in Moselle, a surface gas exploitation project raises concerns

In full COP26, the subject is flammable. The government will have to respond, in the coming months, to a request for an operating license for bed gas in Moselle, filed in 2018 by the Française de l’énergie and which is provoking strong opposition locally. “How to understand that we authorize, in 2021, the exploitation of a new source of hydrocarbons while our country must engage in the exit of its dependence on fossil fuels?”, wonder 66 elected officials – deputies, senators, MEPs, mayors – in a column published Wednesday, November 10 on franceinfo. This gas, methane trapped in unexploited coal seams, is an energy emitting greenhouse gases, the engine of global warming.

While the consequences – heat dome in Canada, floods in Germany and Belgium, fires in the Var – of the climate crisis are more and more visible, declarations calling for an end to fossil fuels to limit damage are increasing at the level international. “There is no need for investments in new sources of fossil energy in our scenario of carbon neutrality”, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in a landmark report in May (PDF in English).

“Our addiction to fossil fuels is pushing humanity to the brink. We have a terrible choice to make: either end it or it will ruin us.”, threw UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres during the opening of the COP26 in Glasgow. During this summit, some twenty countries – but not France – agreed to stop the financing of fossil energy projects abroad without carbon capture techniques.

A context brandished by opponents of the project, elected officials who signed the platform at the Association for the protection of the local environment 57 (Apel57). “It’s an aberration. Scientists are warning and unanimously affirming that fossil fuels must be stopped, there is no more debate, estimates Anaëlle Lantonnois, from Apel57. Faced with all this, we have a lot of announcements and nothing concrete (…) There is a double discourse ” of the government. In 2017, the project escaped the Hulot law on the end of the exploitation of hydrocarbons.

She recalls that originally, the gas targeted by the Française de l’énergie “not likely to end up in the atmosphere” and warm the climate if the project is not completed. A notable difference with the capture in Hauts-de-France, by the same company, of the methane that escapes from the old coal mines since the end of exploitation. Anaëlle Lantonnois is also worried about possible methane leaks, the risk of groundwater pollution in this region where it outcrops and the artificialization of the soil caused by the construction of wells.

For its part, the company highlights the favorable opinion of the investigating commissioners who conducted the public inquiry. (PDF) and 28 of the 40 municipalities affected by the 200 km2 perimeter of the permit. “Between 2050 and today, we will continue to consume a lot of gas”, argues Julien Moulin, CEO of the Française de l’énergie. “So as long as it is produced locally, in the best possible environmental conditions (…) It is unacceptable to be dependent on the Qataris and the Russians”.

According to his calculations, the seam gas deposits could cover “a few percentages” of annual French consumption. The entrepreneur, who runs an SME of 20 people and 10 million euros in turnover, also praises his plans to use this methane to make hydrogen or his partnership with the University of Lorraine to experiment. the storage of greenhouse gases in the basement. It remains to be seen whether these arguments will convince the state. Contacted by franceinfo, the Ministry of Ecological Transition did not respond to our requests.