Menno Menist, director of business development at the consultancy company Panteia. Photo Menno Menist


Infrastructure challenges: the chicken- and-egg dilemma of the green corridor


Achieving zero-emission inland navigation with an electric drive that is powered by green hydrogen, fuel cells and batteries is extremely complicated and requires large financial investments. Are ship owners willing to pay double for a technically complicated hydrogen drive if they are not sure that they can bunker green hydrogen at the destination port?


Why should ports invest in time-consuming licensing procedures, expensive storage and handling facilities and in training additional staff if there are no barges using their services? In short, who takes the first step; ship owners, port authorities or green hydrogen producers to create the envisaged green corridor along the Rhine?


Policy “This dilemma was the reason for starting RH₂INE”, says Menno Menist, director of business development at the consultancy company Panteia in Zoetermeer. He was among the initiators of the RH₂INE project five years ago. The EU’s climate targets require inland navigation to be emission-free by 2050. “At the time, we thought the best way to achieve this was with green hydrogen and fuel cells. We knew, however, that the inland navigation sector could never be able to shoulder the transition on its own. We thus needed to get all stakeholders on board to turn one single idea on one single corridor into reality. Governments had to take the lead to develop and finance solutions together with key industry players”, Menist says.


Urgency Much has been achieved in the past five years, but the pace needs to pick up, according to Menist. Compared to road transport, the greening of inland navigation proceeds too slowly. “The modal shift is rapidly shifting in favour of road transport. This trend must be stopped, because it is a disaster for the climate and for our


26 • RH2INE


prosperity.” He observes, with great concern, that the importance of inland navigation for the western European economy is seriously underestimated, not least in Germany.


Menno Menist Governments should take


the lead to develop and fund solutions with key industry players


Menist might sound a bit over-dramatic when he refers to the year 2018, when a long period of low water on the waterways prevented barges from transporting petrol to the northern Netherlands or commodities to the chemical plants in Ludwigshafen: “How long will big chemical companies stay along the Rhine if they don’t get their raw materials delivered? If a Bayer or a BASF disappears from the region, a lot of other companies will disappear as well, right down to local bakeries. In short: if we lose inland navigation, we will see our prosperity disappear.”


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