An envelope of 5.6 billion euros from the France 2030 investment plan will be devoted to the decarbonization of three sectors of heavy industry (steel, aluminium, chemicals and cement), according to an innovative allocation mechanism in Europe, announced Matignon Thursday evening.
This budget will notably help the steelmaker ArcelorMittal, the world’s leading steel producer, to invest in equipment allowing it to abandon part of the coal it uses to make steel – thanks to hydrogen – and to buy electric furnaces replacing three of the five blast furnaces it has on the Dunkirk (North) and Fos-sur-Mer (Bouches-du-Rhne) sites.
France will be the first country to devote such an envelope for its decarbonization on this scale, Matignon says.
It is not a question of reducing our emissions by relocating, that would have no ecological or economic interest, we add to the Minister of Ecological Transition. The approach we are implementing is to have support for manufacturers to counter risk-taking because the technologies used have little precedent.
Concretely, the Minister of Industry explained that an innovative mechanism will be put in place to support industrial decarbonization, on the basis of cooperation between France and the European Union.
In fact, the state will buy tons of carbon not emitted by industrialists thanks to their decarbonization projects.
This mechanism aims to buy the tonnes of carbon cut down in a competitive framework and at the best price, the same source added.
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The public authorities will undertake over the duration of the support (10 or 15 years) to cover the price difference, for the reduction in emissions observed, between the price of CO2 expressed on the market and the price of CO2 contractualised within the framework of the call for tenders, it was specified.
This mechanism will be used to distribute 4 of the 5.6 billion of the France 2030 plan devoted to decarbonization, indicated Matignon.
Of the remaining amount, 1 billion will go to help small businesses that want to decarbonize with off-the-shelf technologies. The remaining 600 million will go to research.