Former Setting Senator Fritz Vahrenholt: “We’re threatened by a dramatic lack of prosperity”
From the GWPF
Date: 12/14/20
Hamburger Abendblatt
Fritz Vahrenholt was a pioneer of the German environmental movement, senator for the environment and wind manager. Today he questions Germany’s expensive climate policy.
Fritz Vahrenholt
Hamburg. Fritz Vahrenholt shaped the environmental debate in Germany like no other: his book “Seveso ist lebende” (1976) denounced the conditions in the chemical industry, his atlas “Die Lage der Nation” (1983) evaluated the country’s environmental policy.
In 1984 he joined the Hamburg environmental authority as a regional councilor and was Senator for the Environment from 1991 to 1997. The social democrat and SPD politician then switched to the business world and from 2001 built up the wind energy manufacturer Repower. From 2008 to 2012 Vahrenholt was managing director of the newly founded RWE Innogy GmbH.
In recent years, the doctor of chemistry has become one of the sharpest critics of German climate protection policy. Since he was fired from the Wildlife Foundation for his views, he has made the subject his “main activity,” he says. In his new book Unwanted Truths (Unwanted truths) and on his blog, the 71-year-old deals with climate development and the consequences of climate policy.
Hamburger Abendblatt: Do you actually like to argue, Mr. Vahrenholt?
Fritz Vahrenholt No, not really. What makes you think that way?
HA: In your new book “Unwanted Truths” you take on all of climate science …
FV: Do I have to? I am not denying the need for action or climate change itself – I just come to different conclusions about the extent or the pace. I believe that climate change is not only caused by humans, but also by natural factors. So we have more time than is often said.
HA: How did you come up with that?
FV: There is one aspect of the climate debate that I find far too short. Our reference value is always the year 1850, the beginning of the industrial age. But what hardly anyone knows is that the Little Ice Age, the coldest time in 2000 years, ended then. The average value of the last 2000 years alone is 0.4 degrees higher than 1850 – without any greenhouse effect.
HA: You represent a minority position …
FV: Maybe, but that doesn’t mean it has to be wrong. Compare that to the subject of dying forests. In the early 1980s there was agreement that the German forest would disappear due to acid rain. I suspected that too. Almost forty years later, we know that science was wrong. Science must be open to questions. However, this is no longer possible due to the intertwining of science and politics.
HA: It can now be argued that because of the terrible forecasts, political measures were taken and the forest was saved.
FV: Like many climate researchers, you can certainly believe that a little exaggeration would help. This is acceptable within limits to shake up a society. It was similar with my book “Seveso is Rich” – we have achieved a lot in the chemical industry. We must not, however, send society into disaster by taking wrong or excessive measures. Today we live in a climate of fear.
HA: Where do you think the debate has been skewed?
FV: Take the Greenland ice sheet, for example: many people believe that it will thaw in the near future. Despite the persistent temperatures, it will last for thousands of years. By the way, 8000 years ago it was about 3000 years warmer than it is today. Even then, the ice cover survived. And the Sahara was green. This is already the positive news: The earth is getting greener.
HA: This does not apply to all regions – in many places people fear drought.
FV: In the last 100 years, neither the frequency of droughts nor heavy rainfall has increased worldwide. Due to the warming and the increasing CO2 emissions, however, the global leaf area is growing every year by the size of the Federal Republic of Germany. In the last 50 years, plant biomass has increased by 30 percent. And because of the rise in CO2, the yields of wheat, rice and other fruits have increased by 15 percent, and the global food situation has improved significantly. I don’t want to trivialize CO2, it is a greenhouse gas. However, it is also undesirable to go back to pre-1850 levels.
HA: We are far from going back there. The Paris Agreement on Climate Change has set itself the goal of limiting global warming to a maximum of two degrees. Is that wrong?
FV: No. The Paris Agreement, however, has structural flaws. It has been determined that China, as a developing country, may emit 50% more CO2 in the coming years. If we halve our emissions in Germany from 0.8 billion to 0.4 billion tons, this corresponds to the annual increase in China. 245 coal-fired power plants will be connected to the grid there, and there are 1,600 coal-fired power plants worldwide, most of them with Chinese support. India is happy because 56 coal mines were opened there and now every village is supplied with electricity.
HA: That can’t be an argument for not doing anything here!
FV: Of course not, but it shows the relationship. We are making no difference with our exit, and no one will follow us if we phase out coal and nuclear power within ten years, which will mean a dramatic loss of prosperity in Germany. We cannot sustain a highly developed industrial society with wind and sun. We are threatened with de-industrialization and a loss of prosperity. We are discussing hysterically: It is said that the climate will tip over if we do not phase out diesel and gasoline engines now. What this means for hundreds of thousands of jobs is of no further interest. We must stop the sorcerer’s apprentices: fear is a bad advisor.
HA: These are also horror scenarios …
FV: No. Our transformation of the energy system shows a structural flaw: We are concentrating what three energy sources have done so far – natural gas for heating, oil for transport and electricity for industry and households – on a single energy source: electricity. The academy of engineering expects the electricity demand to double. I think it will triple. The generating capacities of wind and sun will never be sufficient for this. In addition, the problem of the dark slack remains – there are many days and weeks without sun and wind. So where does our electricity come from? From the pumped storage? There are calculations according to which we would have to fill all valleys from Norway to Austria with pumped storage lakes in order to store them. That’s absurd
HA: You underestimate the possibilities of technological progress. For example, green hydrogen could be used to store energy.
HA: Two thirds of the energy is lost in the wind-hydrogen power generation chain. That’s physics. The energy is lost in electrolysis, storage and conversion into electricity. So we would have to build more plants to make up for this loss. The electricity costs would multiply.
HA: We have just seen the efficiency gains that can be made with solar cells.
FV: That applies to solar energy when I think back to my first solar cells at Shell. In sunny locations we can produce electricity for just a few cents, but the cost decline is not as strong with wind. However, this does not solve the problem of caching, which becomes prohibitive given the amount of electricity to be stored.
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