U.S. DOE Indicators Clear Vitality Cooperation MOU with Mauritania

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MOU to Facilitate the Technical and Financial Potential for Deploying Clear Vitality Applied sciences in Mauritania

DUBAI, UAE — This week at COP28, the U.S. Division of Vitality (DOE) Deputy Secretary of Vitality, David Turk, and Mauritania’s Minister of Petroleum, Mines, and Vitality (MPME), Nani Ould Chrougha, signed an historic Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on clear vitality cooperation. This MOU will facilitate cooperation for deploying clear vitality applied sciences in Mauritania that would concurrently scale back world greenhouse gasoline emissions and catalyze financial improvement. The preliminary focus might be on creating the capability for Mauritania to carry their iron ore — which is primarily exported to supply carbon-intensive metal in different international locations — and as a substitute produce their very own “inexperienced,” or decarbonized metal manufacturing in Mauritania, transferring up the worth chain from iron ore exporter to metal producer.

Mauritania has world-class, co-located, wind and photo voltaic sources in unpopulated lands close to the Atlantic coast which have the potential for very low-cost, renewable electrical energy technology. Delivering that energy to worldwide markets within the type of energy-intensive commodities, equivalent to metal or ammonia, might contribute to lowering world GHG emissions in a few of the hardest to wash up sectors, whereas driving transformative home financial improvement, lowering vitality poverty in nation.

“The speedy deployment of fresh vitality experience internationally is important for tackling the local weather disaster and Mauritania has monumental potential for low-cost, zero-emissions electrical energy manufacturing with its world-class wind and photo voltaic sources,” stated Deputy Secretary Turk in his remarks on the MOU signing at COP28.

Mauritania’s #1 export is iron ore, which is presently shipped to China and different markets the place it’s transformed to pig iron — later refined into metal — in blast furnaces utilizing coking coal, yearly releasing roughly 25 million tons of CO2 within the course of. The preliminary cooperation underneath the MOU will commit the U.S. Nationwide Renewable Vitality Laboratory and partnering corporations to evaluate the technical and financial potential for decarbonized metal manufacturing in Mauritania.

NREL’s evaluation will give attention to the potential for changing Mauritania’s iron ore into metal utilizing a novel molten oxide electrolysis expertise developed with the help of DOE. Powered with electrical energy generated by a deliberate undertaking tapping Mauritania’s glorious wind and photo voltaic sources, doubtlessly all of the CO2 emissions from changing Mauritania’s iron ore into metal could possibly be eradicated.

“Mauritania is set to maneuver its iron trade in the direction of transformation, drawing on the expertise of the U.S. Nationwide Renewable Vitality Laboratory (NREL) and the lengthy and wealthy expertise of SNIM, whose CEO is right here with us right now,” stated the minister Nani Chrougha in his remarks on the MOU signing.

DOE is happy to kick off its clear vitality cooperation with MPME underneath the MOU with this undertaking and sees plentiful potential for future cooperation on different initiatives.

Information launch from Vitality.gov

Featured picture courtesy of Google Maps.