Bilfinger Berger Magazine 2/2008

THE POTSDAM INSTITUTE IS PART OF AN INTERNATIONAL NETWORK THAT IS ANALYZING ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE.

His pen dashes across the board. Marian Leimbach, 47, then takes a step back and examines his work with a critical eye:The board is littered with dozens of mathematical formulae. He is trying to integrate flows of money into a computer model which attempts to map development in the global climate and the market for energy.“My question is how the reciprocal relationship with the capital market is affected when new technologies are introduced,” says Leimbach. “It’s just a matter of simple equations, but in such quantity that they can’t be figured out manually.” Leimbach, an economist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), wants to see a new global revolution: a world without CO₂ from energy and industrial production.

PUTTING A STOP TO RISING TEMPERATURES
Climate change is a reality. Since 1900 temperatures on our little blue planet have risen 0.8 degrees centigrade. The question now is how to prevent a “hot age.” The EU has called for the temperature rise to be halted at two degrees. How this target is to be achieved is a question that the 200 researchers at the PIK are attempting to answer.Their voices carry weight in the fight against global warming. The PIK is represented on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change which, together with former US Vice President Al Gore, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last year.

THE COMPUTER COMPUTES FOR A WEEK
The institute ceiling arches high above visitors’ heads, heavy wooden doors open off the broad corridors and three domes adorn the roof. The building was formerly used as an observatory. But there is no sign of laboratories. “We don’t carry out measurements ourselves,” Leimbach explains,“ we collate data from all over the world.”Data that feeds the sophisticated models devised by the researchers. Their calculations include dozens of parameters: A new coal-fired power station costs less to build than a nuclear one, but its CO₂ emissions impact the climate. Prices for solar cells and wind turbines will fall; offshore wind farms are being put into operation. In addition to climate data, the computer gobbles figures and estimates of population development and economic growth up to the year 2100 for each of eleven regions of the world. Sometimes it takes a week for the high-powered machine in the basement to finish its calculations.
The models point to carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology as an important way out of the climate catastrophe. The idea behind this new technology that has yet to reach maturity is to trap CO₂ emissions before they escape the power stations and force them deep underground into porous rock. “With CCS, coal could account for up to 40 percent of the global energy mix,” Leimbach continues. “Because it’s cheap, and with CCS it could also be clean. Nuclear power is at best a transitional solution, playing only a secondary role with a maximum 20 percent of the global energy mix. ”As the PIK sees it, the best option is biomass coupled with CCS: The plants lock in CO₂ from the air using photosynthesis, which benefits the atmosphere. And if the CO₂ is not then released upon combustion but pumped below ground, the process becomes environmentally friendly.

SCIENTISTS IN SNEAKERS
“Russia has huge biomass potential,” explains 35-yearold Brigitte Knopf. Twelve scientists watch attentively as physicist Knopf projects charts from her laptop. Most of her audience wear sneakers, their average age is just over 30. Soberly they discuss the upheavals affecting the global economy: “If CO₂ emissions become more expensive, biomass exports may well be more lucrative for Russia than selling oil and gas,” says Knopf. Just what consequences a biomass boom may have for the world’s agricultural and forestry sector remains an open question.
A regional PIK model investigates the effects of climate change on the heavily wooded German state of Brandenburg. In the next 50 years the summers in this region will see substantially less rain, even if the temperature rises by no more than a moderate 1.4 degrees Celsius. The extensive pine forests will suffer in the dry weather. They are also prone to quick-spreading fires. The state government is responding to the scientists’ warnings by encouraging the planting of mixed woodlands rather than exclusively pine. A plan to widen the Elbe River was dropped for fear of impending low water levels. And a number of drainage channels between areas of arable land will disappear to reduce the outflow of water.

CO₂ NEUTRALITY IS POSSIBLE
One of the alarming results arrived at with the aid of the PIK researchers is the discovery of so-called “switch points” in the earth’s climatic system. There are nine regions at risk of abrupt climatic shifts, with drastic consequences for the rest of the world. The Arctic sea ice and the Greenland ice cap are among the most sensitive regions. As the ice floating in the sea around the North Pole melts, the dark surface of the water that is exposed absorbs an increasing proportion of the sun’s radiation and the warming effect is intensified. The critical point could easily be passed if the earth’s atmosphere warms by between 0.5 and two degrees centigrade. If the Greenland ice were lost, sea levels could rise by up to seven meters, with devastating effects on coastal populations. To avoid this scenario, CO₂ neutrality must be achieved throughout the world by the year 2100, says Prof. Dr. Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, Director of the Potsdam Institute: “We can’t afford to make any more mistakes when it comes to climate protection; to hesitate would be irresponsible.” CO₂ neutrality still sounds like a utopian ideal, but the researchers at PIK are convinced that it is an achievable goal, one that could even be reached with comparatively low costs. Only one percent of global economic output would have to be invested by 2100, particularly for innovations in modern energy technology: CCS and renewable energies are key.“We still have a chance to avoid truly disastrous climatic change. But the challenges that lie ahead are so great that scientists and politicians will have to work hand in hand to meet them. A forward-looking environmental policy and economic progress are not mutually exclusive concepts. Such a policy could significantly improve the innovative strength of a country,” says Schellnhuber.

Text: Mathias Rittgerott, Illustration: Skizzomat
Bilfinger Berger Magazine 2/2008