The goal is ambitious: Germany wants to save 80 to 95 percent of its greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2050, the reference date is the year 1990. So it has been for about three years in the "Climate Protection Plan 2050" of the Federal Government. The paper is intended to answer the question of how one of the largest industrialized nations in the world wants to implement a decisive requirement for the climate treaty of Paris: to become climate-neutral from the second half of the century.
The gigantic task can only be solved if there are massive changes in all areas of the economy as well as public and private life. But how could they look in detail? Experts from Forschungszentrum Jülich have now attempted to answer this question. On Thursday they presented their study "Paths to the Energiewende - Cost-efficient and Climate-Efficient Transformation Strategies for the German Energy System by the Year 2050" at the Federal Press Conference in Berlin.
80 or 95 percent less CO2 - "We looked at what a cost-optimal solution for the two scenarios would look like," says Detlef Stolten from Forschungszentrum Jülich, one of the authors of the study, in an interview with SPIEGEL.
Switching between strategies is difficult
The scientists have fed a computer model with the expected technological, economic and political conditions and let it run again and again. The model was able to decide which individual technologies to use in the direction of 80 or 95 percent savings. The goal was to keep costs as low as possible.
The key message after countless model runs from the perspective of the researchers: The goals of the climate protection plan are to be created - however, it must already be decided today whether in the end a reduction of 80 or 95 percent should come out. In order to achieve the ambitious 95-percent target, a fundamentally different strategy is needed than for the less high mark of 80 percent. A change from less to more climate protection only in a few years is not readily possible, at least not without high additional costs.
What role does natural gas play?
Among other things, it deals with the question of what role natural gas can play in the German energy mix in the future. At 80 percent savings, it is still very good as an energy source in the race, supplemented by the additional use of hydrogen. At the 95-percent target, this looks fundamentally different, only hydrogen plays a role here in the gas sector. It would not only be important for mobility, but also in industry, for example for steelmaking. Investing in natural gas would be wasted money in such a scenario.
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There are also differences in the share of renewable energies in power generation. He is today at about 38 percent. With a target of 80 percent less greenhouse gases, the share in 2050 should always be 90 percent. If Germany wants to emit even 95 percent less CO2, virtually only green electricity will be used.
Massively increasing power consumption
This is particularly challenging because at the same time electricity consumption is expected to rise massively. This has something to do, for example, with the increasing electrification of car traffic, with the energy-intensive production of synthetic fuels, for example for aviation, but also with the projected economic growth of 2050.
"In scenario 95, net electricity consumption will reach 1008 terawatt hours in 2050," the researchers write. This corresponds to an increase of more than 80 percent compared to today's value. To shoulder this, especially the wind power must be massively expanded. It is "the backbone of the future power supply".
In a scenario with 95 percent CO2 reduction by the middle of the century, wind power capacity would have to increase by about 6.6 gigawatts each year. Currently, however, the government's so-called expansion corridors are not even allowing 3 gigawatts. These regulations are "to modify and adapt", the scientists say. Distance regulations for the construction of wind farms in the vicinity of buildings would have to be checked and, if necessary, revised.
Additional costs are relative
Politically, such demands are likely to be tricky. On the other hand, the Wind Energy Agency on land only published the results of its annual acceptance survey on Wednesday. According to this, 82 percent of more than 1,000 representative respondents find the use and expansion of wind energy "important" or "very important". And perhaps even more interesting: 70 percent of the respondents who have not had wind turbines in the living environment so far are not very worried if some are built there.
Last year, the Federal Association of German Industry advised the government to give up the 95 percent target more easily. The necessary social and industrial policy cuts are just too big. But maybe that's too negative a view of things.
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The Jülich researchers have calculated that the annual additional costs for the German economy in an 80 percent scenario would be 49 billion euros in 2050. That would be 1.1 percent of gross domestic product. With a CO2 saving of 95 percent, the additional financial requirements would even amount to 128 billion euros per year or 2.8 percent of the gross domestic product.
This amount looks pretty impressive at first glance. He puts it, but, according to the scientists, if you look at how much money Germany currently spent on the import of energy sources such as oil and gas: That are currently about 63 billion euros per year or about 1.9 percent of economic output.
"A transformation to 95 percent less greenhouse gas emissions is economically viable," summarizes researcher Stolten. Another question is whether the political will exists for it. The clearly short-term climate target for 2020, Germany has notoriously crashed.
