Zukünftige Energie- und Industriesysteme
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Natural gas makes an increasing contribution to the European Union's energy supply. Due to its efficiency and low level of combustion emissions this reduces greenhouse gas emissions compared to the use of other fossil fuels. However, being itself a potent greenhouse gas, a high level of direct losses of natural gas in its process chain could neutralise these advantages. Which effect will finally prevail depends on future economical as well as technical developments. Based on two different scenarios of the main influencing factors we can conclude that over the next two decades CH4 emissions from the natural gas supply chain can be significantly reduced, in spite of unfavourable developments of the supply structures. This, however, needs a substantial, but economically attractive investment into new technology, particularly in Russia.
Biogas and bio-methane that are based on energy crops are renewable energy carriers and therefore potentially contribute to climate protection. However, significant greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions resulting from agricultural production processes must be considered. Among those, the production and use of fertilizer, and the resulting leaching of nitrous oxide (N2O), are crucial factors. This article provides an integrated life cycle assessment (LCA) of biogas (i.e. bio-methane that has been upgraded and injected into the natural gas grid), taking into account the processes of fermentation, upgrading and injection to the grid for two different types of biogas plants. The analysis is based on different feedstocks from crop rotation systems for different locations in Germany. A special focus is on the sensitivity of assumptions of nitrous oxide emissions to overall GHG emissions. Much research exists on the measurement or modeling of the actual N2O emissions that result from farming processes. Since there is as yet no precise regional data, most analyses use tier-1 data from the IPCC national GHG inventories as a default. The present article coincides with recent research in indicating that this data varies at the regional level. However, it is not the scope of the article to evaluate the quality of existing data for N2O emissions, but to show the effects of different assumptions on the LCA of GHGs from bio-methane. Thus, a link between the provision of emission data and the practical implementation of biogas technology is provided. The main result is that the supply chain of substrates from agricultural processes appears to contribute the most to the GHG emissions of bio-methane. The "worst case" scenario where 5% of the nitrogen fertilizer used is emitted in form of N2O shows that the GHG mitigation potential of bio-methane versus natural gas is very small, so there is not much margin for error in the plant technology.
In 1990 a sovereign wealth fund was founded in Norway in which the country invests surpluses from oil and gas industry sales. The fund is designed to secure the state's ability to act in a post-petroleum era. At the end of the 1990's the voice of Norwegian civil society insisted that the sovereign wealth fund should not only ensure intergenerational justice, but should also contribute to the implementation of values and norms of the present country. At the end of 2004 the parliament finally agreed upon ethical regulations for the investment of the sovereign wealth fund. Now the second largest sovereign wealth fund in the world only invests in businesses that adhere to those ethical regulations. In the present paper, I seek to illustrate the emergence and outcomes of this new development in the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund.
Energy used in buildings is responsible for more than 40% of energy consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of the EU and their share in cost-efficient GHG mitigation potentials is estimated to be even higher. In spite of its huge savings potential of up to 80%, achievements are very slow in the building sector and much stronger political action seems to be needed. One important step in this direction has been the recast of the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) in autumn 2009. However, strong national implementation including powerful packages of flanking measures seems to be crucial to really make significant progress in this important field. In order to directly improve political action, we provide a differentiated country-by-country bottom up simulation of residential buildings for the whole EU, Norway, Iceland, Croatia and Liechtenstein. The analysis provides a database of the building stock by construction periods, building types, as well as typical building sizes. It includes a simulation of the thermal quality and costs of the components of the building shell for new buildings as well as the refurbishment of the existing building stock. Based on this differentiated analysis, we show in detail what would be needed to accelerate energy savings in the building sector and provide a more precise estimate of the potentials to be targeted by particular policies. We demonstrate, e.g. that the potential of building codes set via the EPBD would be located mainly in those countries that already have quite stringent codes in place. We show as well the high relevance of accelerating refurbishments and re-investment cycles of buildings. By providing a clear estimate of the full costs related to such a strategy, we highlight a major obstacle to accelerated energy-efficient building renovation and construction.
Der (Flug-)Verkehr nimmt zu - auch in Zeiten des Klimawandels : wie kommt es zu diesem Paradox?
(2010)
Zum Flugverkehr als klimapolitischem "Ausreißer" wird zweierlei gefragt: 1. Nach dem zentralen Grund für die auf Expansion gerichtete Sonderstellung des (Flug-)Verkehrs; 2. Wie im konkreten Falle, bei der Erweiterung der Kapazität des Flughafens München, die klimapolitischen Randbedingungen marginalisiert werden.
Preventing the worst consequences of climate change would require that GHG emissions be reduced to levels near zero by the middle of the century. To respond to such a daunting challenge, we need to rethink and redesign the currently highly energy-dependent infrastructures of industrial societies and particularly the urban infrastructures to become low- or even zero-carbon cities. Sustainable urban infrastructures need technology. In this paper focused on Western European Cities, we discuss a wide set of technologies in the fields of building, energy and transport infrastructures that can significantly contribute to a reduction of energy and/or GHG emissions and are already available or are in the pipeline. Based on the review of a recent study for the city of Munich, we then present how a mix of these technologies could reduce CO2-emissions by up to 90% for the metropolis of 1.3 million inhabitants and that this strategy could be economically attractive despite a high initial investment.
All of the residential buildings of a city like Munich could be entirely redesigned for EUR 200 per inhabitant annually, which is about one third of an average annual natural gas bill.
Scientization : putting global climate change on the scientific agenda and the role of the IPCC
(2010)
Since the 1970s, climate change has dominated the international scientific and political agenda. In particular, the foundation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change at the end of the 1980s played a major role for the further enhancement of efforts in the field of climate change sciences. However, to understand the interaction of the worldwide coordination of climate change sciences as well as the role of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and its consequences, it is worthwhile to take a look at the self-conception of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's tasks and work. This paper gives an idea of the history of international climate change science, its representation in public discourse and the role of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change by comprehensively illustrating its tasks, organization and self-image. Furthermore, the article tries to argue that the hitherto accepted concept of science followed within this body fails to integrate the idea of scientific ethics. It can be concluded that the conception of science represented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has heavily influenced worldwide attention to climate change, its becoming part of the political agenda as well as the ethical consequences.
Die multilaterale Politik bekennt sich zum Zwei-Grad-Ziel, um den Klimawandel zu begrenzen. Sie stützt sich dazu explizit auf Empfehlungen "der Wissenschaft". Bemerkenswert ist, dass sie sich dabei nicht - was doch naheläge - auf das IPCC beruft. Dieses Gremium hat sich nämlich explizit versagt, "Werturteile" wie das Zwei-Grad-Ziel zu formulieren. Da die Politik aber nach solchen Urteilen verlangt, bedient sie sich pragma tisch an anderer Stelle - bei einer Wissenschaft, die nicht strikt zwischen Fakten und Werturteilen trennt. Letzteres sollte auch ein Kennzeichen einer Wissenschaft von der Nachhaltigkeit (sustainability science) sein.
For parabolic trough power plants using synthetic oil as the heat transfer medium, the application of solid media sensible heat storage is an attractive option in terms of investment and maintenance costs. One important aspect in storage development is the storage integration into the power plant. A modular operation concept for thermal storage systems was previously suggested by DLR, showing an increase in storage capacity of more than 100 %. However, in these investigations, the additional costs needed to implement this storage concept into the power plant, like for extra piping, valves, pumps and control had not been considered. These aspects are discussed in this paper, showing a decrease of levelized energy costs with modular storage integration of 2 to 3 %. In a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) a comparison of an AndaSol-I type solar thermal power plant [1] with the original two-tank molten salt storage and with a "hypothetical" concrete storage shows an advantage of the concrete storage technology concerning environmental impacts. The environmental impacts of the “hypothetical” concrete based AndaSol-I decrease by 7 %, considering 1 kWh of solar electricity delivered to the grid. Regarding only the production of the power plant, the emissions decrease by 9.5 %.
Several energy scenario studies consider concentrated solar power (CSP) plants as an important technology option to reduce the world's CO2 emissions to a level required for not letting the global average temperature exceed a threshold of 2–2.4 °C. A global ramp up of CSP technologies offers great economic opportunities for technology providers as CSP technologies include highly specialised components. This paper analyses possible value creation effects resulting from a global deployment of CSP until 2050 as projected in scenarios of the International Energy Agency (IEA) and Greenpeace International. The analysis focuses on the economic opportunities of German technology providers since companies such as Schott Solar, Flabeg or Solar Millennium are among the leading suppliers of CSP technologies on the global market.