Planning and prioritization for climate neutrality

If we use green hydrogen instead, produced via electrolysis with sustainable electricity, a large part of the CO₂ footprint disappears. If the compressors required for the process are also operated electrically, ammonia can be produced in an almost climate-neutral manner. In addition, however, it’s necessary to conduct a life cycle analysis of the plant itself. As long as I need steel and concrete to construct chemical plants, we’ll be lugging around the CO₂ burden of these materials, but we can lighten that too.

Exactly. Of course, this only makes sense if we use electrolysis hydrogen and not hydrogen produced from natural gas. It is much more difficult when it comes to cement for concrete, for which we have to roast calcium carbonate to get lime. The carbon dioxide released in this process accounts for about three percent of global emissions—more than all air traffic. To be honest, I don’t see a real solution here yet.

If we wanted to supply the entire chemical industry with hydrogen from sustainable energies and hydrogenate CO₂, we would have to install about 1.5 square kilometers of photovoltaics every day worldwide from now until 2050. These are gigantic numbers, but it seems feasible. We just can’t afford to spend another ten years thinking about what we want to do. We have to do it now.

I am reasonably confident that Germany will remain an important industrial site. Even today, chemical production only partially takes place where the oil and gas wells are located. The raw materials are transported here instead. Why should this be fundamentally different when we use raw material sources generated with green electricity? If methanol were to become an essential molecule in the chemical industry, then hydrogen could be produced with solar energy in North Africa or Australia, for example. This hydrogen would also be used to produce methanol in those regions. The methanol can then be shipped to Leverkusen, Ludwigshafen or Herne to produce raw materials.

That can happen, of course. But what we have invested here over the past decades is a huge asset. Why tear it all down and build anew elsewhere? If we maintain value chains, logistics, and distribution, but make our raw material base sustainable, we may stand a chance against what is being newly installed elsewhere. In addition, I am convinced that it is easiest to transport the basic raw material on a large scale to the point of consumption, where it can be further processed into the many differentiated products of the chemical industry close to the customer. Doing this in the Sahara, for example, wouldn’t make any sense. But we will probably have to give up a part of the pie.

I do see a danger of that happening. And we should counter it with import taxes, the amount of which is determined by the CO₂ burden that a product carries with it. I know that economists are generally not in favor of tariffs, because trade that is as unrestricted as possible makes life easier and produces cheaper solutions. But if we recognize the need to reduce CO₂ emissions to zero as quickly as possible to keep the Earth habitable, then we have no choice. The more countries that agree to this, the better, because it means that countries with lax limits for carbon dioxide will no longer be so attractive.

The idea of being self-sufficient won’t let us achieve this goal. The world is networked and will become even more networked. If we diversify our energy sources more, the system will be less vulnerable to disruption. The same applies to raw materials.

Definitely. One should look at everything that offers opportunities. But before I go to a lot of expense to use a heat flow of 50 degrees locally for production, I should rather get electrical energy from the Sahara, which can be produced there for 0.8 cents per kilowatt hour. With the waste heat of 50 degrees, we can heat a greenhouse in the neighborhood to grow tomatoes in winter rather than using it to run a high-temperature process, for example.

The willingness is certainly there, because there is a rapidly growing realization of the problems we face due to climate change. Still, it’s difficult to get different countries to follow the same path. The French, for example, reproach us for continuing to operate lignite-fired power plants and shutting down nuclear power plants—which increases the price of CO₂ throughout Europe. We have to act together because we are all in the same boat now.

This debate has to be conducted by society as a whole. Put simply, we cannot simultaneously insist on maintaining security of supply, keeping the moral high ground, safeguarding our industrial base, and pushing CO₂ emissions down to zero. Compromises will have to be made in some areas. Germany lacks a list of priorities on which we as a society can largely agree.

First and foremost, planning security. Clearly, we need to expand renewables here at home as quickly as possible, and—where reasonably low cost is possible—enter into reliable contracts with energy producers elsewhere in the world. If in doubt, I would also have the state subsidize such supply relationships so that the business models can be firmly established. If we don’t get these logistics chains up and running now, the German chemical industry will be cut off at some point. At the same time, we need the priority list that I mentioned. And we must not call it into question every two years. It would be best to clarify this at the European level, even if it makes the discussion more difficult.

We’ll achieve it technologically if we launch a kind of mega Apollo program. There are, of course, sectors such as the cement industry where we currently don’t even have any idea of how we can get rid of CO₂. We will therefore have no choice but to take CO₂ out of the cycle elsewhere to compensate—for example, through reforestation programs, land use change or through carbon capture and storage, or CCS for short. The biggest difficulty, however, is that we are not dealing with a purely technological problem, but instead have to get society to pull together globally. That will be the real challenge.

Photos: Robert Eikelpoth