gases and their chemical formula, anthropogenic sources, atmospheric lifetime, and global warming potential (GWP) [4].
| Greenhouse gas | Chemical formula | Anthropogenic sources | Atmospheric lifetime [1](years) | GWP [2] (100‐year time horizon) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Carbon dioxide | CO2 | Fossil fuel combustion, land‐use conversion, cement production | ~100 [1] | 1 |
| Methane | CH4 | Fossil fuels, rice paddies, waste dumps | 12 [1] | 25 |
| Nitrous oxide | N2O | Fertilizer, industrial processes, combustion | 114 [1] | 298 |
| Tropospheric ozone | O3 | Fossil fuel combustion, industrial emissions, chemical solvents | Hours‐days | NA |
| CFC‐12 | CCL2F2 | Liquid coolants, foams | 100 | 10 900 |
| HCFC‐22 | CCl2F2 | Refrigerants | 12 | 1 810 |
| Sulfur hexafluoride | SF6 | Dielectric fluid | 3 200 | 22 800 |
The climate conundrum [5] is best illustrated in Figure P.3, which shows two sharply divergent pathways for CO2 emissions: “business as usual” and the “best‐case scenario” of CO2 emissions in billions of metric tons. Figure P.4 depicts the CO2 accumulations in the atmosphere for “business as usual,” “best‐case scenario,” “Hansen model,” and “safety threshold” scenarios. Achieving the deep cuts in carbon emissions required to step down from the business‐as‐usual trajectory to one with increased probability of climate stability is a monumental task. Fossil fuels and extractive industries are currently deeply interconnected with Western lifestyles, infrastructure, and typical economic development pathways. Making the leap will require political commitment to pricing carbon, continued innovation in low‐carbon energy and storage, and the imagination and flexibility to envision – and bring about – a more resilient future.
Figure P.3 Possible emissions pathways [5], billions of metric tons of CO2.
Figure P.4 Divergent scenarios [5] for atmospheric CO2 in parts per million (ppm).
P.2.1 Is the Renewable Energy Approach Too Optimistic?
Figures and Table P.1 require that the continued accumulation of CO2 and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere must be avoided by relying on renewable energy based on solar, wind, hydro, and biomass power plants in Germany as indicated in Figure P.5. While during summertime these renewable energy sources generate to date more than 30% of electric energy usage, this is not so during winter when clouds/fog and calm weather conditions prevail with wind speeds too low to operate wind turbines either onshore or offshore as indicated in Figure P.5, where 26 000 wind turbines and 1.2 million solar plants within the German grid failed for almost two weeks to generate expected sufficient energy. This was due to regional atmospheric high pressure resulting in fog and still air conditions as frequently occur in Central Europe during cold weather. Such a “foggy calm [6, 7]” – called in German “Dunkelflaute” – brought the grid near its limits, where 80 GW must be available to serve peak‐load conditions as indicated in Figure P.5.
Figure P.5 Electric power (generation and consumption) requirements in Germany during 16–27 January 2017. The lightly‐shaded area, which exceeds the full line indicating consumption, represents generation, while the full line indicates consumption: generation = (consumption +losses), that is, generation > consumption.
During the period as indicated in Figure P.5, about 90% of the electric energy had to be provided by natural gas, coal, and nuclear power plants, the latter two of which are scheduled to be discontinued or decommissioned during the coming decade. Such a shutdown appears to be not prudent because short‐term (e.g. battery) and long‐term (e.g. pumped hydro) storage plants [8, 9] are unable to have an output power of 70 GW even only during a few days. Note that 70 GW is the power provided, for example, by either 35 nuclear and 70 coal or natural gas‐fired plants each having a rated output of 1 GW and 500 MW, respectively, or 300 hydro storage plants with each 233 MW output power rating. Clearly such a switch from conventional (e.g. coal, natural gas, nuclear) plants to storage plants appears to be not feasible. The transition from combustion engines (e.g. gasoline, diesel) to electric drives in automobiles, trucks, and trains will lead to significantly increased additional power consumption that cannot be provided by renewable energy during the times as indicated in Figure P.5. As a result, the strategy is to keep natural gas power plants each having an output of 200 MW operating together with some of the nuclear power plants that serve as a frequency leader. The supply of electric energy of Guangdong in southern China via high‐voltage DC (HVDC) lines led to a breakup [10] of the alternating current (AC) grid due to the lack of a frequency‐leading AC power plant and through the lack of sufficient reactive power to control voltage and frequency (Figure P.6). It is well known that inverters converting
