(Published in 2020 with additions until 2023)
The world-famous icon of the green movement, Greta Thunberg, was able to give a highly emotional speech at the UN in September 2019, in which she called for an immediate rethink and urgent action to avert the catastrophes threatened by our reckless use of natural resources. The focus was on the controversial[i] man-made climate change, which is also held responsible for many other environmental problems.
The "climate Gretl" met with the full approval of the alternative scene and even received the alternative Nobel Prize.
The "Fridays for Future" movement she initiated is a grandiose propaganda campaign that Greta certainly couldn't have orchestrated on her own. This hype brought demonstrating students onto the streets in many countries around the world. (Involuntarily, one thinks of Mao's Cultural Revolution). Mostly those from good backgrounds who only know prosperity and find a school strike for a good cause funny as a happening. Would "Saturdays for Future" have been as popular?
Much tougher is the "Extinction Rebellion" (and more recently the "Last Generation"), which conjures up the end of the world. It takes a more decisive approach, does not hesitate to block roads, paralyze traffic in places, and question our democracy.
The media like to pick up on such issues and blow them up into mass phenomena that attract widespread attention, put politicians under pressure, and provoke political quick-fixes. The Parliament of the European Union has declared a climate emergency[ii], and conservationists speak of "ecocide", the ecological suicide of mankind.
Unfortunately, such drastic warnings of approaching environmental catastrophes - with or without natural or man-made climate change - are very justified, but come at least half a century too late.
During the 1950s and 1960s, there might still have been time to take consistent countermeasures.
At that time, the inhabitants of the Western industrial nations believed that they could enjoy a nice, modern life for all time - with steadily increasing prosperity - and take advantage of all the benefits of scientific and technical civilization. Who wanted to see the "collateral damage" to the environment, which only a few specialists began to notice. During my studies, in the 60s at a technical university, I heard nothing about it.[iii]
Therefore, at the time, I also thought like almost everyone and only became thoughtful when important information gradually came to me:
* In 1962, Rachel Carson (1907-1964) published "Silent Spring."
"Silent Spring" with its feared bird deaths was, from today's perspective, the starting point of the worldwide environmental movements.[iv]
* In 1968, "The Population Bomb" by Paul Ehrlich was published.
At first, the "population explosion" was hardly taken seriously. In a number of countries, such as Egypt and India, attempts were made to curb the rampant population growth, but these were soon abandoned. Not least because religions, above all Christian churches and Islam, resolutely rejected the measures needed to achieve this. In China, the strictly enforced one-child policy has had an effect. Otherwise, the rapid economic growth of the People's Republic would not have been possible and the world population would have grown even faster.
Otherwise, the "principle of hope" applied: through increasing prosperity, better education, especially for girls, women's rights and improved healthcare, the birth rate should fall and the population should settle at a tolerable level. At present (2020), the world population is only growing at a linear rate of around 80 million per year; in twelve years, by 1 billion. It is expected to reach ten billion by 2050 and then slowly decline. However, population growth in Africa has not yet declined.
Here are a few figures:
World population:
1804: 1 billion
1927: (after 123 years) 2 billion
1960: (after 33 years) 3 billion
1974: (after 14 years) 4 billion
1987: (after 13 years) 5 billion
1999: (after 12 years) 6 billion (growth flattens out
2011: (after 12 years) 7 billion (due to decrease in
2023: (after 12 years) 8 billion (India and China.
* In 1972, the Club of Rome published "The Limits to Growth." This was supposed to lead to the realization that unlimited growth cannot be possible in the long term in a limited living space. Economists and politicians do not want to admit this until today, although NASA published already in 1969 pictures of the earth - seen from the moon - which show the limitedness and vulnerability of our planet vividly to everybody. (Cf.: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globale_Umweltveränderungen_und_Zukunftsszenarien).
Even then, the Club of Rome warned that growth might not be slowed down by a shortage of raw materials, but by environmental degradation.
* 1975 was followed by the bestseller "A Planet is Plundered" by Herbert Gruhlthat I still knew personally.
The CDU member of the Bundestag, Dr. Herbert Gruhl (1891-1983), was rejected by the Federal Chancellor Helmut Kohl. So Gruhl left the CDU and in 1978 became the founder of the green movement in Germany, which initially appeared as the “Green Action Future” (GAZ).
A chancellor with foresight would have appointed Herbert Gruhl as environment minister and let the gifted speaker travel the country and give lectures on a modest budget. Then the CDU would have become the most modern party and "The Greens" would not exist.
After his re-election, Kohl then spoke of environmental protection as a "state objective" in 1987, and in 1994 environmental protection was incorporated into the Basic Law. (Article 20a). But nothing was put into practice for a long time.
* "Global 2000", the one from US President Carter commissioned "Report to the President" to the problems to be expected in the 21st century, appeared 1980.
With President Reagan it ended up - probably unread - in the trash.
* 1984 one could see in "The Mirror" from 13. 8. "The Murderous Consequences of Compassion." from Hoimar von Ditfurth (1921-1989) read. (Available on the Internet, https://www.spiegel.de/politik/die-moerderische-konsequenz-des-mitleids-a-ecbe994a-0002-0001-0000-000013508565). A shattering reckoning with our world-saving ego and the corresponding NGOs.
* Many other reports showed and show that the "Development Aid" is mostly ineffective or even harmful. A few small successes are highlighted and the major disasters (e.g. the debacles in Afghanistan and the Sahel region) are played down.
No one wants to hear that help can only be given successfully if the population of the suffering country itself works resolutely on improvements and does not see itself as an innocent victim, passively waiting for the help it is entitled to.
After World War II, Africa was given better development opportunities than the war-torn East Asian countries. At that time, Africa was sparsely populated with a population of 200 million (currently Nigeria alone has almost 210 million) and had virtually all the important raw materials.
Densely populated South Korea - as an example of East Asia - was largely destroyed after the Korean War (1953). It was the poorest country in Asia and had virtually no raw materials. With its intelligent and industrious population, it managed through hard work to become the tenth largest industrialized country as early as the 1980s, with a population of 40 million at the time. In the course of several longer stays as a technical consultant, I was able to personally experience this impressive growth at first hand.
Singapore offers another example for Southeast Asia. At independence in 1963, it was on a par with Ghana. However, unlike Ghana, Singapore did not have any important raw materials. Today, Singapore is one of the richest countries in the world!
* Recently, the focus has been on avoiding "causes of flight."
Unemployment, poverty, land degradation, civil war, drought, deforestation, religious fanaticism, violence, youth unemployment, climate change, corruption, wars, (organized) crime, natural disasters, bad governments, terrorism, overpopulation, oppression, water shortages, etc. Not to speak of trade barriers, subsidies, tariffs, which cause hardship to underdeveloped countries.
Who wants to abolish these multiple distortions in many countries and in what way?
For example, in Africa, with a population of 1.3 billion people, which is expected to double by 2050 and may reach four billion by 2100? Through the envisaged "Marshall Plan for Africa"?[v]
Anyone who sees the population explosion, which has become uncontrollable in parts of Africa, as the most important cause of ecological, economic and political catastrophes is called a racist.
According to "The Pioneer Briefing" of December 19, 2023, the African dilemma (in addition to the many coups and civil wars) can be explained in a nutshell as follows:
* Economic growth is stagnating
* The population is growing faster than the economy and per capita income is falling
* Widespread corruption, as a result of which, for example, mineral resources do not benefit the local economy.
But inconvenient facts rarely reach politicians, while baseless illusions are diligently nurtured.
* From the "overload of the earth" can be heard for decades. Since about 1998 the "science of the carrying capacity of the earth" has the name Pherology (from pherein = carry).
Dr. Wolfram Ziegler (1925-2013), who I still know personally, published one of the first German-language works on this subject in 1979.[vi]
Commonly known today are the (much too high) "Ecological Footprint" and the "Overshoot Day". (Cf. "A devastating footprint" under "Ecology").
The latter tells us on which day of the year we have used up everything the Earth can produce in a year. In 2019, this "world overload day" was on July 29, and for Germany alone on May 3. The rest of the year, therefore, we live off the substance. Or: The world's population currently consumes on average 1.75 times what the earth can provide us. In order to make all inhabitants of the earth happy with the prosperity of the USA, five earths would be required. (wikipedia). But nobody in international politics seems to be interested in this.
This overloading of nature is illustrated by the finding that 66 % of the biomass of land-dwelling mammals consists of farm animals and 30 % of humans. How long, if humanity continues to grow, can there be room for wildlife at all? (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biomasse).
Why does no one here listen to science, which is to be taken so importantly with the allegedly man-made climate change? Is it because of the interests of big business?
* Countless other publications and information on the environment have been spread, so that today the word "ecology" is on everyone's lips. There have long been tentative, often ineffective approaches to environmental protection and nature conservation, mostly initiated by outsiders and implemented only hesitantly by politicians.
As before, ecosystems, the life-sustaining natural cycles of the "spaceship Earth," are suffering from a double growth under which they are bound to collapse sooner or later: The world population is growing only linearly (no longer exponentially), but per capita consumption is still growing exponentially. Nature cannot withstand this double growth pressure in the long term. This is because there has never been economic growth without additional environmental burdens. Will it be possible to achieve nature-friendly growth in the future?
The diverse ecological problems were probably too complicated for most people, including many politicians, and they didn't want to hear about it. (I myself gave lectures on ecology at a technical college in the 1980s).
Then a "one-point-problem" was discovered and propagandistically emphasized: Man-made climate change caused by burning too much fossil carbon! (Cf. "An Inconvenient Truth" under "Book Reviews") One could jump at that, this idea was simple and easy to convey; but is it accurate?
There are doubts, however, which contradict the current opinion of the mass media and are "politically incorrect"; because the reduction or avoidance of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels has become a new ideology for conservationists, a national goal for politicians, a business model for the economy and a new source of income for the tax authorities by taxing carbon dioxide. Now we Germans in particular are called upon to serve as a role model for the world![vii]
* Recently, 82 million people living in Germany are said to be (1.1 % of the world's population, which as an industrialized country in 2020 will be responsible for 2.4 % of human-generated CO2 were responsible), as a model for the rest of the world, stop climate change. With investments of many hundreds of billions of euros, they want to end the burning of fossil carbon and abandon nuclear energy.
At best, this gigantic effort will reduce global warming by a few hundredths of a degree, but potentially plunge our economy into a severe crisis. Who of the remaining 98.9 % of the world's population will follow us down this risky path?[viii]
A few figures (www.Klimafakten.de):
Carbon dioxide emissions in gigatons per year:
(1) Natural: 750 (excluding volcanoes, which are said to account for only 1 %, still almost ten times that of Germany).
(2) From humans: 33 corresponds to 4.4 % of (1).
(3) Germany: 0.805 corresponds to 2.4 % of (2) or 0.107 % of (1).
There are currently (January 2020) over 1,000 coal-fired power plants under construction or in the approval process worldwide. The savings possible in Germany will be exceeded by the additional consumption in China alone (www.erneuerbareenergien.de), which as a "developing country" wants to increase its consumption of fossil fuels and does not feel obliged to make savings for the time being.
Conclusion: Climate protection exists worldwide or not at all!
(Cf. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyZmk968TF0).
* My book "The Apocalypse as Hope." was published by Droemer-Knaur in 1984.
Here, one of the oldest and most prevalent religious ideas, the "apocalypse of religions," is juxtaposed with a new, highly dramatic threat to our world, the "apocalypse of ecologists."[ix]
The "Apocalypse of Religions" has been expected for three millennia[x]. Whether it can come or will come is a matter of faith.
The "ecologists' apocalypse" - the collapse of the cycles of nature - is quite likely to occur in the middle of the 21st century, unless it can be averted by unforeseen events (new technologies, hitherto unknown energy sources, other surprising turns of events).[xi]), but hardly by political decisions.
Perhaps the two apocalypses are also identical without us realizing it?
Read also: "Early warnings of humus degradation and soil loss"., "How much we are overloading our earth"., "The Battle for the Blue Elixir of Life". and "Are the apocalyptic horsemen coming?", all under "Ecology", and "Gaia's Revenge, „Ten billion„, „Between earth and sky" under "Book Reviews" and in "Short, Succinct, Curious" on page 468 "Haste is of the Devil". With the hasty energy turnaround, we are well on the way to running into the "critical mutation speed" described here.
And do not overlook the important Endnotes and the Supplements I - VI.
Endnotes:
[i] That EIKE (European Institute for Climate and Energy) strongly denies in a series of lectures that climate change caused by burning fossil carbon is man-made. The "climate council" recognized by politicians as the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) had to put up with severe attacks on its credibility and even accusations of falsification. Cf. Internet, e.g. https://www.economy4mankind.org/klima-co2-sonne/ as well as https://jean-puetz.net/buergerbetrug-zur-notwendigen-klimarettung-und-abhilfe-mit-einem-vorwort-von-jean-puetz and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QV_pHAnw6I&t=234s.
Some even speak of pseudoscientific, deliberate misinformation: (Cf.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oB4sevIG8XU).
Controversial discussions on this important topic hardly take place in the public media anymore, and anyone who doubts the causality of man-made carbon dioxide for global warming is muzzled as a "climate denier." From the purely factual, highly complex "Climate Science" is one burdened by prejudice "Climate Policy" become. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffFUfAHPLzA).
How the public deliberately misinformed is shown https://www.google.com/search?q=httpswww.youtube.comwatchvffFUfAHPLzA&oq=https%
That we are in a "Interglacial" and that there were much warmer periods thousands of years ago without human influence are reluctantly heard. (Cf.:weltderphysik.de/gebiet/erde/news/2016/temperaturkurve-des-erdklimas-ueber-zwei-millionen-jahre/#:~:text=TemperaturkurvedesErdklimasüberzweiMillionenJa).
https://twitter.com/CO2Coalition/status/1658834765141913600
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1m3Dpim5aU (Gantefoer).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffFUfAHPLzA (Vahrenholt)
Figure B1. Global air temperatures (HadCRUT3)
[ii] From the EU comes a highly ambitious program, the consequences of which few EU citizens are aware (see https://unbesorgt.de/warten-auf-wunder-oder-wie-die-eu-kubanisiert-werden-soll/ and https://www.klonovsky.de/2021/07/das-wort-zum-sonntag/).
[iii] About dangers of the Nuclear energy was not discussed in the relevant lectures at the time. Instead, nuclear energy advocates promised cheap nuclear power in abundance. Edward Teller (1908-2003), the "father of the hydrogen bomb," even said that nuclear power would become so cheap that one could do without an electricity meter and only have to charge a connection fee. And CFCs, long since banned as harmful to the climate, were considered the ideal coolant.
[iv] There were precursors, e.g. the little-known book "Die Erde rächt sich" by William Vogt (Nest-Verlag, Nuremberg, 1950), or
Annie France-Harrar "The last chance for a future without hardship," Bayerischer Landwirtschaftsverlag, Munich, 1950.
The feared bird mortality has been visible since 2019 at the latest, perhaps due to insect mortality.
[v] Well-known Zambian-born economist Dambisa Moyo wrote in the Prussian General Newspaper on Nov. 21, 2017, "...over the period of the last 50 years [it has been] over one trillion dollars transferred as aid to Africa." ... "But are Africans actually better off as a result of the more than $1 trillion?" She argues for a gradual exit from the current system. She expands on her thoughts in her best-selling book, "Dead aid: why aid is not working and how there is another way for Africa."
"Germany received [through the Marshall Plan] 2.5 % of the GDP at that time, which was low due to the war. In the 1990s, sub-Saharan Africa received development aid of more than 12 % of GDP." (Asfa-Wassen Asserate "The New Migration of Peoples," Propyläen, p. 179).
According to ARTE "Geschehen neu gesehen - Präsident Trumans kalter Krieg" (2023), Europe received a total of 170 billion dollars in today's value through the Marshall Plan. For the most part goods from the USA.
In addition, in Black Africa the - for Europeans difficult to understand - obstruction of the development by black magic. In the review of the book "The economics of witchcraft or why there are no skyscrapers in Africa" by David Signer, Amazon says: "The idea that someone can bewitch another, i.e. make him ill or even kill him, solely by virtue of his negative thoughts, exists almost continuously in black Africa. That witches are primarily motivated by their envy and prefer to "eat" the successful has often been stated. But if ambition is intimidated in such a way, a potential climber is left with only three options: He renounces his ambitions in favor of inconspicuousness, he incessantly distributes what he has acquired (and thus will hardly bring it to economic growth), or he leaves his home and protects himself against the envious by fetichers and offerings. David Signer has come close to the goings-on of witchcraft in years of field research in West Africa; in close contact with healers, he has come to understand that witchcraft assumes a highly normative, conservative function in the social, economic, and political system, effectively preventing the development of individuals and society."
[vi] Ziegler, W.: "Ansatz zur Analyse der durch technisch-zivilisierte Gesellschaften verursachten Belastung von Ökosystemen. - Diss. 1979, in Bayer. Landwirtschaftliches Jahrbuch, issue 8/1979, pp. 899 - 948.
[vii] The Ecosystem of our earth is a highly complex, interconnected system in which hardly any measure remains without side effects. It is certainly not wrong to cut back on the burning of fossil carbon, but the "energy turnaround" that this necessitates requires huge quantities of valuable and rare raw materials, which have to be extracted using ever greater amounts of energy and with great environmental impact. According to the Energy Agency (IEA), global demand for critical raw materials such as copper will quadruple by 2040, and for the battery metal lithium it will even increase 42-fold. (Der Spiegel, No. 41/2021. p. 10).
[viii] Is here Savonarola (1452-1498) with his "state of God" was the model: "From Florence, the light of God was to shine over all of Italy. In the end, even the followers of Mohammed would convert, if only Florence made a start and its inhabitants, as models for the whole world, lived according to the divine commandments." (Cf. "A Renaissance Prophet in the Fickleness of the Masses" in "Kurz, Knapp, Kurios" page 323). Today Germany and/or the EU want to be the large models for the whole world, which will not follow in all probability!
[ix] At that time I was very critical of the Nuclear energy. But that was almost 40 years ago. Today, one should not overlook the more recent developments.
[x] The first announcement of a World Court comes from Zarathustra from the 2nd millennium B.C.
[xi] Optimists believe that we could produce almost limitless amounts of food with solar energy from water, carbon dioxide and nitrogen. We could then do without food crops and farm animals. Should it become too hot due to climate change, we could retreat to air-conditioned cities. Energy supplies the sun for all requirements enough! (Not much more than 1 % of the solar radiation on the earth is used for the by far largest production, for the photosynthesis of the plants. The rest is theoretically available to us).
[xii] A broader account of the aberrations of our civilization can be found in Siegfried Hagl, "Die Kluft zwischen Wissenschaft und Wahrheit," Verlag der Stiftung Gralsbotschaft, Stuttgart, 1986.
Addendum I on the energy transition
In Germany, the Energy turnaround for ideological reasons. Serious discussions about the necessity of the energy turnaround no longer exist in politics. It's all about speed.
Nuclear*) and coal-fired power plants are to be shut down in Germany by 2030. By 2050 wants Germany climate neutral be. This "climate neutrality" will probably also require "carbon capture": The controversial storage of carbon dioxide in caverns beneath the earth's surface or under the sea.
But the Plans of the federal government with significant "green participation" are far away from reality!
Cf. The Pioneer Briefing of:
* 12. 11. 2022: "The Green Self-Deception.".
* 19. 11. 2022: "What we're doing here is hara-kiri." by Hans Werner Sinn;
* 12. 12. 2022: "Politics as posturing: the risky game of climate impostors"..
* 10. 2. 23: "Lützerath: symbol of green illusion art"..
* 7. 7. 2023: "German Potcast Award for The Pioneer."In almost all countries (except the EU and the USA), the consumption of fossil fuels is increasing and CO2-emissions are rising dramatically.
* 13. 9. 2023: "Fata Morgana: The dream of the end of the oil age"Global greenhouse gas emissions will increase rather than decrease until well beyond 2030.
* 5. 12. 2023: "The three lifelong lies of green climate policy": Here it is shown that currently (winter 2023) the German energy transition is a fiasco. The savings targets are being missed by a long way - especially in winter - and Germany is well on the way to becoming a laughing stock.
* 26. 1. 2024: "Habeck's energy policy: green on the outside, brown on the inside"The costs of the energy transition up to 2045 are said to be EUR 1.11o billion, which are not covered in any way. The theoretical German Carbon dioxide savings potentialat such dramatic costs and great disadvantages for the economy and prosperity, is, in a world comparison, only ridiculous!
* 8. 2. 2024: "Robert Habeck: Federal Audit Office settles accounts": A special report by the Federal Audit Office shows catastrophic Results for the status of the energy transition and frightening costs. One wonders if there is no one in our government with economic and technical expertise!
Nobel laureate in physics John F. Clausen in July 2023:
"In my opinion, there is no real climate crisis. However, there is a very real problem in providing a decent standard of living for the world's large population, and there is a related energy crisis. The latter is unnecessarily exacerbated by what I believe to be misguided climate science."
(Die Weltwoche).
According to Clausen, clouds are not taken into account in the IPPC program.
According to German Weather Service the amount of sunshine in Germany has increased. This is likely to have an impact on the climate.
1961-1990: average sunshine duration: 1544 hours/year
1991-2020: average sunshine duration: 1665 hours/year
The era of thermal prime movers is probably coming to an end in Germany.
In the Sroad traffic it seems that the last hour of the combustion engine has already begun and politicians see the electric car as the future. Hopefully not an expensive mistake!
What about the necessary charging stations? Has the last word already been spoken, or are combustion engines with "green hydrocarbons" the better solution after all?
The "green" drives of construction machines, harvesters, airplanes, helicopters, trucks, tractors, ships, etc. can still be found.
Here, hydrogen at 700 bar, liquid hydrogen, "green" methane, other "green" hydrocarbons such as "green" methanol**), "green" gasoline, diesel or kerosene are possible energy carriers; fuel cell + electric motor, piston engine, gas turbine as prime movers. Promising further developments of accumulators are also reportedly currently underway. Which solution is the most favorable?
This unfortunate situation is exacerbated by the high energy prices of 2022. Now people want to switch to "green" energy very quickly. There is no time left to do thorough calculations and to clarify exactly in trials whether, for example, the electric car with many charging stations is cheaper than "green" methanol, gasoline or diesel, for which the filling station network would be available.
There are 1.4 billion cars, 99,000 ships, and 24,000 airplanes worldwide that cannot be scrapped and replaced with alternatives overnight.(The Pioneer Briefing, 3/24/2013).
In politics, the CO2-Balance sheet of the individual means of transport are often miscalculated, as only the drive is considered and the overall system, including the infrastructure, is neglected, which can lead to incorrect conclusions. (https://www.cicero.de/wirtschaft/co2-emissionen-die-diskussion-versachlichen).
But according to the conviction of dream-dancing climate activists, it is about saving the earth, for which nothing must be too expensive. Even a drastic loss of prosperity through deindustrialization or reduction of economic growth ("degrowth") is accepted in such circles.
However, Germany can only make a minimal contribution to limiting greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, so the cost/benefit calculation looks bleak. The decisive efforts to "save the climate" will have to be made by others, who will hopefully follow the "German example"?
The developing countries will continue to burn coal and build new coal-fired power plants until we can hopefully show that the energy transition works. Then we may make our know-how available to the developing countries and finance the energy transition for them.
How does the conflict over the gas fields in the Mediterranean between the EU (Greece, France, Cyprus) and Turkey, as well as between Israel and Lebanon, or even the race of several states for control over the Arctic oil and gas fields, fit in with the goal of ending the burning of fossil carbon?
In addition figures to the worldwide CO2-output in % (According to "The Pioneer" Capital Briefing, 5/2/2021):
China 27.2
USA 14.6
India 6.8
Russia 4.7
Japan 3.3
Germany 2.2
Iran 1.9
Saudi Arabia 1.8
South Korea 1.7
Rest of world 34.2
About the Costs of the energy transition in Germany - expected to be well over 500 billion***) by 2050, in extreme cases even more than 3,000 billion****) - is rarely discussed. These costs are in addition to the expenses for asylum seekers, the coronavirus crisis and the war in Ukraine. This will not measurably reduce global warming.
At present, emissions of man-made CO2 - expected to continue to rise worldwide until at least 2050. (Steingart's Morning Briefing of 18.10.21.)
The largest emitter of CO2 (China) sees itself as a developing country that has CO2 output for the time being.
People do not like to talk about the collateral damage to be expected from the energy transition.*****).
Conclusion: The "Energy turnaround" becomes expensiveprobably even very expensive! The promised cheap green electricity remains an illusion for the time being.
(See Addendum VI.)
More necessary would be Precautionary measures for unavoidable global warming, such as natural hazard insurance for buildings and household contents, improved land use planning, hydraulic engineering measures, etc.
Hopefully, in a few decades' time, the ideology-driven, unbalanced, poorly thought-out and inadequately tested German energy transition will not be referred to as a grandiose bad investment that ushered in the decline of Germany and Europe. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=9UFGj_wmXYs)
When the landscape is covered with "bird shredders" propagated by conservationists, all roofs are paved with solar cells, and the power grids have been elaborately expanded and extended, a few unanswered questions remain from today's perspective:
1) How expensive will energy be then? The sun may shine for free and the wind costs nothing, but the systems, including backup (storage, reserve power plants, etc.) must be amortized before cheap energy can be considered. Is the "Greenflation„?******)
2) What happens during a "Dark lull" when neither the sun is shining nor the wind is blowing? Then backup power plants (powered by natural gas or hydrogen?) and full gas and electricity storage facilities must be available, which in the worst case can cover the entire electricity demand for months (in 2014 a dark tide lasted 3.5 months). French, Czech and Polish (nuclear) power plants will not be able to close this gap.
3) To better match demand to the fluctuating supply of wind and solar, "The Greens" want to offer consumers a "supply-oriented power supply", presumably with shutdowns. Then we would have to spend an "energy lock-down" in unheated apartments, by candlelight, without bathing and washing facilities and without mobility, where hopefully at least the water supply would still work. I would rather not speak of the foreseeable reaction of the industry to such an imposition.
The planned "Smart grids" as a solution seem pretty utopian to me. These would be "smart grids", which would balance the supply and demand of electricity. This is supposed to work by producers, storage systems (possibly also the batteries of electric cars) and consumers communicating directly with each other using information and communication technologies. (And this in Germany, which is lagging behind developing countries in terms of digitalization!) It won't work without backup power plants, and hopefully we will be spared the dreaded grid collapse.
4) What happens with the surplus "green electricity" when the sun is shining and the wind is strong? Do we use it to generate hydrogen, methane, ammonia ("power to gas"), liquid hydrocarbons ("power to liquid"), or can we store it in some other way (see above)? The necessary plants still have to be built. The surplus electricity is generated very unevenly, the required plants will be disproportionately large, and the expected efficiencies are poor. Much is technically possible, but the costs are not negligible!
5) Electricity consumption will increase dramatically due to building heating (heat pumps) and electromobility. Has this already been taken into account in the expansion planning of power generators and the line network?*******)
In Germany of all places, the country with the highest electricity prices, the aim is to quickly switch to electric heating (heat pumps). The electricity required for this - especially in winter - still has to be generated largely from fossil fuels for the time being. (See above "The three lifelong lies of green climate policy").
Endnotes to Supplement I:
*) According to UNECE (United Nations Economic Commission for Europe), nuclear power plants are indispensable. In the UNECE region, nuclear power plants are currently under construction in 15 countries (Renewable Energies, 19. 8. 21). Currently, there are promising developments of liquid salt or thorium reactors and dual-fluid reactors, which do not give rise to fears of a meltdown and, on top of that, can still process a part of the nuclear waste. However, solutions for the disposal of the remaining radioactive waste are still lacking.
To the dismay of the Greens, nuclear power is considered clean and sustainable in the EU.
**) "Green" methanol would be an interesting solution. It is suitable for fuel cells, gasoline engines (without major conversions) and in principle also diesel engines, can be stored and transported well and can be distributed via the filling station network. (Roger Letsch: "How government intervention is screwing up a technology of the future," unbesorgt.de, 9. 6. 2021). However, methanol with Hi = 15.7 MJ/l, 4.36 KWh/l, 5.52 KWh/kg has a lower energy density than gasoline with 31 MJ/l.
According to ThePioneer on 3/31/2022, the startup "C1" is using quantum chemistry to develop a novel process of "homogeneous catalysis" for the low-cost production of methanol.
***) https.www.weltwoche.ch: Essay of the week: Energy transition: The 4600 billion fiasco / Die Weltwoche Issue 20/2019.
****) According to the ifo Institute; www.ifo.de>node.
According to "The Pioneer Briefing" of 10. 1. 2014 "Energy transition", EUR 1,110 billion is expected by 2045. More than twice as much as the 2024 federal budget!
*****) Recently, we want to import natural gas from the USA that has been extracted by fracking. In Germany, fracking is banned because of its dangers for the environment. Are conservationists only interested in the environmental damage in their own country?
Hopefully, the extraction, cooling (liquefied natural gas (LNG) at approx. -160° C) and transport with diesel-powered large tankers, which have to return empty, until the LNG is converted into electricity, will not produce almost exactly as much carbon dioxide in the end as the far cheaper combustion of lignite? Has anyone done the exact math?
******) Cf. Christian Rieck "How Long Can We Still Afford Electricity and Gas?", March 14, 2022, and https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=98aJvlqAys.
*******) Current electricity consumption in Germany: 580 TWh. By 2030, at least 645 to 665 TWh are expected, due to the additional consumption of electromobility and heat pumps. The Frauenhofer Institute even expects 780 TWh!
Addendum II on "Hydrogen Technology" (2021):
The German government is focusing on hydrogen as an energy carrier.
The possibility of a "hydrogen bridge" from Australia (or Chile) to Germany is even being investigated, as it is preferable to import from democracies than from politically unstable regions such as the Sahara.
Are there any other ways?
Here are some data (according to Wikipedia):
Specific Weights:
(air 1.29 g/lit. or 1.29 kg/m³).
Hydrogen:
Under normal conditions: 0.089 g/lit. or 89 g/m³.
At 700 bar: 40 g/lit. or 40 kg/m³.
Liquid hydrogen at 14 Kelvin: 70.8 g/lit. or 70.8 kg/m³.
(Styrofoam is 15-30 kg/m³).
Energy content (calorific value):
Hydrogen 120 MJ/kg; 33.3 kWh/kg
(Gasoline: approx. 41 MJ/kg; 31 MJ/lit.; 11.39 kWh/kg; 8.5 kWh/lit.)
(Diesel: approx. 42 MJ/k ; 35 MJ/lit.; 11.73 kWh/kg; 9.8 kWh/lit.)
Efficiencies:
Electrolysis: approx. 60 %.
Compression to 700 bar: approx. 90 %.
Liquefaction: approx. 75 to 80 %.
Fuel cell: approx. 60 to 70%.
Electric drive: 90 to 95 %.
Overall efficiency optimally at:
H2 700 Bar: 0.6*0.9*0.7*0.95 = 0.36.
H2 liquid: 0.6*0.8*0.7*0.95 = 0.32.
These optimal values can only be achieved under favorable conditions; in practice, the efficiencies are significantly worse, so that at least three times as much electricity is required for the fuel cell as for the battery car!
Not included are the losses during storage and transport of H2.
Compressed hydrogen requires (heavy) pressure vessels.
Liquid hydrogen has a limited shelf life because, even with the best thermal insulation, it converts to gas that must be vented if it cannot be consumed.
(A battery-powered electric car realistically achieves only 65 - 70 % efficiency (tuev-nord.de) in the best case 80%. A modern diesel engine on 30 - 35%.)
Space requirement/mass ratio for the same energy:
Gasoline: 1 lit. - H2 700 Bar: 6,45 Lit. - H2 liquid: 3,65 Lit.
The following mass is required for the same energy content (41 MJ):
Gasoline: 1 kg - H2: 0,34 kg.
Container:
The gas tank can be configured almost arbitrarily.
A pressure tank for 700 bar should be spherical or cylindrical.
A tank for liquid hydrogen must be extremely well thermally insulated. Spherical or cylindrical are preferable because of the relatively smaller surface areas.
Production and transport of the energy carrier:
Current: Solar power or wind power from Canada or the Sahara (a crisis region!), Saudi Arabia, Chile or any other region with free areas and a lot of wind and sun, and surplus "green" power when the sun shines and a lot of wind blows in our country.
Germany and Europe alone cannot produce enough "green" electricity to meet primary energy consumption (2021 in Germany 12,193 pentajoules = 3.37*1012 kWh, of which 15.9 % renewables).
Hydrogen: Production mainly abroad only to a small extent in the EU?
Transportation of energy: Germany cannot generate the electricity needed to produce hydrogen in its own country. Which is cheaper: to transport the electricity from Africa to Europe (mass transport) and produce hydrogen at various locations close to the consumers; or to transport the (compressed) hydrogen (in pipelines or pressurized containers)? Recently, transportation in the form of ammonia (NH³) has been considered the best solution.
The plants required for this are hardly envisaged, and realization by 2030 (shutdown of nuclear and coal-fired power plants) is utopian.
Anticipated applications for hydrogen:
Construction machinery, chemical industry, feeding into the natural gas grid, helicopters, trucks, food industry (bakeries), aviation (liquid hydrogen?), shipping, steel industry, textile industry, etc. In many of these cases, methanol could be cheaper, easier to transport and better to store.
Handling:
Two supply routes may be required:
For liquid hydrogen (14 Kelvin = -259° C) and for compressed hydrogen (700 Bar or 350 Bar)?
There are some additional problems with handling hydrogen:
For example, when refilling hydrogen at 700 bar, it must be cooled to -40 degrees C so that the compression of the residual hydrogen remaining in the tank to be filled does not produce excessively high temperatures that could damage a carbon fiber composite tank, for example.
It is also not clear whether the existing natural gas pipelines are also suitable for hydrogen.
Cost:
According to "The Pioneer Briefing" of 5. 1. 2023 "Why hydrogen is not the savior" 1 kg of green hydrogen costs:
Current (2023): 3.3 .... 7.3 US$/kg
in the future: 2 .... 6 US$/kg
i.e. in the best case approx. 6 US$ cents/kWh
Units:
1 joule = 1 watt-second = 1 Nm = 1 kg m²/sec² = 0.239 cal
1 watt-hour (Wh) = 3.6 kilojoules ( kJ)
1 KJ = 0.2778 Wh
1 kilowatt hour (kWh) = 3600 kilojoules
Addendum III to the latest ruling of the Federal Constitutional Court (August 2021):
The latest constitutional court, Wednesday, 04.08.2021 - 22:00, Rocco Burggraf:
In the sense of the chronicler duty I would like to recall after short study of the factual situation once again the disputed judgement of the Federal Constitutional Court, with which in the course of the abolition of Germany, after the far advanced dissolution of the state territory and the state people also the last constitutional bastion fell. The institution, which has been consistently reorganized in terms of personnel and converted into a political interest group, has decreed - shrugged off by the population - the end of freedom, the end of constitutional rights and thus - probably unintentionally - its own end with its so-called climate decision of March 24 of this year. And not only that.
Apparently, hardly anyone realizes what a devastating decision was made by the high judges in the red robes. The decision-makers, who have been bothered time and again by clueless legislators with bungling works of art, felt obliged not only to check the course of Germanwings from the tower and to take corrective action if necessary, but also to take the control stick into their own hands and thus bring the aircraft to its destination.
In the absence of appropriate capabilities, an autopilot was programmed in haste - obviously inspired by Andreas Lubitz*) - which initiated the immediate descent. Since then, all of our lives have been determined by a climate policy algorithm of bans and price increases that no one can stop. Because it now has constitutional status. This will be a nosedive.
In an inconceivable hubris that goes far beyond the mandate to examine constitutional conformities, the paragraph jugglers in March construct from the following assumptions an obligatory imperative to radically restructure the German economy and, beyond that, to permanently restrict all basic civil rights in a climate protection dictatorship. In its reasons for judgment, the BVerfGE recognizes the following political assumptions as correct, mutatis mutandis:-.
1. the natural foundations of life for future generations are being destroyed by anthropogenic global warming.
2. this global warming can only be effectively countered by achieving the so-called 2° or 1.5° target for increasing the global average temperature. For this, globally permissible CO² quantities must be calculated, divided into country budgets and then defined as maximum quantities with national legislation.
3. substitute measures for CO² avoidance such as biosphere development, nuclear power, hydropower, synthetic fuels, population and settlement policies are not relevant for budgeting and can therefore be disregarded.
4 For Germany, a residual emissions budget of currently 6.7 gigatons of CO², based on a (non-transparent) calculation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change but nowhere legally anchored, is to be used as a basis, from which the Federal Constitutional Court derives via a pro-head key, which is also considered reasonable, that Germany must achieve so-called "climate neutrality" by 2030 by means of extensive measures including the restriction of all existing fundamental rights. This includes CO² pricing, a complete restructuring of the economy and ultimately the regulation of all human activities associated with CO² emissions.
5 This German climate neutrality must be legally secured and regularly reviewed by the legislator.
Let us summarize: GERMANY abolishes in contrast to almost all other industrialized countries of the WORLD with the nuclear power the most important low-emission energy production, in order to then state that the WORLD average temperature - thus the WORLD itself - under the now in GERMANY valid conditions of allegedly renewable energy production can only be saved, if the GERMANS completely rebuild their economic structure, for this purpose renounce their liberty rights to life (producing, eating, living, heating, traveling....), in order to reach in the next eight years a GERMAN climatic neutrality, which can be calculated by nobody seriously, whose only effect in view of its ridiculous 2%igen portion of the global CO² emission in an alleged model effect on the remaining WORLD consists, which for its part already now far less rigorous climatic policy decided and whose largest emitters (e.g. China/India) in the world are in the center of the world.e.g. China/India) will emit more instead of less CO² in the next twenty years. A fact that already condemns the achievement of the mentioned emission targets to failure with high probability. It does not get more abstruse than this.
Although this monstrous constitutional tyranny, based on nothing but controversial and legally non-binding assumptions, was discussed among legal experts and a few alert contemporaries, it then went down just like all the other destructive activities of an apparatus gone wild and out of all control.
If you are interested in the legal details and the exact chains of argumentation underlying my populist translation, please read the somewhat drier source - the lecture of the emeritus expert for public law Prof. Murswiek at the University of Freiburg - for more detailed information. (Source: tatjanafesterling.de)
Endnote to Addendum III:
*) Andreas Lubitz is the pilot who intentionally brought down a Germanwings plane carrying 150 people on March 24, 2015.
Addendum IV on growth:
According to "Steingart's Morning Briefing" of September 9, 2021, China plans to substantially increase its gross social product (GDP). In the longer term, China will aim for the same GDP per capita as the USA:
GDP of the USA 2021: 22.7 trillion US$. If China were to achieve the same GDP per capita as the U.S. with its current population, that would be 96.2 trillion US$The consumption of raw materials and energy would have to overtax the earth's capacity even further, especially since GDP per capita is also expected to increase in many other countries as the population rises!
(Cf. "A devastating footprint" and "How much we overload our earth"Under" Ecology ").
Addendum V on climate change:
At last, a well-known, very successful business leader is speaking out and saying what should have been made widely known long ago.
| One who unbiased to work, is Prof. Wolfgang Reitzle. He has spent his professional life in the German industry was in a responsible position at BMW, Ford and Linden and today it serves as Chairman of the Board of Directors the Linde plc and as Chairman of the Supervisory Board the Continental AG. He is non-partisan. Never before has he been on a Party Congress spoken. Yesterday at the FDP was premiere. He could also have been at the Green, the CDU and - as I know him - also with the Left Party spoken to his View of things to the point. So it is not important, where he spoke. Important is, what he had to say. There were five inconvenient truthswhich he shouted to the Germans: Truth number 1: We have lost our leading position in the world. Reitzle verbatim: "One wonders: Where are we actually still leading? - Most certainly in taxes, redistribution and the price of electricity. And that's exactly where some parties have concrete plans to further expand this leadership position. " Truth number 2: The nation state is already too narrow as a thinking space to be able to effectively counter climate change. Because, according to Reitzle: “We either save the climate globally or not at all. Around 2.5 billion more people will be living on the planet by 2050. In 2019 alone, China built up almost as much coal capacity as we want to take off the grid by 2038. In Africa, 600 million people do not have an electrical outlet today, but they will legitimately have one very soon. And much of the electricity from those outlets will come from new coal-fired power plants, which China in turn will supply to Africa. " Truth number 3: The market and competition are needed to achieve true climate neutrality on this planet. Reitzle advised Technology openness: "Take the topic of hydrogen. It has accompanied me professionally for decades. And the opportunities offered by this technology are enormous. Nevertheless, today we almost exclusively rely on battery technology. How come Well, it comes from the political framework. By not saying: “Let's see which technology will prevail”. Rather: "We know in advance what is best." Namely: the battery! "" "The consequence is: No stone is left unturned in the auto industry. Hundreds of thousands of old jobs are at risk. There is a shortage of qualified people for many thousands of new jobs. " "Can we still get this done? Yes. Somehow we'll manage, Angela Merkel would say. But at a high price." "Now one could argue: Yes, then that's the price we have to pay. After all, we are saving the climate here." And then he says to all whom it concerns, the Truth number 4which is the most inconvenient of all truths: much does not help much. "No matter how far we go with deindustrialization, unfortunately we are not saving the climate with all this. The end, which should justify all means, is not reached by these means at all! " Its Justification: "An all-electric car, for example, that charges its electricity from a German socket is not driving CO2-free. On the contrary: Our electricity mix is not only particularly expensive. It is also particularly dirty (CO2-heavy). And when the last nuclear power plant goes off the grid soon, it will be even dirtier for a long time." Truth number 5: The financial costs of dirigiste climate policies will overwhelm Europe. Reitzle said: "Even supporters of this path do not deny that it will be expensive. But unlike you and me, they are not worried about it. That's because they believe in Modern Monetary Theory, that is, in the printing press - in creating money out of nothing." " Their Follow Reitzle described it like this: "It leads to debt and transfer union. It leads to inflation. And at some point it leads to the destabilization of the euro. " Its Conclusion: "Our situation is like that of a ship that is in danger of sinking. The water is coming in at the front and the back at the same time. However, the hole at the front - in our case - is much smaller than the hole at the back in China, Asia and Africa. What sense does it make that we spend almost all our time, almost all our energy and all our resources on closing the small hole here in Germany? Why don't we also and especially focus on the big hole?" Conclusion: Someone like Reitzle can only inform, admonish, ask: The answer to his question about the big or the small hole is the question about the right priority. This question must be answered by the voters on Sunday. (From "Steingart's Morning Briefing," 9/21/2021). Addendum VI on climate change: The one-sided at Germany focused Climate policy will be with a view to the crisis Situation in Africa even more incomprehensible. With the Heat pump have the Green unerringly the most expensive Shape of the CO₂ reduction found. With the with us pointless blown Money we could create in Africa a 100 times Effect for Climate achieve - and at the same time something Good for the business and the People reach there. (Wolfgang Reizle in "The Pioneer Briefing," Aug. 2, 2023.) |
