Long bumpy road cracker#

So what should Neste do with its biodiesel? ‘If we were afraid that there was no demand for our fuel, we would not be investing two billion now,’ says Leenders. Will the factory that is being built now not be superfluous in fifteen years’ time? Europe wants a ban on combustion engines in new passenger cars from 2035, possibly followed by trucks. In ten to fifteen years, all hydrogen must be sustainable, and then the biofuel will be largely CO2-free, says Leenders. But its capacity is limited: it can meet about 1 percent of Neste’s hydrogen needs. The electrolysis installation that is there now is the first in the port of Rotterdam, says Leenders. Because there is not yet enough green energy for the time being, it will take some time before this route can be used on a large scale. Six electrolysers are being built on the site for a first pilot installation. In addition, the group is working on the production of green hydrogen from sustainable electricity.

Part of the CO2 will soon be stored under the seabed. ‘We are working on reducing the share of gray hydrogen,’ says Leenders. It is produced from natural gas, a process in which a lot of CO2 is released. This is mainly due to the use of hydrogen. This diesel is not completely climate neutral. Neste also has approximately 120 filling stations in the Netherlands where motorists can fill up with biodiesel. The final product is an aqueous liquid that is sold as biodiesel (so-called HVO) to customers in the transport sector. From the landing stage, they are stored in huge tanks before being transported to the pre-treatment plants, which remove contaminants that are harmful to the catalysts in the refinery. The raw materials now supplied by tanker are oily liquids in colors ranging from deep red to the golden green of olive oil.

Milieudefensie was unable to comment on this decision last week. The group objects that it has always been transparent about the (certified) origin of its palm oil and that it will stop using it next year. Not everyone agrees: organizations such as Milieudefensie and Transport & Environment say that Neste’s use of palm oil, among other things, leads to unbridled logging and loss of biodiversity, and that the origin of many sources is unclear. ‘We use the carbon that is already in the system and want to add as little to it as possible.’ ‘Thanks to our technology, fossil raw materials can remain in the ground’, says Leenders. The company is also working on methods to use waste from grease pits.īecause Neste’s raw materials have a biological origin, the company states that they achieve CO2 savings of 80 to 90 percent.

‘Their waste is an excellent raw material for us,’ says Leenders. But the processes inside the hissing installations are different: Neste does not use crude oil, but animal waste fats, used cooking fat and other residues from the food and cosmetics industry.

Long bumpy road cracker#

The factory was up and running two years later, and it has now grown into a refinery like there are countless in the Botlek area: thick pipelines, towering cracker columns, gigantic pressure vessels and storage tanks, and its own harbor where tankers deliver raw materials and transport fuels.Īpparently there is little difference with the installations that can be seen everywhere in the port area. The group is growing rapidly: when Bart Leenders, worldwide responsible for the production of renewable products, started at Neste thirteen years ago, the production location on the Maasvlakte was little more than a sand plain and some concrete foundations. This summer Neste announced an investment of 1.9 billion euros to increase the capacity to 2.7 million tons, of which 1.2 million tons will be biokerosene that will help make aviation more sustainable.īart Leenders is worldwide responsible for the production of renewable products at Neste. The Maasvlakte is home to Europe’s largest biorefinery, where 1.4 million tons of renewable fuel and basic products for the chemical industry are produced annually. The company is firmly convinced that these are one of the solutions for sustainable and climate-friendly transport. The oil company, originally from Finland, has developed into the world market leader in biofuels in recent decades. The way to the future is via biofuels, they think at Neste. So the brick road along which a new installation for biokerosene is being built is called ‘Road to the future’. One of the advantages of having your own industrial complex is that you can come up with the street names yourself. Fuel is made here from residual products such as used frying fat, but also from palm oil, to the dismay of environmental organizations.