This atlas explores what happens when we zoom out. What becomes apparent when we map the spatial organization of energy-intensive industry on a European scale? Which locations meet the conditions for hosting a climate-neutral, circular industry? And what shifts might such a spatial logic lead to?
Europe’s energy-intensive industry is facing a radical transformation. The transition to a climate-neutral and circular economy is shaking the very foundations of basic industries: steel, chemicals, cement, refining, and non-ferrous metals.
In 2025, the Board of Government Advisors commissioned design research on three Dutch energy-intensive clusters: steel in the North Sea Canal region, petrochemicals in the Port of Rotterdam, and greenhouse horticulture. These studies highlighted how the spatial dynamics of each cluster are linked to the transition and how spatial choices influence the pace and direction of sustainability efforts. The insights have been compiled in the publication Working Now on the Talents of the Place.
One conclusion kept emerging: Dutch industry does not operate in isolation. Steel mills source ore from Brazil and Sweden, refineries process oil from the Middle East and West Africa, and the chemical industry supplies semi-finished products to supply chains that span all of Europe. Making these sectors more sustainable therefore cannot be viewed in isolation from the European context in which they operate.
Atlas of Energy-Intensive Industries and Infrastructures
This atlas maps the spatial organization of Europe’s energy-intensive industries. It serves as an initial inventory providing a systematic overview of what is located where. The maps depict the current situation and form the starting point for the analyses and scenarios that will be developed in subsequent phases of this research.
The energy network maps the entire European energy system—from fossil fuel sources (coal, oil, gas) and their transportation infrastructure, through the electricity grid and renewable sources (hydropower, nuclear energy, wind, solar, biomass, geothermal energy), to the emerging systems of hydrogen and CO₂ capture and storage (CCU/S).
The logistics network shows the ports, waterways, roads, rail lines, and pipelines that enable the supply and removal of raw materials and products. The raw materials network maps out the mining sector, the potential for critical raw materials, landfills, and waste treatment capacity. The industrial network shows the locations of the four major energy-intensive sectors: chemicals, iron and steel, non-ferrous metals, and cement.
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Energy
The current energy system has historically developed around fossil fuels: oil, natural gas, and coal. These resources are largely imported from outside Europe and transported to industrial centers via an extensive network of pipelines, tankers, terminals, and high-voltage power lines. The entire spatial structure of European industry follows this logic. Refineries are located on the coast where tankers dock, chemical clusters sit atop gas pipelines, and steel mills are situated near ore or coal ports.
This system is both robust and fragile. Robust, because it has been built up over more than a century with enormous investments in infrastructure. Fragile, because it depends on geopolitically vulnerable import relationships and has a level of CO₂ intensity that is incompatible with climate goals. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 made both of these characteristics painfully apparent. The system proved flexible enough to switch suppliers in a short period of time, but the shock underscored the need to structurally reduce this dependence.
European industrial energy prices are higher than in most competing regions and are expected to remain so. The U.S. has access to cheap shale gas, the Middle East to subsidized fossil fuels, and China to a combination of cheap coal and massive investments in renewable capacity. European industry must shape its transition in a context where energy costs are structurally higher than those of its global competitors.
The energy transition is fundamentally changing the logic of industrial location. Renewable sources are location-specific in a different way than fossil fuels. Wind energy is concentrated along the coasts and at sea, solar energy in southern Europe, and hydropower in the mountains. Whereas the fossil fuel system revolves around transporting fuel to the factory, the renewable system creates an incentive to move the factory closer to the energy source. In the long term, this could lead to a realignment of Europe’s industrial geography.
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Logistics
The energy-intensive industry is a sector characterized by large volumes and heavy loads. The European logistics system rests on four pillars: inland waterways, road transport, rail, and pipelines. Inland waterways offer the lowest cost per metric ton-kilometer, the road network offers maximum flexibility at higher (environmental) costs, rail provides a middle ground for long distances and heavy loads, and pipelines transport liquids and gases at low cost, but their network is inflexible and expansion takes decades. Seaports serve as the hubs where these four pillars converge with global shipping.
With the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T), the European Union has created a framework to strengthen logistics connections across the continent. The TEN-T distinguishes between a core network (to be completed by 2030) and an extensive network (2050), supplemented by a number of priority European transport corridors. The goal is to eliminate bottlenecks in cross-border transport, increase capacity, and promote the shift from road to rail and waterways.
The transition to a circular economy will change the logic of logistics. When raw materials are no longer primarily imported from overseas but are increasingly recovered from European waste streams, the focus of the supply chain will shift. Domestic collection logistics will then gain in importance relative to seaports.
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Raw Materials
The transition to a climate-neutral economy is also a matter of raw materials. The production of wind turbines, batteries, solar panels, and electrolysers requires large quantities of specific minerals and metals. At the same time, existing industry must shift from its linear “extract, produce, use, dispose” model to a circular approach in which materials are kept in the supply chain for as long as possible. Europe’s dependence in this area is significant. The continent imports the vast majority of the minerals it consumes.
With the Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA), the EU has created a framework to address this vulnerability. The law sets concrete targets: by 2030, at least 10% of Europe’s consumption of strategic raw materials must come from domestic extraction, 25% from recycling, and no more than 65% of imports may come from a single country.
The circular approach offers an additional perspective. Europe has enormous “above-ground” reserves: large quantities of metals and minerals are stored in buildings, infrastructure, appliances, vehicles, and waste streams.
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Industry
Energy-intensive industries form the core of this atlas. Chemicals, steel, non-ferrous metals, and cement are the sectors most dependent on large quantities of energy and raw materials, which produce the highest emissions, and which at the same time supply the basic products on which the rest of the economy relies. Basic industries not only provide the building blocks for the civilian economy but also form a cornerstone of Europe’s defense capabilities and strategic autonomy.
These sectors are designated as “hard to abate” in European climate policy. This is due not only to the amount of energy they consume but also to the nature of their processes. In steel production, carbon is chemically necessary as a reducing agent. In cement production, CO₂ is released from the limestone process itself, regardless of the energy source. In the chemical industry, fossil raw materials are the building blocks of the products. In the non-ferrous metals industry, the smelting processes are so energy-intensive that the price of electricity is the primary factor in location decisions.
The European basic industry is organized into four large, interlinked clusters. The ARRA cluster (Antwerp-Rotterdam-Rhine/Ruhr Area) is the continent’s largest industrial complex. Here, petrochemicals, basic chemicals, refineries, steel mills, and logistics service providers are connected via pipelines, rail, and inland waterways to form an integrated system. Similar, smaller clusters are located around Marseille-Fos, in the Po Valley, along the Spanish coast, and in the East German chemical region.
Making these sectors more sustainable requires not only clean energy but also new process routes, different raw materials, and fundamentally different supply chains. The spatial implications are significant. New facilities for hydrogen-based steel production have different location requirements than traditional blast furnace complexes. A circular chemical industry that runs on recycled plastics has a different spatial footprint than a refinery that processes crude oil.
The Atlas as a Spatial Argument
A number of concrete bottlenecks emerge from the atlas:
Grid Congestion — the power grid is already a bottleneck; the mismatch between generation (coast, periphery) and consumption (industry, cities) is growing, and the pace of grid expansion is slowing down the transition.
Hydrogen paradox — a chicken-and-egg problem: no sustainability without green hydrogen, no investment without guaranteed demand, and the transportation infrastructure largely exists only on paper. This is particularly slowing down the steel and chemical industries.
Raw Materials Gap — the CRMA targets for domestic extraction and recycling are ambitious, but long lead times for mining projects and limited recycling capacity will keep dependence on imports high for another 10–15 years.
CCU/S inequality — CO₂ storage is concentrated around the North Sea, which benefits Northwest Europe and disadvantages southern and eastern factories (particularly cement plants).
At the same time, the atlas also presents opportunities:
The North Sea as an industrial energy hub — offshore wind, existing ports, hydrogen-compatible gas pipelines, and CO₂ storage make the region promising; The Netherlands plays a central role in this.
Circularity as a location factor — countries with advanced waste processing (the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Scandinavia) have a strategically exploitable advantage through their scrap and recycling capacity.
Eastern Europe as a reserve of space — offers space, labor, and growing support, provided it is connected to the right infrastructure and innovation ecosystem.
Local Talents on a European Scale
The atlas demonstrates that the concept of “local talents,” previously developed for the Dutch context, is also relevant at the European level. Some locations possess an exceptional combination of water, energy, logistics, and industrial tradition. Others, on the other hand, offer new qualities that are becoming relevant in a transformed energy system: abundant solar energy, geological storage capacity for CO₂, or access to mineral resources for the transition.
Recognizing these location-specific qualities is valuable for both national and European policy. Instead of having every region pursue the same industrial ambitions, a spatial approach can help direct investments toward the locations where conditions are most favorable, thereby accelerating the transition.
This insight also applies in reverse. The atlas highlights where capabilities are lacking or insufficient. An industrial cluster without access to renewable energy faces a different transition path than a cluster that does have such access. Articulating these differences is a first step toward differentiated policy.
This atlas is a first step. It provides the spatial foundation for a discussion that has yet to take place. In the next phase of this research, the networks will be combined to develop circular supply chain scenarios.
