Reports & Discussion
Barriers disturbing development of innovative measures for mitigating climate change
According to SPM of IPCC AR-5 WG1(1) cumulative (anthropogenic) emissions of CO2 and global mean surface temperature response are approximately linearly related. It indicates that stabilization of the global surface temperature requires almost zero emission of CO2. Considering that more than 85% of primary energy mankind depend upon are fossil fuels, we mankind are required to make drastic efforts for decarbonization in the coming future.
There are various measures for decarbonization of energy, but we see in most of them barriers seriously disturbing their development and propagation in the society. Let me show you just two examples of this kind.
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Just to note that at the STS Forum Session on Renewables Neil Fromer, the Executive Director of the Resnick Sustainability Institute at the California Institute of Technology noted that his team have developed a catalyst (not based on platinum) which has about a 10% direct direct solar - water to hydrogen conversion efficiency. The lifetime of the catalyst still requires considerable improvement, but the potential for much better, and potentially cost effective conversion, seems possible.
Just a short remark on CCS: For me the best CO2 storage location is offshore underground. In this case only minor safety concerns are to be expected, assuming a local CO2 monitoring system is in place. The technology can be developed by using nearly) exhausted offshore gas and oil fields. It would allow enhanced oil and gas recovery so that some of the technology development costs may be recuperated. And a comment concerning renewable hydrogen: There are many possible uses of hydrogen, not only input for Fuel Cell Electric Vehicles FCEVs. Hydrogen may become a key technology to store excess renewable electricity which may become necessary in a power system with high shares of wind and PV electricity (this is the present thinking in the German Energiewende). Thus hydrogen may be needed for increasing the renewable electricity share. But we then also need intelligent applications of the hydrogen and without doubt one option is FCEVs. It will be interesting to see whether this technology will beat other clean transportation technologies. For obvious reasons Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs) and hybrid vehicles have the lead over fuel cells, and there are more concepts to further electrify road transportation (such as electrification of highways) which may challenge the future fuel cell markets.