Argentina and EU sign energy memorandum

[peppertree]

President Alberto Fernández and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on energy co-operation that seeks to boost energy trade between Argentina and the European Union.

Inked just before the start of the EU-CELAC (Community of Latin American and Caribbean States) summit, the memorandum states that both parties will support investment to increase energy trade between Argentina and the EU.

They will also develop the hydrogen, renewable energy and energy efficiency sectors - and work together to ensure that progress in these areas is in line with the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change.

It also contemplates developing a plan to use transport infrastructure to speed up the shipping of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Europe.

Future investment and related activity carried out within the framework of the memorandum should comply with the relevant climate laws, it states.

The document was signed in the European Union building in Brussels, where the EU is headquartered.

At: https://buenosairesherald.com/business/energy/argentina-and-eu-sign-energy-memorandum-at-eu-celac-summit

Argentine President Alberto Fernández and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen after signing a memorandum of understanding on energy co-operation between Argentina and the EU.

Today's agreement seeks to boost Argentine/EU energy trade, which totaled just $2 billion last year - with a $732 million deficit for Argentina due mainly to gas imports.

But growing production from SW Argentina's Vaca Muerta shale block could yield over $25 billion in annual oil and gas exports by 2030.

[NNadir]

1. Oh, politicians announcing a plan to destroy exergy and drive climate change.

What else is new?

We've been hearing this sort of thing for fifty years, including the very, very, very stupid hydrogen game, a bait and switch for fossil fuels.

This isn't particularly new, and the fact that we've been hearing this for 50 years is the reason that the concentration of the dangerous fossil fuel waste carbon dioxide in the planetary atmosphere has risen since 1976, the inaugural year for the publication of the Journal of Hydrogen Energy, when the concentration was 333.15 ppm (the week beginning July 11, 1976) to what we see now:

Week beginning on July 09, 2023: 422.02 ppm
Weekly value from 1 year ago: 419.18 ppm
Weekly value from 10 years ago: 397.93 ppm
Last updated: July 17, 2023

Weekly average CO2 at Mauna Loa

A Giant Climate Lie: When they're selling hydrogen, what they're really selling is fossil fuels.

What these two are selling, whether they know or not, is fossil fuels and more climate change. Fifty years of "renewable energy will save us" rhetoric has left the planet in flames. The reactionary scheme to return to the 19th century didn't work, isn't working, and won't work, and the awful hydrogen fantasy will only make an already desperate situation worse.

Let me repeat, the planet is in flames and chanting isn't doing a damned thing about it.

[Think. Again.]

2. Should?...

From the article:

"Future investment and related activity carried out within the framework of the memorandum should comply with the relevant climate laws, it states."

Should? Abiding by laws is optional now? I wish someone had told me that....