confrontation with the capitalist state. In order to destroy capitalism, the working class will have to overthrow all existing states and establish the dictatorship of the proletariat on a world scale: the international power of the workers' councils, regrouping the entire proletariat. 

• The communist transformation of society by the workers' councils does not mean 'self-management' or the nationalization of the economy. Communism requires the conscious abolition by the working class of capitalist social relations: wage labour, commodity production, national frontiers. It means the creation of a world community in which all activity is oriented towards the full satisfaction of human needs.

 • The revolutionary political organization constitutes the vanguard of the working class and is an active factor in the generalization of class consciousness within the proletariat. Its role is neither to 'organize the working class' nor to 'take power' in its name, but to participate actively in the movement towards the unification of struggles, towards workers taking control of them for themselves, and at the same time to draw out the revolutionary political goals of the proletariat's combat. 

OUR ACTIVITY 

• Political and theoretical clarification of the goals and methods of the proletarian struggle, of its historic and its immediate conditions. 

• Organized intervention, united and centralized on an international scale, in order to contribute to the process which leads to the revolutionary action of the proletariat. 

• The regroupment of revolutionaries with the aim of constituting a real world communist party, which is indispensable to the working class for the overthrow of capitalism and the creation of a communist society.

 OUR ORIGINS 

• The positions and activity of revolutionary organizations are the product of the past experiences of the working class and of the lessons that its political organizations have drawn throughout its history. The IGCL thus traces its origins to the successive contributions of the Communist League of Marx and Engels (1847-52), the three Internationals (the International Workingmen's Association, 1864-72, the Socialist International, 1884-1914, the Communist International, 1919-28), the left fractions which detached themselves from the degenerating Third International in the years 1920-30, in particular the German, Dutch and Italian Lefts, and the groups of the Communist Left which had specially developed in the 1970s and 1980s and which were stemming from these fractions.

BHP inks supply deals for Jansen potash output

Cecilia Jamasmie | September 15, 2021 | 

Jansen is slated to produce 4.4 million tonnes of potash annually in its first phase, or nearly 8% of the world’s total. (Image: BHP’s presentation. )

BHP (ASX, NYSE, LON: BHP) said on Wednesday it had secured non-binding deals with major importers to for up to 100% of future production from its Jansen potash project in Canada’s Saskatchewan province.


The world’s largest mining company, which approved up to $5.7 billion investment in August to bring Jansen into production, said in a presentation that its expanded marketing team will have more than five years to build relationships and secure binding sales.

The strategy aims to “replicate tried and tested model of marketing directly to major customers via regional offices leveraging BHP’s broader commercial resources,” the company said.


BHP SAID ITS TEAM WOULD HAVE ABOUT FIVE YEARS TO BUILD RELATIONSHIPS WITH BUYERS AND TO SECURE BINDING SALES BEFORE FIRST PRODUCTION

BHP said markets for Jansen’s potash could include the US, Brazil, India, and China. Potash is seen by farmers as an attractive resource because of its use as fertilizer, which also boosts drought tolerance and improves crop quality.

The mining giant expects potash demand to increase by 15 million tonnes to roughly 105 million tonnes by 2040 or 1.5% to 3% a year, along with the global population and pressure to improve farming yields given limited land supply.

BHP has tried to tap into the fertilizers market for some time. In 2010, it unsuccessfully bid $38.6 billion for Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan, which in 2018 merged with Agrium Inc. to form Nutrien (TSE, NYSE: NTR).

The Canadian potash producer has been an open critic of the Jansen project for years, as it believes developing it would cause an unwelcome oversupply. The company’s tone has slightly changed since Mayo Schmidt took the helm of the company earlier this year, replacing Chuck Magro.

The Saskatoon-based miner said in May the market could absorb Jansen’s output if produced in a “disciplined” way.

Located 140km east of Saskatoon, the project is expected to give BHP exposure to a market driven by rising global food demand and represents one of its few major growth prospects.

Jansen is slated to produce 4.4 million tonnes of potash annually in its first phase, or nearly 8% of the world’s total. It will have capacity for an additional 12 million tonnes thereafter, for a life of 100 years.
BHP’s net-zero targets don’t include its steelmaking customers

Bloomberg News | September 14, 2021 | 

Credit: JFE Steel

BHP Group said it will target net-zero greenhouse gas emissions from its direct suppliers and the shipment of its products by 2050, but stopped short of extending it to steelmaking customers due to what it describes as the technical challenges facing the industry.


The Melbourne-based company’s Scope 3 emissions — which include procurement and shipping as well as end-user emissions — were 402.5 million tons of carbon dioxide-equivalent in the year ended June 30, BHP said in a climate plan announced Tuesday. That’s more than the total emissions of the U.K. and account for 96% of its overall emissions.

While steel is an important component in many of the products driving the decarbonization process, its production accounts for as much as 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions — and about three quarters of BHP’s Scope 3 emissions. The company says it’s working with industry giants including Japan’s JFE Steel and China’s HBIS Group on ways to reduce manufacturers’ carbon footprint.

“There are a number of global uncertainties that must be reckoned with in terms of achieving net zero in steel,” BHP said in the report, including the timeline for finding economical solutions to decarbonize the steel-making process. While some steel producers are trialling the use of hydrogen as a cleaner alternative to coal, the company has said the technology faces headwinds in terms of cost and storage.

BOTH BHP AND RIO TINTO GROUP, THE WORLD’S TOP IRON ORE EXPORTER, ARE TARGETING A 30% REDUCTION IN THE EMISSIONS INTENSITY OF ITS STEEL CUSTOMERS OVER THE NEXT DECADE

Both BHP and Rio Tinto Group, the world’s top iron ore exporter, are targeting a 30% reduction in the emissions intensity of its steel customers over the next decade. Fortescue Metals Group Ltd. has said it will announce targets for Scope 3 emissions later this month.

BHP’s Scope 3 goals come with caveats. Its net-zero target for direct suppliers is subject to the availability of carbon neutral goods and services that meet the miner’s requirements. Its shipping pledge depends on the widespread availability of carbon-neutral solutions including low or zero emissions marine fuels as well as technology on board suitable ships.

While emissions from BHP’s operations rose 2% in the past year, the company said it remained on track to reach its 30% reduction target by 2030. Solar and wind power supply deals were already in place across a range of its mine assets which would lower those emissions in the years ahead, the company said.

BHP is looking to clean up its portfolio by exiting thermal coal and increasing its exposure to what Chief Executive Officer Mike Henry calls “future-facing commodities”. They include metals such as copper and nickel — key materials for the batteries and wiring that are key to the clean-energy transition.

(By James Thornhill)

Hydrogen Could Be A Game-Changer For Midstream Oil & Gas

This is the final article in a series that examines Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance (ESG) programs in the oil industry, with an emphasis on how some companies are using hydrogen to improve their metrics. Previous articles were:

Today I want to talk about specific examples of how various companies are incorporating hydrogen into their businesses.

Alerian on Midstream ESG

The genesis of this series came from a recent research piece from independent energy infrastructure and master limited partnership (MLP) market intelligence data provider Alerian: Midstream/MLPs: The Unsung ESG Push.

The research piece covered a number of different initiatives, but I was particularly interested in learning what these companies are doing in the area of hydrogen. I inquired, and heard back from Mauricio Samaniego, Senior Research Analyst, Alerian and S-Network Global Indexes, who said:

“As you may be aware, the recurring hydrogen theme for midstream has revolved around natural gas pipelines and storage facilities being used for the transportation and storage of blue or green hydrogen over the next decade.

Today, hydrogen initiatives are in very early stages and are mostly focused on blending hydrogen into existing natural gas pipelines, which has been set forth, explored, and/or discussed by Enbridge (ENB), TC Energy (TRP), Kinder Morgan (KMI), and The Williams Company (WMB). Additionally, TRP and Enterprise Product Partners (EPD) have also discussed—and are evaluating—leveraging existing nuclear and petrochemical plants for hydrogen production.”

He included a number of bullet points delineating these hydrogen-related initiatives, some of which I have used in the commentary below.

Hydrogen in Midstream

There are three readily accessible uses for hydrogen produced near a natural gas field. The first is compression. Midstream operators rely on compression to move natural gas from the field to the customer.

The National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), a branch of the Department of Energy, estimates that there are 1,700 midstream natural gas pipeline compressor stations with a total of 5,000-7,000 compressors, approximately 13,000-15,000 smaller compressors in upstream, and 2,000-3,000 compressors (all sizes) in downstream oil & gas and liquefied natural gas (LNG) applications. The DOE estimates that 2-3% of U.S. natural gas production is utilized by these compressors. (Source).

Among other companies, GE has developed hydrogen-fueled compressors. They currently have more than 100 units in the field operating on up to 100% hydrogen. So, a midstream operator could utilize hydrogen locally produced from underutilized products like ethane to improve ESG metrics.

Industrial gas turbines are currently the prime mover of choice for most mainline applications. Each of these turbines emits carbon dioxide, and they are high-profile targets for ESG improvements. Within the next 15 years, an estimated 5 million horsepower of compression must be replaced. (Source).  

Operators of gas-fired power plants are also in the crosshairs, with regulators and investors setting ambitious CO2 reduction targets. Power plant turbines can be operated using a blend of methane and up to 20% hydrogen to reduce CO2 emissions. Mitsubishi Power has announced development of turbines capable of operating on 100% hydrogen. 

To get that hydrogen to the power plants, many midstream operators are testing the blending of hydrogen into natural gas pipelines. In its Q4 2020 earnings call, Kinder Morgan mentioned having the technology in place to blend hydrogen with natural gas and move it via its pipelines.

Enbridge currently has two ongoing hydrogen projects, including a $5.2M hydrogen blending pilot project in Markham, Ontario and a $90 million, 20 MW hydrogen production and blending project in Gatineau in western Quebec.

At a recent energy conference, Energy Products Partners mentioned evaluating hydrogen applications for transportation and storage—citing ongoing discussions with a petrochemical company regarding hydrogen pipeline and storage projects.

Related: China Oil Consumption Seen Peaking In 5 Years

TC Energy (formerly TransCanada) is evaluating blending hydrogen into its existing pipeline, as well as adding dedicated hydrogen assets. On their Q1 2021 conference call, management mentioned that they see their pipelines as being big assets when it comes to thinking about the future of how hydrogen is going to move.

Finally, the Canadian Government has incorporated a hydrogen strategy that intends to position Canada as a world-leading producer of clean hydrogen. This explains why Canadian midstream corporations are leading the hydrogen movement (e.g., Enbridge, TC Energy). 

For American midstream operators, U.S. policy support has started to take shape the last few months, with both the Biden Administration and Congress proposing new and expanded hydrogen tax credits, along with other incentives for hydrogen investment. Along with the proposed policies, more supportive legislation could presumably accelerate the adoption of hydrogen and lead to further hydrogen-related developments across the midstream space.

By Robert Rapier

How mining waste can be used for hydrogen fuel production


MINING.COM Staff Writer | September 15, 2021 

Powdered feldspar. 
(Image by Dr Hong Peng, courtesy of the Queensland University of Technology).

Researchers at the Queensland University of Technology have discovered a way to use mining waste as part of a potential cheaper catalyst for hydrogen fuel production.


The team led by Ziqi Sun and Hong Peng published these findings in the journal Advanced Energy & Sustainability Research. In their article, they explain that, normally, water splitting reactions that produce hydrogen are triggered using platinum, which costs about $1,450/ounce, iridium at $1,370/ounce and ruthenium at $367/ounce. Cheaper but less active metals such as cobalt, whose price is about $70,000/tonne, nickel at $26,000/tonne and iron at $641/tonne, are also used.

But they propose the idea of a new catalyst that requires only a small amount of these reactive metals and is combined with feldspars, aluminosilicate rock minerals found in mining waste that some companies pay about $30/tonne to dispose of. Feldspars make up about 60% of the Earth’s crust.

FELDSPARS ARE ALUMINOSILICATE ROCK MINERALS FOUND IN MINING WASTE. SOME COMPANIES PAY ABOUT $30/TONNE TO DISPOSE OF IT

In a series of experiments, the scientists triggered a water-splitting reaction using heated-activated feldspars nano-coated with only 1–2% of the cheaper reactive metals.

“Water splitting involves two chemical reactions—one with the hydrogen atom and one with the oxygen atom—to cause them to separate,” Sun said. “This new nano-coated material triggered the oxygen evolution reaction, which controls the overall efficiency of the whole water splitting process.”

According to Sun, cobalt-coated feldspar was very efficient and optimizing the new catalysts could see them outperform raw metals or even match the superior efficiency of platinum metals. He also said the aluminosilicates were chemically inert, but heat caused defects that were useful for chemical reactions and electron transport.

In his view, the new catalyst could potentially lower the cost of lithium-ion batteries and other sustainable energy solutions that rely on electrochemical conversions. This is why his group is now looking to test the catalysts at a pilot scale.

“Australia’s abundance of aluminosilicate and the simplicity of this modification process should make industrial-scale production of this new catalyst easy to achieve,” Sun said.

“Companies like Tesla could potentially use this technology for energy production, advanced energy storage solutions like new battery technologies, and renewable fuel.”