Political Germany is looking eagerly to Saxony and Thuringia this weekend, where new state parliaments will be elected. Despite increasing heat and rainfall, despite the strong expansion of renewables and ambitious plans for climate neutrality, the climate crisis has hardly been an issue in the election campaign. Or if it has, then only as an opportunity to criticize the German government. It is easy to forget how important the federal states are for the energy transition and climate action. The 16 federal states cannot implement a successful climate policy on their own – but they can cause all plans to fail if they put the brakes on and block them.
And this danger exists if you take the predictions for the election results and the statements of the main parties in these countries seriously. That’s why we’re starting today’s Climate.Table with a loose series on a topic that is often ignored: What does the climate balance of the individual federal states actually look like? We will start with a general classification and a climate check for Saxony. Thuringia and Brandenburg will follow, then the other states.
Of course, we are not navel-gazing Germany, but are once again looking beyond our regional issues: We are reporting on the European Central Bank’s climate plans, the melting of the Antarctic and the fires in the Amazon forest. But we also take a very close look at what is happening in Germany during these crucial days. Or rather, what is not happening.
We will stay tuned. I wish you an informative read!
Your Bernhard Pötter
Feature
Climate check of the federal states: This is how big their influence is
A wind farm near Leipzig, Saxony: The federal states must make two percent of their land area available for wind power.
16 important players in German climate policy are hardly noticed in the public debate – the federal states. Yet German climate policy does not only take place in Berlin or Brussels – but above all in the 16 federal states and almost 11,000 municipalities. Ahead of the state elections in Saxony, Thuringia and Brandenburg, Table.Briefings is therefore launching a series of climate checks on the federal states.
States must implement and can veto
Important climate policy decisions are made in state capitals and town halls across the country. Although they cannot guarantee Germany’s climate neutrality by 2045 on their own, they can make it fail in case of doubt. Theyoften implement federal laws – and how they approve wind farms, drive forward the heating transition or build power lines, for example, influences climate policy as a whole. A state government with AfD participation, for example, could put the brakes on and block many of these areas, as the CSU in Bavaria has done with the expansion of wind and grids. Without the federal states, a successful climate policy is not possible in a federal system such as the Federal Republic of Germany.
The climate balance of the federal states varies greatly, and the data situation is not always easy. This is because the economic structure and climate policy commitment vary greatly depending on history and political majorities: Heavy industry and the energy infrastructure it requires have shaped North Rhine-Westphalia, for example, just as lignite centers dominate Brandenburg and Saxony. An overview of the emission balances of the federal states shows where the most greenhouse gases have been saved in the past:
Despite all regional differences, there are some clear trends concerning the federal states:
The collapse and liquidation of the GDR‘s extremely carbon-heavy industry after reunificationled to a massive drop in emissions. For a long time, Germany’s role as a “pioneer in climate policy” also benefited from the fact that 1990, the year of German reunification, was the starting point for many calculations at international level.
In the city-states of Berlin, Hamburg and Bremen, the picture is partially distorted. This is because the data is normally calculated where it is generated: A single new coal-fired power plant (Moorburg), for example, could very quickly drive up Hamburg’s CO2 emissions. At the same time, the city-states import their energy from the surrounding area without importing the associated emissions – or they export their emissions, for example at BER airport, which is used a lot by Berlin but its emissions are attributed to Brandenburg.
Electricity exports and imports across state borders can also distort the balance: A coal-fired power plant across the border supplies electricity, but not the CO2 emissions for the state balance.
“Wind states” have a favorable climate balance: Schleswig-Holstein, for example, generates twice as much green electricity as it uses itself, meaning that it is already “climate neutral” or “climate positive” in the electricity balance.
There are major differences in emissions, but also in greenhouse gases, between industrial centers in the west and south of Germany, “transit countries” for transport and more agricultural regions in the north and northeast: emissions from animal husbandry or from dry moors sometimes have a greater impact on the climate there than CO2 from energy and transport.
Actors: EU, federal government, federal states, municipalities
The demarcation between federal, state and local authorities in climate action is not always easy. A large part of German climate policy is now the implementation of EU directives, for example:
Emissions Trading I and II
Directives on renewables, energy efficiency and effort sharing
“Green Deal” and industrial policy
EU grid planning for electricity, gas, hydrogen
UN negotiations and international agreements
The German federal government regulates other areas independently, for example:
Sectoral climate targets via the Climate Protection Act
Emissions Trading II with price corridor until 2027
Subsidies for climate-friendly and climate-damaging activities
Design of the electricity market, such as capacity markets
Promotion of renewables via the EEG or the Building Energy Act
Grid expansion via the Federal Network Agency
Legal frameworks for transportation, construction or agriculture.
States: Wind areas, heat transition, public transport, financing of municipalities
The states influence climate policy less spectacularly, but also in important areas:
They implement federal laws more or less ambitiously, for example with regard to immission control or the area target of two percent for wind power.
Around half of the electricity grid expansion is the responsibility of the federal states, if no national borders are crossed.
The federal states provide their municipalities with more or less funding, for example for public transport or for the implementation of the heating transition.
In spatial and traffic planning, they interact with the municipalities, for example in construction planning that reduces traffic.
They partially regulate the management and drainage of forest and moorland areas.
They set targets for local authorities when it comes to adapting to climate change.
No lawsuits possible against climate policy of federal states
The countries also differ in their political treatment of the issue. More than 100 German municipalities and cities have now declared a “climate emergency“, but the consequences of this have varied greatly. Almost all federal states have now set themselves the federal target of climate neutrality by 2045, while some, such as Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg and Lower Saxony, want to achieve the target even earlier – it is not always clear how this is to be achieved. The states have also made very different progress in expanding renewables, depending on wind and solar potential and political attitudes.
In contrast, only some of the federal states have their own climate action laws. Others regulate the issue via their own climate strategies, which can be amended by government resolution. However, the federal states are not obliged to pass their own climate laws, as lawsuits brought before the Federal Constitutional Court in 2022 have shown. The highest German court, which a year earlier had obliged the federal government to do more to protect the freedom of future generations, saw no constitutional obligation for the federal states to establish their own CO2 budget and ways to meet the 2° target in climate action.
Climate policy
Federal Government
Wärmewende
Saxony’s climate check: No plan for climate neutrality
Saxony removes its largest CO2 polluter from the plans to reduce CO2 emissions and refers to the plan to phase out coal.
The Free State of Saxony is a long way from a path that can bring the state close to its officially agreed goal of climate neutrality by 2045. Despite major reductions in emissions during the transition period, the state’s energy and climate plan shows that greenhouse gases have remained virtually unchanged for more than 20 years – partly because the generation of electricity from lignite continues to dominate the state’s energy and climate policy. The climate issue is not a priority for the dominant CDU and AfD parties. Wolfram Günther, the (Green) Minister of the Environment, who is still in charge, is calling for a “rethinking” to achieve the climate targets.
Standstill in CO2 reduction for 20 years
Overall, the CO2 reduction in Saxony since 1990 has been remarkable: According to the government’s official “progress report“, climate-damaging emissions fell by 55% between 1990 and 2021 – significantly more than the national average, where the reduction is around 40%. However, per capita emissions from the energy sector (data from 2020) of around ten tons per year are significantly higher than the German average of around seven tons. And for over 20 years, the country’s CO2 emissions have remained virtually unchanged rather than falling.
In terms of electricity, half of the installed capacity now consists of renewable systems, and Saxony has the best per capita number of balcony solar power plants in Germany. Nevertheless, at around 22% (2021 data), the share of renewable electricity in Saxony’s electricity consumption was well below the national average of around 41% at the time – in 2023, the national average was almost 60%. And only 15 percent of the electricity produced in Saxony comes from renewables.
Renewables have a clear acceptance problem in Saxony. This is because the AfD party, which denies man-made climate change, repeatedly makes wind and solar energy the target of criticism and ridicule during the election campaign and elsewhere. Minister Kretschmer, who has drawn a particularly sharp distinction between himself and his coalition partner the Greens ahead of the election, repeats at every opportunity that the “energy transition has failed“. He says that we need to think about nuclear power again – even if this is not the decision of the Free State of Saxony, but a matter for the federal government.
Solar sector booming, wind sector weakening, measures unfocused
Minister for the Environment Günther told Table.Briefings: “We have turned Saxony around in this legislature, from a coal state to a state of renewable energies.” Climate action is “visibly a government issue for the first time“. Photovoltaics are booming, output has doubled and “more than a quarter of a billion euros” has been mobilized for the energy transition and climate protection. According to the government, more than 80 percent of the almost 200 measures in the “Energy and Climate Plan” have been implemented or are in the process of being implemented – although only just under eight percent of these will result in direct CO2 savings.
According to Günther, “we have not yet reached our goal” when it comes to the controversial expansion of wind power. As has long been the case in Bavaria, the rule that wind turbines must be at least 1,000 meters away from settlements of at least three houses also applies in Saxony. According to a study by the energy industry, Saxony is far behind the national average of 0.9 percent, with only 0.2 percent of the state’s area designated for legally effective wind areas.
In the report to the state parliament in July 2024, which appeared in time for the hot phase of the election campaign but was only published on the environment department’s website and without much communication, the environment minister warned that the path to greenhouse neutrality must be pursued “much more intensively and much faster”. However, it is unclear who could drive this task forward in a possible new government without Green participation. This is because the climate action requirements are not a law to which parliament must contribute. They are set out in the “Energy and Climate Plan” (EKP), which the next government can change at will.
The biggest problem is being ignored: Lignite
Saxony is following the federal government’s guidelines on many climate issues: The Free State does nothave its own roadmap for achieving climate neutrality by 2045, but refers to the plans in the Federal Climate Protection Act – albeit with some important restrictions:
In its plans, Saxony only refers to the periodup to 2030 – not up to 2045, as the federal government does.
Like the federal government, Saxony has no coherent plan for sustainably reducing the persistently excessive emissions from traffic.
Saxony explicitly excludes its biggest CO2 polluter, the energy industry, from the plans to reduce CO2 emissions and refers to the plan to phase out coal.
There is a reason for this: around 60 percent of emissions in the state come from “large combustion plants”, 15 percent from transport and 13 percent from decentralized heating systems. The two lignite-fired power plants Boxberg and Lippendorf accounted for around half of emissions in 2018 – and according to the nationwide “coal compromise” from 2020, they will continue to run for a long time to come: Two units in Boxberg will be taken off the grid by 2030, while two others will remain active until 2038. Lippendorf is scheduled to close in 2035.
Saxony has also repeatedly resisted plans to phase out extremely climate-damaging lignite earlier than 2038. However, it is hardly in the power of the government in Dresden to decide whether this will happen. In case of doubt, such a decision will be made by the operating company LEAG if CO2 certificates become so expensive that the operation is no longer profitable – or by the federal government if it were to negotiate and finance an early phase-out.
Renewables, renovations and EVs
Climate policy in Saxony is “small-scale, without an overall project“, criticizes Felix Ekardt, Chairman of BUND Saxony and Professor of Public Law, who, among other things, prepared the successful climate lawsuit before the Federal Constitutional Court in 2021. The state only has limited influence on energy policy, for example, but could do a lot better: designate more areas for renewables more quickly, rewet moors, use construction planning for short distances in cities. “And Minister President Kretschmer could stop putting the brakes on the energy transition and constantly declaring that it has failed”, says Ekardt. A lawsuit against the state’s policy has been futile since the Federal Constitutional Court rejected this approach in a ruling in 2022.
A study commissioned by the Green parliamentary group in the state parliament from the Munich-based Forschungsstelle für Energiewirtschaft (FfE) shows just how urgent it would be to tighten the course in order to put Saxony on the path to climate neutrality. It has listed the necessary changes in the state. According to the study, between 2022 and 2030, Saxony would have to
increase solar capacity by around 290 percent and wind capacity by 160 percent,
increase the number of EVs from 8,000 to 81,000,
increase the capacity for hydrogen electrolyzers from zero to 320 MW,
replace around 2,000 fossil fuel heating systems with CO2-free systems every month,
renovate 11,000 residential buildings (the size of Plauen) every year, and
build twice as many large-scale battery storage systems as before.
The Free State of Saxony is also feeling the effects of climate change and is investing in adaptation. After all, forests in Saxony (unlike the national average) still play their part in CO2 storage. However, its capacity is low at just under two million tons per year and is declining, warns the government. Temperatures have risen significantly and heavy rainfall is becoming more frequent and more intense.
Atomkraft
CO2-Speicher
Renewable energies
How climate change and global instability are challenging European monetary policy
Europe is currently experiencing what supply shocks can do to the European economy. In 2022, first energy prices and then food prices skyrocketed. When prices did not normalize quickly enough, the ECB was forced to raise interest rates and thus reduce demand. It feared that it would otherwise lose its credibility.
Inflation has since normalized again, but at the price of weak economic development and increased pressure on the budgets of EU member states. Given the geopolitical tensions, further supply shocks cannot be ruled out.
A new era of fighting inflation
“We had 30 to 40 years of economic stability thanks to the opening up of trade, the integration of China into the value chains and the generally calm geopolitical climate”, says Jens van ‘t Klooster about the period that came to an end in 2022 at the latest. During this phase, price policy was increasingly neglected due to a lack of necessity, says the Assistant Professor of Political Economy at the University of Amsterdam. States have simplified their toolbox more and more, so that today the onlylever against inflationisthecentral bank’s key interest rate.
With these limited options, the central banks have now entered a period in which more supply shocks are threatening again – not only from wars, but also from climate change. A study by the International Monetary Fund estimates that climate change will increase inflation by 0.1 to 0.4 percentage points. Researchers from the ECB and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research are more pessimistic: in their study, they calculate an additional inflation of 0.3 to 1.2 percentage points per year – at least partly due to the effect of climate change on food prices.
Threat of repeated supply shocks
David Barmes, Policy Fellow at the Grantham Research Institute for Climate and Environment at the London School of Economics, fears that the figures from these studies underestimatethe risk. “It’s very difficult to project these figures because it depends on so many variables”, he tells Table.Briefings.
Barmes’ nightmare scenario: ever newsupply shocks in which the ECB is forced to repeatedly raise interest rates, pushing the economy into depression and at the same time making investments in climate protection and climate adaptation more difficult.
Achim Wambach, Professor of Economics at the University of Mannheim and President of the Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW), also sees this danger. “That’s why there is a strong case for stepping up the fight against climate change”, he tells Table.Briefings.
ECB must maintain credibility
But he warns: “Measures to combat climate change can also drive up inflation.” For example, the “sudden” expansion of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, which is planned for 2027, will lead to a sharp rise in energy prices, which could also trigger an inflation shock.
Wambach holds governments to account. They “need to become aware again that their actions have an impact on inflation”, says the ZEW President.
As far as the role of the central bank in climate protection is concerned, Wambach remains cautious. “The ECB must clearly focus on its price stability mandate. There is a high risk that it will otherwise lose its credibility”, he says. If price increases threaten to drive up inflation expectations, the ECB must use the interest rate hammer, even if the reason is a supply shock.
Interest rate hikes disadvantage the expansion of renewables
Jens van ‘t Klooster, on the other hand, believes that interest rate hikes are a bad instrument in the current context. Instead of promoting supply, they depress demand and primarily affect investment rather than consumer spending. And because renewable energies tend to require higher initial investment, the expansion of renewable energies is hit disproportionately hard.
The Dutch economist points out that ECB interest rate hikes have always been linked to higher oil prices. This is hardly surprising, as energy costs have the strongest influence on inflation in Europe of all price components. “From a price stability perspective, moving away from fossil fuels is a no-brainer”, says van ‘t Klooster.
He proposes that the ECB should spare climate protection measures from interest rate hikes. This is nothing new. “Sector-specific exemptions from interest rate hikes have a long history”, says the economist, referring to the Bundesbank, which spared export loans from interest rate hikes until 1996 – foreign trade was too important for the German economy.
Sectoral approach to price stability
However, in addition to the ECB, van ‘t Klooster also believes that governments and European institutions have a duty to act. In a study commissioned by the European Parliament, he and German economics professor Isabella Weber have outlined how a European pricing policy could work. A sectoral approach is important, focusing on those products and sectors where a supply shock has the greatest effect on overall inflation. Weber had identified the energy, housing, wholesale and food sectors in a separate study.
Each sector would then have to specifically analyze how resilience to supply shocks could be improved. Depending on this, subsidies to expand production capacities, price controls, larger compulsory stocks or other measures could be used.
However, the prerequisite for all these measures is a better data situation. Weber and van ‘t Klooster are therefore calling on the EU Commission and the ECB to collect more detailed data that will allow a better insight into the inflation-relevant value chains. Only with precise knowledge of the specific conditions in each sector could the right measures be identified.
Resistance from member states
Similar calls for better data and more technical expertise within European and national administrations are also coming from economic security experts. The EU has already taken the first steps in this direction with the Chips Act in the semiconductor industry, for example, as well as across sectors in the Internal Market Emergency and Resilience Act (IMERA).
In the latter case, the powers that the EU Commission would have liked to have been given to collect data, command production and create compulsory stocks were severely limited by the member states. The system proposed by Weber and van ‘t Klooster is therefore likely to meet with considerable resistance.
Central Bank
Climate change
Economic policy
Energy Prices
ETS
European policy
EZB
Food
Industrial policy
Inflation
Klimaanpassung
Klimawandel
Monetary policy
News
Solar energy: Why Meyer Burger is staying in Saxony-Anhalt
The solar group Meyer Burger has shelved its plans to build a solar cell production facility in the USA and thus the planned relocation of its core business overseas. The planned project in Colorado Springs is currently not financially viable and has therefore been stopped, the Swiss company announced on Monday. The company will concentrate on operating the module production facility in Goodyear, Arizona, with a capacity of 1.4 gigawatts, which is currently being ramped up. The impending closure of the production facility in Bitterfeld-Wolfen in Saxony-Anhalt is therefore off thetable. “This is the good news for the bad news”, said Managing Director Gunter Erfurt.
Meyer Burger had already closed what it claimed was its largest solar module production facility in Freiberg, Saxony, in the spring. At the time, the company blamed this on pressure from cheap Chinese imports to Europe. The industry had previously appealed unsuccessfully to the German government to support European manufacturers. The production of solar cells in Bitterfeld-Wolfen was also up for discussion. Most recently, it had been said that production there would be needed until 2025.
Increased costs prevent move to USA
Erfurt said that the plan had been to shut down the plant as soon as production in the USA ramped up. This will not happen after all. The background to the financing problems for cell production in the USA are, among other things, cost increases for materials needed to rebuild a factory.
The plant in Saxony-Anhalt with its 350 employees should therefore continue to be the “backbone” of Meyer Burger’s solar cell supply in the future and supply the company’s module production in the US state of Arizona. This is currently the most economical option, the Swiss company announced. Module production in Arizona has a capacity of 1.4 gigawatts. This could be supplied entirely from Bitterfeld-Wolfen.
New regulations in the USA have made itmore lucrative to import solar cells for module production, explained Erfurt. The logistics costs for cells are also comparatively low. In addition, there are significantly more restrictions and tariffs in the USA compared to imports from Asia. “The general price level in the USA is therefore comparatively healthy compared to Europe. That’s why it works.” dpa/rtr
China
Duties
Industrial policy
Renewable energies
Solar
Antarctica: Glaciers less endangered than expected
The Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica is not on the verge of collapsedue to the melting of the protective ice shelf. The glaciers in the region could be more stable than previously thought. These are the findings of a study published last week in the journal Science Advances. The researchers’ models predict no further significant retreat of the glaciers by the end of the 21st century.
A team from Dartmouth College in New Hampshire has investigated the Marine Ice Cliff Instability (MICI) hypothesis in more detail. According to this hypothesis, the melting of ice shelves could cause exposed ice cliffs to collapse without the support of the ice shelf, triggering a chain reaction of collapsing ice. This would cause the sea level to rise sharply in a relatively short period of time. This hypothesis was previously feared, which is why the Thwaites was nicknamed the Doomsday Glacier, but has never been observed in reality.
Using the Thwaites Glacier as an example, the researchers have now simulated in detail what would happen if the ice shelf melted. Contrary to expectations, the ice cliffs behind it would remain relatively stable – even in negative scenarios with very high CO2 emissions. The complete melting of Thwaite alone could lead to a sea level rise of 60 cm. kul
Eisschmelze
These World Heritage Sites are threatened by climate change
According to a new data analysis, climate change is increasing the risk of many UNESCO World Heritage Sites being damaged by floods, storms or extreme heat. Among the 50 most endangered sites in the Asia-Pacific region, North America and Europe are two sites in Germany, the British analysis company Climate X announced on Thursday.
The former Zollverein coal mine in Essen is in twelfth place. There is an increased risk of flooding there. The characteristic winding tower is located a few kilometers from the Ruhr and the Rhine-Herne Canal. In 22nd place, Climate X lists the old towns of Stralsund and Wismar. They are threatened by rivers bursting their banks, heavy rainfall and storms.
Tropical irrigation community in first place
According to the analysis, the top three places are occupied by
In Europe, there are several other endangered World Heritage sites in the top 50 in addition to the German ones. In fourth place, for example, are the ironworks in Engelsberg, Sweden, and in sixth place are the famous paintings in the Chauvet Cave in southern France, which are threatened by heavy rain and landslides. ber
Klimaschäden
Industry: Why China suspended approvals for new steel plants
China has suspended the approval process for new steel plants. In recent years, China has only permitted the construction of new iron and steel plants if old plants were shut down. The government hoped this would limit overcapacity in the steel sector, but this has not been successful.
China produces more steel than every other country combined. The Chinese steel sector accounts for around 4.6 percent of global carbon emissions. If it were a country, the steel sector alone would be the fifth-largest emitter in the world. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology now plans to revise the approval process. It is unclear whether climate considerations will also play a role in this.
In the first half of the year, China only approvedlow-emission steel plants. For the first time since September 2018, it has not approved any high-CO2 steel plants. Analysts see this as a sign of a turnaround in the steel sector. According to Bloomberg, the coal-based capacities that were previously approved will probably still be built and are not affected by the suspension of the approval process. Due to overcapacity and lower demand in the domestic market, China’s steel exports have recently increased, which has also prompted complaints from international competitors such as Arcelor Mittal. nib
China
Industry
New funding program: How SMEs are to be decarbonized
Minister Robert Habeck wants to support small and medium-sized companies in switching to climate-friendly production processes with a new funding program. Habeck announced on Friday that a total of €3.3 billion will be made available from the Climate and Transformation Fund (KTF) for the “Federal Support for Industry and Climate Protection” program by 2030. The program is intended to supplement the climate protection contracts, which are primarily aimed at large companies. Companies that reducetheir emissions by at least 40 percent by 2030 will receive funding. Depending on the size of the company, the funding rate is between 30 and 50 percent of the investment sum; the maximum amount per company is €200 million.
The program consists of two modules: The first, entitled “Decarbonization of Industry”, is intended to promote investments that avoid emissions – such as the conversion of processes previously powered by fossil fuels to electricity or hydrogen. The second module, entitled “Application and implementation of CCU and CCS”, promotes projects for the capture, use and storage of CO2. This is limited to processes in which emissions are unavoidable or difficult to avoid, such as in cement production or waste treatment. This means that CCS funding for SMEs will start sooner than for large-scale industry, where CCS projects will only be funded in the second round of bids for climate protection contracts, which is currently still in preparation. mkr
BMWK
CCS
CCS
Climate protection
ministry of economics
Mittelstand
Hydrogen: Uniper tests storage facility in East Frisia
The energy company Uniper will soon be commissioning an underground test storage facility for hydrogen in Krummhörn, East Frisia. Among other things, it will be used for around two years to test how materials and technology cope with the gas. The storage of hydrogen under real conditions will also be tested.
Nationalized in the wake of the energy crisis, the Uniper energy group is Germany’s largest natural gas storage operator and sees itself as a pioneer in the development of a European hydrogen economy. The test storage facility in Krummhörn is located at a depth of around 1,700 meters. The so-called cavern is around 30 meters high and has a diameter of 16 meters. The volume is 3,000 cubic meters. The cavern is conveniently located: The planned hydrogen pipeline core network is to pass nearby.
First filling starts at the end of September
The first filling of the test cavern is planned for the end of September. According to Frank Holschumacher, Technical Director of Uniper’s gas storage division, green hydrogen from various manufacturers will be used for this, which will be delivered by tanker.
If hydrogen storage proves to be economically viable after the two-year test phase, Uniper intends to enlarge the cavern for commercial use. According to Holschumacher, the so-called leaching process is expected to take three to five years. The usable quantity would then be 250 gigawatt hours of hydrogen. He expects the cost of leaching this new cavern to be between €350 million and €500 million.
Up to ten hydrogen storage facilities in Krummhörn
Uniper also owns three other caverns in the salt dome, which were used as natural gas storage facilities in the past. They are currently filled with water. If it is worthwhile, they will also be upgraded to hydrogen storage facilities. According to Uniper, six more new caverns can also be built in the salt dome. Overall, Uniper Energy Storage is planning to develop salt caverns into hydrogen storage facilities with a capacity of up to 600 gigawatt hours by 2030. Existing and new sites along the hydrogen core network in Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia are being investigated for this purpose. dpa
Grüner Wasserstoff
Klima & Umwelt
Brazil: This is how bad the forest fires currently are
Severe fires are raging in south-eastern Brazil. The government of São Paulo declared a state of emergency in 45 municipalities. According to data from the Institute for Space Research (Inpe), which is responsible for satellite monitoring, 3,175 fires were registered in the state between Aug. 1-23. According to a report by the news agency Agência Brasil, the last time there were so many fires in August was in 1998.
There are also currently particularly severe fires in the Amazon region. The Pantanal wetlands and the Cerrado savannah region are also affected. At least two people have already died in the flames.
June to October is forest fire season in Brazil. This year, the situation is also exacerbated by a severe drought. According to experts, it is linked to the El Niño weather phenomenon and climate change. In the Amazon region, the number of fires increased by 60 percent in the first half of 2024 compared to the previous year. Satellite data indicates that this is the worst forest fire season in the past 20 years. dpa/kul
Entwaldung
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Political Germany is looking eagerly to Saxony and Thuringia this weekend, where new state parliaments will be elected. Despite increasing heat and rainfall, despite the strong expansion of renewables and ambitious plans for climate neutrality, the climate crisis has hardly been an issue in the election campaign. Or if it has, then only as an opportunity to criticize the German government. It is easy to forget how important the federal states are for the energy transition and climate action. The 16 federal states cannot implement a successful climate policy on their own – but they can cause all plans to fail if they put the brakes on and block them.
And this danger exists if you take the predictions for the election results and the statements of the main parties in these countries seriously. That’s why we’re starting today’s Climate.Table with a loose series on a topic that is often ignored: What does the climate balance of the individual federal states actually look like? We will start with a general classification and a climate check for Saxony. Thuringia and Brandenburg will follow, then the other states.
Of course, we are not navel-gazing Germany, but are once again looking beyond our regional issues: We are reporting on the European Central Bank’s climate plans, the melting of the Antarctic and the fires in the Amazon forest. But we also take a very close look at what is happening in Germany during these crucial days. Or rather, what is not happening.
We will stay tuned. I wish you an informative read!
Your Bernhard Pötter
Feature
Climate check of the federal states: This is how big their influence is
A wind farm near Leipzig, Saxony: The federal states must make two percent of their land area available for wind power.
16 important players in German climate policy are hardly noticed in the public debate – the federal states. Yet German climate policy does not only take place in Berlin or Brussels – but above all in the 16 federal states and almost 11,000 municipalities. Ahead of the state elections in Saxony, Thuringia and Brandenburg, Table.Briefings is therefore launching a series of climate checks on the federal states.
States must implement and can veto
Important climate policy decisions are made in state capitals and town halls across the country. Although they cannot guarantee Germany’s climate neutrality by 2045 on their own, they can make it fail in case of doubt. Theyoften implement federal laws – and how they approve wind farms, drive forward the heating transition or build power lines, for example, influences climate policy as a whole. A state government with AfD participation, for example, could put the brakes on and block many of these areas, as the CSU in Bavaria has done with the expansion of wind and grids. Without the federal states, a successful climate policy is not possible in a federal system such as the Federal Republic of Germany.
The climate balance of the federal states varies greatly, and the data situation is not always easy. This is because the economic structure and climate policy commitment vary greatly depending on history and political majorities: Heavy industry and the energy infrastructure it requires have shaped North Rhine-Westphalia, for example, just as lignite centers dominate Brandenburg and Saxony. An overview of the emission balances of the federal states shows where the most greenhouse gases have been saved in the past:
Despite all regional differences, there are some clear trends concerning the federal states:
The collapse and liquidation of the GDR‘s extremely carbon-heavy industry after reunificationled to a massive drop in emissions. For a long time, Germany’s role as a “pioneer in climate policy” also benefited from the fact that 1990, the year of German reunification, was the starting point for many calculations at international level.
In the city-states of Berlin, Hamburg and Bremen, the picture is partially distorted. This is because the data is normally calculated where it is generated: A single new coal-fired power plant (Moorburg), for example, could very quickly drive up Hamburg’s CO2 emissions. At the same time, the city-states import their energy from the surrounding area without importing the associated emissions – or they export their emissions, for example at BER airport, which is used a lot by Berlin but its emissions are attributed to Brandenburg.
Electricity exports and imports across state borders can also distort the balance: A coal-fired power plant across the border supplies electricity, but not the CO2 emissions for the state balance.
“Wind states” have a favorable climate balance: Schleswig-Holstein, for example, generates twice as much green electricity as it uses itself, meaning that it is already “climate neutral” or “climate positive” in the electricity balance.
There are major differences in emissions, but also in greenhouse gases, between industrial centers in the west and south of Germany, “transit countries” for transport and more agricultural regions in the north and northeast: emissions from animal husbandry or from dry moors sometimes have a greater impact on the climate there than CO2 from energy and transport.
Actors: EU, federal government, federal states, municipalities
The demarcation between federal, state and local authorities in climate action is not always easy. A large part of German climate policy is now the implementation of EU directives, for example:
Emissions Trading I and II
Directives on renewables, energy efficiency and effort sharing
“Green Deal” and industrial policy
EU grid planning for electricity, gas, hydrogen
UN negotiations and international agreements
The German federal government regulates other areas independently, for example:
Sectoral climate targets via the Climate Protection Act
Emissions Trading II with price corridor until 2027
Subsidies for climate-friendly and climate-damaging activities
Design of the electricity market, such as capacity markets
Promotion of renewables via the EEG or the Building Energy Act
Grid expansion via the Federal Network Agency
Legal frameworks for transportation, construction or agriculture.
States: Wind areas, heat transition, public transport, financing of municipalities
The states influence climate policy less spectacularly, but also in important areas:
They implement federal laws more or less ambitiously, for example with regard to immission control or the area target of two percent for wind power.
Around half of the electricity grid expansion is the responsibility of the federal states, if no national borders are crossed.
The federal states provide their municipalities with more or less funding, for example for public transport or for the implementation of the heating transition.
In spatial and traffic planning, they interact with the municipalities, for example in construction planning that reduces traffic.
They partially regulate the management and drainage of forest and moorland areas.
They set targets for local authorities when it comes to adapting to climate change.
No lawsuits possible against climate policy of federal states
The countries also differ in their political treatment of the issue. More than 100 German municipalities and cities have now declared a “climate emergency“, but the consequences of this have varied greatly. Almost all federal states have now set themselves the federal target of climate neutrality by 2045, while some, such as Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg and Lower Saxony, want to achieve the target even earlier – it is not always clear how this is to be achieved. The states have also made very different progress in expanding renewables, depending on wind and solar potential and political attitudes.
In contrast, only some of the federal states have their own climate action laws. Others regulate the issue via their own climate strategies, which can be amended by government resolution. However, the federal states are not obliged to pass their own climate laws, as lawsuits brought before the Federal Constitutional Court in 2022 have shown. The highest German court, which a year earlier had obliged the federal government to do more to protect the freedom of future generations, saw no constitutional obligation for the federal states to establish their own CO2 budget and ways to meet the 2° target in climate action.
Climate policy
Federal Government
Wärmewende
Saxony’s climate check: No plan for climate neutrality
Saxony removes its largest CO2 polluter from the plans to reduce CO2 emissions and refers to the plan to phase out coal.
The Free State of Saxony is a long way from a path that can bring the state close to its officially agreed goal of climate neutrality by 2045. Despite major reductions in emissions during the transition period, the state’s energy and climate plan shows that greenhouse gases have remained virtually unchanged for more than 20 years – partly because the generation of electricity from lignite continues to dominate the state’s energy and climate policy. The climate issue is not a priority for the dominant CDU and AfD parties. Wolfram Günther, the (Green) Minister of the Environment, who is still in charge, is calling for a “rethinking” to achieve the climate targets.
Standstill in CO2 reduction for 20 years
Overall, the CO2 reduction in Saxony since 1990 has been remarkable: According to the government’s official “progress report“, climate-damaging emissions fell by 55% between 1990 and 2021 – significantly more than the national average, where the reduction is around 40%. However, per capita emissions from the energy sector (data from 2020) of around ten tons per year are significantly higher than the German average of around seven tons. And for over 20 years, the country’s CO2 emissions have remained virtually unchanged rather than falling.
In terms of electricity, half of the installed capacity now consists of renewable systems, and Saxony has the best per capita number of balcony solar power plants in Germany. Nevertheless, at around 22% (2021 data), the share of renewable electricity in Saxony’s electricity consumption was well below the national average of around 41% at the time – in 2023, the national average was almost 60%. And only 15 percent of the electricity produced in Saxony comes from renewables.
Renewables have a clear acceptance problem in Saxony. This is because the AfD party, which denies man-made climate change, repeatedly makes wind and solar energy the target of criticism and ridicule during the election campaign and elsewhere. Minister Kretschmer, who has drawn a particularly sharp distinction between himself and his coalition partner the Greens ahead of the election, repeats at every opportunity that the “energy transition has failed“. He says that we need to think about nuclear power again – even if this is not the decision of the Free State of Saxony, but a matter for the federal government.
Solar sector booming, wind sector weakening, measures unfocused
Minister for the Environment Günther told Table.Briefings: “We have turned Saxony around in this legislature, from a coal state to a state of renewable energies.” Climate action is “visibly a government issue for the first time“. Photovoltaics are booming, output has doubled and “more than a quarter of a billion euros” has been mobilized for the energy transition and climate protection. According to the government, more than 80 percent of the almost 200 measures in the “Energy and Climate Plan” have been implemented or are in the process of being implemented – although only just under eight percent of these will result in direct CO2 savings.
According to Günther, “we have not yet reached our goal” when it comes to the controversial expansion of wind power. As has long been the case in Bavaria, the rule that wind turbines must be at least 1,000 meters away from settlements of at least three houses also applies in Saxony. According to a study by the energy industry, Saxony is far behind the national average of 0.9 percent, with only 0.2 percent of the state’s area designated for legally effective wind areas.
In the report to the state parliament in July 2024, which appeared in time for the hot phase of the election campaign but was only published on the environment department’s website and without much communication, the environment minister warned that the path to greenhouse neutrality must be pursued “much more intensively and much faster”. However, it is unclear who could drive this task forward in a possible new government without Green participation. This is because the climate action requirements are not a law to which parliament must contribute. They are set out in the “Energy and Climate Plan” (EKP), which the next government can change at will.
The biggest problem is being ignored: Lignite
Saxony is following the federal government’s guidelines on many climate issues: The Free State does nothave its own roadmap for achieving climate neutrality by 2045, but refers to the plans in the Federal Climate Protection Act – albeit with some important restrictions:
In its plans, Saxony only refers to the periodup to 2030 – not up to 2045, as the federal government does.
Like the federal government, Saxony has no coherent plan for sustainably reducing the persistently excessive emissions from traffic.
Saxony explicitly excludes its biggest CO2 polluter, the energy industry, from the plans to reduce CO2 emissions and refers to the plan to phase out coal.
There is a reason for this: around 60 percent of emissions in the state come from “large combustion plants”, 15 percent from transport and 13 percent from decentralized heating systems. The two lignite-fired power plants Boxberg and Lippendorf accounted for around half of emissions in 2018 – and according to the nationwide “coal compromise” from 2020, they will continue to run for a long time to come: Two units in Boxberg will be taken off the grid by 2030, while two others will remain active until 2038. Lippendorf is scheduled to close in 2035.
Saxony has also repeatedly resisted plans to phase out extremely climate-damaging lignite earlier than 2038. However, it is hardly in the power of the government in Dresden to decide whether this will happen. In case of doubt, such a decision will be made by the operating company LEAG if CO2 certificates become so expensive that the operation is no longer profitable – or by the federal government if it were to negotiate and finance an early phase-out.
Renewables, renovations and EVs
Climate policy in Saxony is “small-scale, without an overall project“, criticizes Felix Ekardt, Chairman of BUND Saxony and Professor of Public Law, who, among other things, prepared the successful climate lawsuit before the Federal Constitutional Court in 2021. The state only has limited influence on energy policy, for example, but could do a lot better: designate more areas for renewables more quickly, rewet moors, use construction planning for short distances in cities. “And Minister President Kretschmer could stop putting the brakes on the energy transition and constantly declaring that it has failed”, says Ekardt. A lawsuit against the state’s policy has been futile since the Federal Constitutional Court rejected this approach in a ruling in 2022.
A study commissioned by the Green parliamentary group in the state parliament from the Munich-based Forschungsstelle für Energiewirtschaft (FfE) shows just how urgent it would be to tighten the course in order to put Saxony on the path to climate neutrality. It has listed the necessary changes in the state. According to the study, between 2022 and 2030, Saxony would have to
increase solar capacity by around 290 percent and wind capacity by 160 percent,
increase the number of EVs from 8,000 to 81,000,
increase the capacity for hydrogen electrolyzers from zero to 320 MW,
replace around 2,000 fossil fuel heating systems with CO2-free systems every month,
renovate 11,000 residential buildings (the size of Plauen) every year, and
build twice as many large-scale battery storage systems as before.
The Free State of Saxony is also feeling the effects of climate change and is investing in adaptation. After all, forests in Saxony (unlike the national average) still play their part in CO2 storage. However, its capacity is low at just under two million tons per year and is declining, warns the government. Temperatures have risen significantly and heavy rainfall is becoming more frequent and more intense.
Atomkraft
CO2-Speicher
Renewable energies
How climate change and global instability are challenging European monetary policy
Europe is currently experiencing what supply shocks can do to the European economy. In 2022, first energy prices and then food prices skyrocketed. When prices did not normalize quickly enough, the ECB was forced to raise interest rates and thus reduce demand. It feared that it would otherwise lose its credibility.
Inflation has since normalized again, but at the price of weak economic development and increased pressure on the budgets of EU member states. Given the geopolitical tensions, further supply shocks cannot be ruled out.
A new era of fighting inflation
“We had 30 to 40 years of economic stability thanks to the opening up of trade, the integration of China into the value chains and the generally calm geopolitical climate”, says Jens van ‘t Klooster about the period that came to an end in 2022 at the latest. During this phase, price policy was increasingly neglected due to a lack of necessity, says the Assistant Professor of Political Economy at the University of Amsterdam. States have simplified their toolbox more and more, so that today the onlylever against inflationisthecentral bank’s key interest rate.
With these limited options, the central banks have now entered a period in which more supply shocks are threatening again – not only from wars, but also from climate change. A study by the International Monetary Fund estimates that climate change will increase inflation by 0.1 to 0.4 percentage points. Researchers from the ECB and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research are more pessimistic: in their study, they calculate an additional inflation of 0.3 to 1.2 percentage points per year – at least partly due to the effect of climate change on food prices.
Threat of repeated supply shocks
David Barmes, Policy Fellow at the Grantham Research Institute for Climate and Environment at the London School of Economics, fears that the figures from these studies underestimatethe risk. “It’s very difficult to project these figures because it depends on so many variables”, he tells Table.Briefings.
Barmes’ nightmare scenario: ever newsupply shocks in which the ECB is forced to repeatedly raise interest rates, pushing the economy into depression and at the same time making investments in climate protection and climate adaptation more difficult.
Achim Wambach, Professor of Economics at the University of Mannheim and President of the Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW), also sees this danger. “That’s why there is a strong case for stepping up the fight against climate change”, he tells Table.Briefings.
ECB must maintain credibility
But he warns: “Measures to combat climate change can also drive up inflation.” For example, the “sudden” expansion of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, which is planned for 2027, will lead to a sharp rise in energy prices, which could also trigger an inflation shock.
Wambach holds governments to account. They “need to become aware again that their actions have an impact on inflation”, says the ZEW President.
As far as the role of the central bank in climate protection is concerned, Wambach remains cautious. “The ECB must clearly focus on its price stability mandate. There is a high risk that it will otherwise lose its credibility”, he says. If price increases threaten to drive up inflation expectations, the ECB must use the interest rate hammer, even if the reason is a supply shock.
Interest rate hikes disadvantage the expansion of renewables
Jens van ‘t Klooster, on the other hand, believes that interest rate hikes are a bad instrument in the current context. Instead of promoting supply, they depress demand and primarily affect investment rather than consumer spending. And because renewable energies tend to require higher initial investment, the expansion of renewable energies is hit disproportionately hard.
The Dutch economist points out that ECB interest rate hikes have always been linked to higher oil prices. This is hardly surprising, as energy costs have the strongest influence on inflation in Europe of all price components. “From a price stability perspective, moving away from fossil fuels is a no-brainer”, says van ‘t Klooster.
He proposes that the ECB should spare climate protection measures from interest rate hikes. This is nothing new. “Sector-specific exemptions from interest rate hikes have a long history”, says the economist, referring to the Bundesbank, which spared export loans from interest rate hikes until 1996 – foreign trade was too important for the German economy.
Sectoral approach to price stability
However, in addition to the ECB, van ‘t Klooster also believes that governments and European institutions have a duty to act. In a study commissioned by the European Parliament, he and German economics professor Isabella Weber have outlined how a European pricing policy could work. A sectoral approach is important, focusing on those products and sectors where a supply shock has the greatest effect on overall inflation. Weber had identified the energy, housing, wholesale and food sectors in a separate study.
Each sector would then have to specifically analyze how resilience to supply shocks could be improved. Depending on this, subsidies to expand production capacities, price controls, larger compulsory stocks or other measures could be used.
However, the prerequisite for all these measures is a better data situation. Weber and van ‘t Klooster are therefore calling on the EU Commission and the ECB to collect more detailed data that will allow a better insight into the inflation-relevant value chains. Only with precise knowledge of the specific conditions in each sector could the right measures be identified.
Resistance from member states
Similar calls for better data and more technical expertise within European and national administrations are also coming from economic security experts. The EU has already taken the first steps in this direction with the Chips Act in the semiconductor industry, for example, as well as across sectors in the Internal Market Emergency and Resilience Act (IMERA).
In the latter case, the powers that the EU Commission would have liked to have been given to collect data, command production and create compulsory stocks were severely limited by the member states. The system proposed by Weber and van ‘t Klooster is therefore likely to meet with considerable resistance.
Central Bank
Climate change
Economic policy
Energy Prices
ETS
European policy
EZB
Food
Industrial policy
Inflation
Klimaanpassung
Klimawandel
Monetary policy
News
Solar energy: Why Meyer Burger is staying in Saxony-Anhalt
The solar group Meyer Burger has shelved its plans to build a solar cell production facility in the USA and thus the planned relocation of its core business overseas. The planned project in Colorado Springs is currently not financially viable and has therefore been stopped, the Swiss company announced on Monday. The company will concentrate on operating the module production facility in Goodyear, Arizona, with a capacity of 1.4 gigawatts, which is currently being ramped up. The impending closure of the production facility in Bitterfeld-Wolfen in Saxony-Anhalt is therefore off thetable. “This is the good news for the bad news”, said Managing Director Gunter Erfurt.
Meyer Burger had already closed what it claimed was its largest solar module production facility in Freiberg, Saxony, in the spring. At the time, the company blamed this on pressure from cheap Chinese imports to Europe. The industry had previously appealed unsuccessfully to the German government to support European manufacturers. The production of solar cells in Bitterfeld-Wolfen was also up for discussion. Most recently, it had been said that production there would be needed until 2025.
Increased costs prevent move to USA
Erfurt said that the plan had been to shut down the plant as soon as production in the USA ramped up. This will not happen after all. The background to the financing problems for cell production in the USA are, among other things, cost increases for materials needed to rebuild a factory.
The plant in Saxony-Anhalt with its 350 employees should therefore continue to be the “backbone” of Meyer Burger’s solar cell supply in the future and supply the company’s module production in the US state of Arizona. This is currently the most economical option, the Swiss company announced. Module production in Arizona has a capacity of 1.4 gigawatts. This could be supplied entirely from Bitterfeld-Wolfen.
New regulations in the USA have made itmore lucrative to import solar cells for module production, explained Erfurt. The logistics costs for cells are also comparatively low. In addition, there are significantly more restrictions and tariffs in the USA compared to imports from Asia. “The general price level in the USA is therefore comparatively healthy compared to Europe. That’s why it works.” dpa/rtr
China
Duties
Industrial policy
Renewable energies
Solar
Antarctica: Glaciers less endangered than expected
The Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica is not on the verge of collapsedue to the melting of the protective ice shelf. The glaciers in the region could be more stable than previously thought. These are the findings of a study published last week in the journal Science Advances. The researchers’ models predict no further significant retreat of the glaciers by the end of the 21st century.
A team from Dartmouth College in New Hampshire has investigated the Marine Ice Cliff Instability (MICI) hypothesis in more detail. According to this hypothesis, the melting of ice shelves could cause exposed ice cliffs to collapse without the support of the ice shelf, triggering a chain reaction of collapsing ice. This would cause the sea level to rise sharply in a relatively short period of time. This hypothesis was previously feared, which is why the Thwaites was nicknamed the Doomsday Glacier, but has never been observed in reality.
Using the Thwaites Glacier as an example, the researchers have now simulated in detail what would happen if the ice shelf melted. Contrary to expectations, the ice cliffs behind it would remain relatively stable – even in negative scenarios with very high CO2 emissions. The complete melting of Thwaite alone could lead to a sea level rise of 60 cm. kul
Eisschmelze
These World Heritage Sites are threatened by climate change
According to a new data analysis, climate change is increasing the risk of many UNESCO World Heritage Sites being damaged by floods, storms or extreme heat. Among the 50 most endangered sites in the Asia-Pacific region, North America and Europe are two sites in Germany, the British analysis company Climate X announced on Thursday.
The former Zollverein coal mine in Essen is in twelfth place. There is an increased risk of flooding there. The characteristic winding tower is located a few kilometers from the Ruhr and the Rhine-Herne Canal. In 22nd place, Climate X lists the old towns of Stralsund and Wismar. They are threatened by rivers bursting their banks, heavy rainfall and storms.
Tropical irrigation community in first place
According to the analysis, the top three places are occupied by
In Europe, there are several other endangered World Heritage sites in the top 50 in addition to the German ones. In fourth place, for example, are the ironworks in Engelsberg, Sweden, and in sixth place are the famous paintings in the Chauvet Cave in southern France, which are threatened by heavy rain and landslides. ber
Klimaschäden
Industry: Why China suspended approvals for new steel plants
China has suspended the approval process for new steel plants. In recent years, China has only permitted the construction of new iron and steel plants if old plants were shut down. The government hoped this would limit overcapacity in the steel sector, but this has not been successful.
China produces more steel than every other country combined. The Chinese steel sector accounts for around 4.6 percent of global carbon emissions. If it were a country, the steel sector alone would be the fifth-largest emitter in the world. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology now plans to revise the approval process. It is unclear whether climate considerations will also play a role in this.
In the first half of the year, China only approvedlow-emission steel plants. For the first time since September 2018, it has not approved any high-CO2 steel plants. Analysts see this as a sign of a turnaround in the steel sector. According to Bloomberg, the coal-based capacities that were previously approved will probably still be built and are not affected by the suspension of the approval process. Due to overcapacity and lower demand in the domestic market, China’s steel exports have recently increased, which has also prompted complaints from international competitors such as Arcelor Mittal. nib
China
Industry
New funding program: How SMEs are to be decarbonized
Minister Robert Habeck wants to support small and medium-sized companies in switching to climate-friendly production processes with a new funding program. Habeck announced on Friday that a total of €3.3 billion will be made available from the Climate and Transformation Fund (KTF) for the “Federal Support for Industry and Climate Protection” program by 2030. The program is intended to supplement the climate protection contracts, which are primarily aimed at large companies. Companies that reducetheir emissions by at least 40 percent by 2030 will receive funding. Depending on the size of the company, the funding rate is between 30 and 50 percent of the investment sum; the maximum amount per company is €200 million.
The program consists of two modules: The first, entitled “Decarbonization of Industry”, is intended to promote investments that avoid emissions – such as the conversion of processes previously powered by fossil fuels to electricity or hydrogen. The second module, entitled “Application and implementation of CCU and CCS”, promotes projects for the capture, use and storage of CO2. This is limited to processes in which emissions are unavoidable or difficult to avoid, such as in cement production or waste treatment. This means that CCS funding for SMEs will start sooner than for large-scale industry, where CCS projects will only be funded in the second round of bids for climate protection contracts, which is currently still in preparation. mkr
BMWK
CCS
CCS
Climate protection
ministry of economics
Mittelstand
Hydrogen: Uniper tests storage facility in East Frisia
The energy company Uniper will soon be commissioning an underground test storage facility for hydrogen in Krummhörn, East Frisia. Among other things, it will be used for around two years to test how materials and technology cope with the gas. The storage of hydrogen under real conditions will also be tested.
Nationalized in the wake of the energy crisis, the Uniper energy group is Germany’s largest natural gas storage operator and sees itself as a pioneer in the development of a European hydrogen economy. The test storage facility in Krummhörn is located at a depth of around 1,700 meters. The so-called cavern is around 30 meters high and has a diameter of 16 meters. The volume is 3,000 cubic meters. The cavern is conveniently located: The planned hydrogen pipeline core network is to pass nearby.
First filling starts at the end of September
The first filling of the test cavern is planned for the end of September. According to Frank Holschumacher, Technical Director of Uniper’s gas storage division, green hydrogen from various manufacturers will be used for this, which will be delivered by tanker.
If hydrogen storage proves to be economically viable after the two-year test phase, Uniper intends to enlarge the cavern for commercial use. According to Holschumacher, the so-called leaching process is expected to take three to five years. The usable quantity would then be 250 gigawatt hours of hydrogen. He expects the cost of leaching this new cavern to be between €350 million and €500 million.
Up to ten hydrogen storage facilities in Krummhörn
Uniper also owns three other caverns in the salt dome, which were used as natural gas storage facilities in the past. They are currently filled with water. If it is worthwhile, they will also be upgraded to hydrogen storage facilities. According to Uniper, six more new caverns can also be built in the salt dome. Overall, Uniper Energy Storage is planning to develop salt caverns into hydrogen storage facilities with a capacity of up to 600 gigawatt hours by 2030. Existing and new sites along the hydrogen core network in Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia are being investigated for this purpose. dpa
Grüner Wasserstoff
Klima & Umwelt
Brazil: This is how bad the forest fires currently are
Severe fires are raging in south-eastern Brazil. The government of São Paulo declared a state of emergency in 45 municipalities. According to data from the Institute for Space Research (Inpe), which is responsible for satellite monitoring, 3,175 fires were registered in the state between Aug. 1-23. According to a report by the news agency Agência Brasil, the last time there were so many fires in August was in 1998.
There are also currently particularly severe fires in the Amazon region. The Pantanal wetlands and the Cerrado savannah region are also affected. At least two people have already died in the flames.
June to October is forest fire season in Brazil. This year, the situation is also exacerbated by a severe drought. According to experts, it is linked to the El Niño weather phenomenon and climate change. In the Amazon region, the number of fires increased by 60 percent in the first half of 2024 compared to the previous year. Satellite data indicates that this is the worst forest fire season in the past 20 years. dpa/kul
Entwaldung
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