Carbon is not the enemy, emissions are. We need clean energy at cost and at scale, and we cannot do it alone - Ilham Kadari

The challenges facing many industries, particularly energy-intensive ones, are significant and will require a multitude of solutions to help them on their pathway to net-zero. Many of our largest industries will require a multi-faceted and highly-collaborative approach to decarbonize. What can the energy sector and broader industry do to support the energy transition? How can policy nurture competition and growth for companies while simultaneously incentivizing low carbon solutions?

This panel of CEOs will share their visions and strategies for Decarbonisation of industry, listening to the perspective brought by key players in the automotive and chemical sector, as well players in the new energy space about the opportunities presented by blue and green hydrogen, carbon capture and storage, the roles for ammonia, integration with renewable energies, intelligent storage systems, sustainable mobility and building out rare earth capabilities critical to the energy transition.

Ilham Kadari

When Ms. Kadri joined the 160-year-old chemical company in 2019, Solvay wasn’t aligned with the Paris Agreement, “and the reality is that we didn’t have an ambition.” It started decarbonizing and de-coaling before the war in Ukraine, and now has 60 projects around the world whose decarbonized operations are like removing 2 million cars from the road every year. “I need 100 sites around the world to reach my objective in Scope 1 and 2—so there is good business to be made.”

To achieve this, not only does Solvay need clean energy at cost and at scale, but it also needs something big to change with governments. “Permitting can be insane,” says Kadri. “I have five plants using coal in Europe, which we committed to de-coal by 2030. And it takes ages, years, to get permits to move to another.”

With solutions including carbon capture and green hydrogen piloting in Italy, biomass in Germany, biomass RFDs in France, and the largest solar farm in the US, Kadri is technology agnostic. Her team is building a site-level neutrality roadmap, assessing whatever opportunities look right for each situation, and her requirements are simply that there needs to be proof of concept, and the right cost at scale. About the most recent issues surrounding energy security, Kadri says
it was a much-needed wake-up call, not only for countries but companies too.

She was recently alerted to a mono-source supply issue for anthracite, which is critical to keeping its 100-year-old glazing ovens operating. So, she says, de-risking
must be top of mind now for everyone. Kadri said decarbonization is going to cost Solvay €2 billion. “But we do it because we believe that it is the right thing to do
for us to last another 160 years as company.” She’s also a big believer in Scope 3 which cannot happen without success on Scopes 1 and 2. “So, it needs courage to be not only looking at the quarter but at the long term.”

Frédéric Lissalde

Mr. Lissalde said it’s increasingly important to be comfortable being uncomfortable. In the last 3-4 years, BorgWarner has pivoted from traditional combustion to propelling cars, trucks, and busses with new energy—including batteries, hydrogen, and fuel cells. By making products that don’t emit as much greenhouse gas emission, they are on a strong path forward with Scope 3.

The next part of its strategy was to look at how it makes those products. The company’s pledges include 85% reduction in Scope 1 and 2 for 2030, and 25% in
Scope 3 for 2031. Lissalde says some energies require a lot of different changes, while others are fairly agnostic. For example, a combustion engine can burn
hydrogen or natural gas. Ultimately, he says BorgWarner goal “is to be able to move vehicles from point A to point B being fuel agnostic.” That brought him to
a key point about policy. “What I would say is that policymakers have to focus on what they want and not how they want it.” For example, many European cities have mandated electric cars only by a certain date. “But that’s the how,” says Lissalde. “The what is ‘I don’t want greenhouse gas emission in my city.’ Leave the how to the industrial people because there are other means to move from point A to point B in a city without being pure BEV.”

Policymakers should focus on the what, and leave the how, the technology side, to us

KR Sridhar

Bloom Energy has a unique technology that converts gas into electricity or vice versa. Mr. Sridhar was very focused on the ideas of disruption and optionality. “Ilham started by talking about chemical industry and energy industry. Think of a future world where these two industries are blended. That’s how we think about our platform.” He said the world is going to need optionality as we transition, for example being able to use natural gas today without worrying about stranded assets, or making green natural gas into electricity—if the CO₂ is captured and sequestered, the result is negative-carbon electricity. “So, I’m a huge optimist about where the future is going to go, as opposed to this is a problem. You know, crises are when real progress happens.”

Speaking about electricity as security, he said the reliability and resiliency of electricity is crucial—and the idea that a pole and a wire are the only way to get it is narrow-minded. “The grid plays an important role. That’s the flywheel. But we need local resiliency and local distributed generation that gives the firmness of the power. But then all physical objects require a lot of other forms of energy, such as heat, and that’s going to come from a molecule.”

Think of a future world where these two [chemical and energy] industries are blended. That’s how we think about our platform.”

Marco Alverà

Mr. Alverà harkened back to a Baker Hughes Annual Meeting seven or eight years ago where Bob Dudley said we’ll electrify around 50%, and the rest is going to be some form of oil and e-gases and e-fuels and biofuels. “I think.” said Mr. Alverà, “the great news is there’s now a lot more consensus that gas is a fuel of the future and that we need to decarbonize gasses using technologies that are going to be blending biofuels, fossil fuels and e fuels. The role of e-fuels, he says, is still underestimated because not everyone understands how cheap e-fuels are becoming—they are now cheaper than fossil fuels in many parts of the world. TES uses a process that is tried and tested at scale to turn green hydrogen very cheaply into methane. He says it’s very bankable, imminently easy to transport and store and burn, and uses trillions of dollars of existing infrastructure.

The only thing holding it back is the availability of electrolyzers. Mr. Alverà says there is no lack of customers willing to take a cheaper fuel that has no carbon. Nor is there a lack or government subsidies, or even the technology. There is simply a lack of equipment. “So, we need to partner with the industry to create the Airbuses of electrolyzers and of fuel cells so we can really front-load the decline rate of the cost curve and just make it very cheap for a lot of applications today.”

Merging hydrogen and carbon dioxide in a very energy efficient process creates synthetic methane. This process, tried and tested at scale, allows us to turn very cheap green hydrogen into methane

Bjørgulf Haukelidsaeter Eidesen

Mr. Eidesen says the demand for carbon storage is just growing and growing, so much so that his company could develop many facilities just with its existing customer base. He said it started building in particular early last year, gained momentum after the summer, and is continuing to grow now. The other thing that Horizont Energi does is produce blue and green hydrogen. It spent the last 2.5 years figuring out how to produce blue hydrogen within the boundaries of the EU taxonomy.

Mr. Eidesen says it’s not only about carbon footprint, but about water use, circularity, preserving biodiversity. It now has an ammonia-based design that complies with all the criteria. “We think ammonia is a quick way to get hydrogen into the markets, and to use it for new applications like shipping fuels and as
a baseload power supply.” The company is working with the major utilities in Europe to make this happen. Where policy is concerned, Eidesen says there’s the regulatory oriented EU or the non-regulatory oriented US. “But they need to find a balance between these two to really start driving the capital resources.”

We think ammonia is a quick way to get hydrogen into the markets, and to use it for new applications like the shipping fuels and as a baseload power supply