The Romanian Association of Alternative Fuels (ARCA), established on Thursday, March 17, at the initiative of several organizations and companies, supports the transition based on compressed natural gas (CNG), liquefied natural gas (LNG) and hydrogen.
The new organization represents the interests and needs of alternative fuel manufacturers, suppliers, distributors, users and carriers. Thus, the Romanian Association of Alternative Fuels was set up at the initiative of the Romanian Association for Sustainable Mobility (ARMS), Linde Gas, Messer, InterGas Romania and Avangarde Safety and the representatives of businessmen Sicoe Mihai, Anton Cristian and Vlad Stoicescu.
ARCA has undertaken its mission to manage the transition to the Union’s objectives by developing and promoting technical and legal infrastructure, in collaboration with competent public institutions, for the coherent exploitation of alternative fuels such as LNG, CNG, biological and synthetic fuels, a critical stage in the evolution towards hydrogen exploitation.
“We consider it necessary to establish an association to ensure the transition to this future, by concentrating its efforts in the field of alternative fuels and adopting them within the limits of financial tolerability, without putting pressure on financial flows in industries already affected by ongoing global events,” said Paul Badea, president of the Romanian Association for Sustainable Mobility (ARMS).
In his turn, Alexandru Ştefănescu, president of the Confederation of Romanian Authorized Operators and Carriers (COTAR), specified that gas remains a much less polluting solution, which must be exploited in the transition to non-polluting solutions or with net-zero influence on the environment.
“The transition solution is obvious, it has been obvious for a long time, but it is blocked by a cumbersome legal framework that blocks innovation. We pioneered the use of natural gas in commercial transport, primarily constrained by the high operating costs due to fluctuations in oil prices/ Gas was a handy solution and gas remains a much less polluting solution, which today we must exploit in our definite transition to non – polluting solutions or with NET 0 influence to the environment,” Alexandru Ştefănescu said.
MEP Cristian Buşoi, chairman of the Committee on Industry, Energy and Research, considers the decarbonisation of transport to be a very important challenge, as difficult as the decarbonisation of energy, given that transport accounts for a quarter of the Union’s greenhouse gas emissions and road transport accounts for over 70% of this share.
“Decarbonisation is at the heart of the European Green Deal, decarbonising transport is a very important challenge, as difficult as decarbonising energy given that transport accounts for a quarter of the European Union’s greenhouse gas emissions and road transport represents 70% of this ratio.
”I believe we need to use realistic, cost-effective and easy-to-implement solutions to help us reduce CO2 emissions. We have more solutions at hand and we need to use every opportunity for funding, public policy and incentives to promote the use of alternative fuels that ensure lower carbon emissions. Clearly we will not be able to switch to electric cars immediately…we will have to use the cars we already have for a long time…Clearly a good part of the cars that will still be produced in the European Union will be with internal combustion”, Cristian Buşoi said.
