NGH Exploitation With Sequestration of Carbon Dioxide: Economic Rationale for a Sustainable Perspective^*

Roberto Fazioli

Department of Economics and Management, University of Ferrara, Italy

Abstract: Policy Makers and Financial Institutions are searching for pragmatic solutions to achieve the objectives that have been set as priorities in the so-called New Green deal. In the face of the great potential deriving from scientific innovation, the issue of the ability to attract investments in an appropriate manner for times, quantities and, also, costs arises. The attraction of investments is crucial. In the case of the NGH expoitation strategy examined here, it is possible to promote this attractiveness if: (1) the prospect of the use of Natural Gas in place of the other fossil sources is widely understood as a coherent solution to the Paris Agreements, i.e. part of the New Green Deal and (2) if it is clarified, in the audience of policy makers, how much solution of the NGH exploitation and the simultaneous sequestration of carbon dioxide in a single process is actually attributable to a primary Sustainable Energy Source. So, the new perspectives for extraction of methane from marine NGH and the simultaneous sequestration of carbon dioxide in a single process could be a very good deal for Private Finance, but policy makers have to consider it as an environmental neutral solution, as a new alternative renewable energy source. NGH exploitation could became part of the New Green Deal, part of financial actrattive strategy stemming from well pragmatically based environmental policies.

Key words: environmental policy, NGH exploitation, sequestration of carbon dioxide, environmental neutrality, sustainability, new green deal, financial attractiveness, green finance, carbon pricing, public and private investments, natural gas