The president of the Chamber of Construction, Alejandro Ruibalstated that the green hydrogen is the way for Uruguay get the energy independence, as well as an important source of investments and employment related to works, operations and renewable energies. “You have to put a lot of chips into it,” he said.
Uruguay advances in several projects and agreements around the green hydrogen, with one of them constituting the largest investment in the history of the country —6,000 million dollars for the construction of a green fuel plant in Paysandú—; and more and more sectors aim to promote this type of sustainable development within a framework in which the world economy is moving towards decarbonization.
For this reason, the Construction Chamber presented a study prepared by the Renewable Energy Observatory of the Catholic University of Uruguay (UCU)in which the main factors are analyzed to enable the development of this clean energy resource, in a kind of “road map”.
“Hydrogen being a nascent industry, from the Construction Chamber we said ‘well, instead of waiting for things to happen, we are going to be proactive’”, explained Ruibal, in dialogue with Radio Monte Carlo. “Among the enabling factors, the things we should do so that progress can be made with the green hydrogen, Three areas were identified: infrastructure, the use of hidric resource and the normative”, he added.
Regarding the last point, the businessman maintained that the regulatory framework in the country must be adapted, through State entities such as the National Administration of Fuel, Alcohol and Portland (Ancap) and the National Administration of State Electrical Power Plants and Transmissions (UTE); so that there is a backup of energy and its transportation.
Likewise, Ruibal placed special emphasis on the opportunities that sustainable fuel can provide in Uruguay: “Hydrogen is something that is advancing very quickly in the world. In the past, the energy sources were oil, coal, and natural gas, which we don’t have any. Now, with the green hydrogen, If this progresses, we could be energy independent. You have to put a lot of chips into it,” he considered.
An opportunity for more employment
Ruibal also referred to the dimension of the green hydrogen. “Are large industrial works which, in addition, are in the interior of the country, so they have the characteristics of being decentralized projects,” he noted. “We are talking about large works, on the scale of what a pulp plant could be, large industrial complexes with a lot of civil works, a lot of assembly work, the roads have to be adapted, the railway moves because cargo has to be moved, a lot of employment. qualified, not only during the work but later for the operation,” he listed.
“From the point of view of employment It is an important impact especially during the work, then it also spills and then greatly reinforces the Energy Matrix of the country because we have to generate a lot of energy,” added the president of the Construction Chamber.
“This is going to generate an industry that will have to wait for it but that must be accompanied, and if we do nothing, it may not happen or it may happen very late,” he argued, insisting that “we must continue pushing and putting chips in it” and that “from the private sector we have to do our thing.”
Source: Ambito
