Our contribution to environmental sustainability

The quality of the environment influences the lives of millions of people who live in urban areas. The concentration of activities and population makes the environmental effects associated with the use of energy sources especially critical. The most important effect is represented by atmospheric pollution.

Our activities have made available an energy source, natural gas, which has a low environmental impact and which meets growing energy needs in domestic applications, in industry and in the production of electricity. Owing to its capacity for transmission without affecting the environment and owing to its chemical and physical characteristics, it is used in technologies with increasingly improved energy efficiency and lower emissions of pollutants.

Our contribution to the development of the Italian gas system infrastructure from 2001 to the present translates to an increase in the transmission network of over 1,900 km, an increase in the installed power at the gas compressor stations of over 260 MW and an increase in the transmission capacity from the entry points connected with other countries of around 116 million Sm³ per day.

NOx EMISSIONS FOR TRANSMISSION/NATURAL GAS SENT INTO NETWORK* AVERAGE DISTANCE TRAVELLED

 

The activities have been carried out applying the best available technologies so as to interfere as little as possible with the environment both during the plant construction phases and afterwards during their operation.

The positive environmental results achieved are the recognition of our commitment.

2010 is the international year of biodiversity, and in October 2010, in Japan, an international conference will be held on this increasingly important issue (Conference of the Parties (COP10) of the United Nations Convention on Biodiversity). Before this convention the European Union must set out a policy that protects, recovers and takes account of biodiversity and the functions of the ecological system. In line with this trend, and always attentive to Nature and its protection, in 2009 Snam Rete Gas published operating instructions for safeguarding and the sustainable use of biodiversity in the design, construction and decommissioning of gas pipelines.

COMPOSITION AND CHARACTERISTICS OF NATURAL GAS USED IN ITALY IN 2009 (a)

	Italian	Russian	Northern European	Algerian	Libyan	LNG Regasified
				(% volume)
Methane	98.915	96.893	89.842	88.839	85.108	89.213
Ethane	0.432	1.419	5.060	6.585	6.767	7.753
Other hydrocarbons	0.145	0.624	1.443	1.585	2.948	1.759
Carbon dioxide	0.087	0.212	1.425	1.027	1.496
Nitrogen	0.421	0.841	2.194	1.864	3.522	1.141
Oxygen					0.050	0.134
Helium		0.011	0.036	0.100	0.109
Higher Heating Value (kj//Sm3)	37,810	38,201	38,833	39,571	39,775	40,619
Lower Heating Value (kj//Sm3)	34,049	34,420	35,043	35,724	35,940	36,680

(a) data source Snam Rete Gas