Abstract
This paper intends to propose options for climate neutrality concepts by taking non-German international experiences and decisions made into account. Asia-Pacific and Arabic countries do have already same lessons learned by large-scale projects with regard to economic evaluations. Quite a few conceptual studies to generate the climate neutrality of the chemical–pharmaceutical industry in Germany have been published recently. Most of the studies differ even in magnitude but do not refer to or evaluate the other ones. These are all first theoretical feasibility studies. Experimental piloting is not far developed; only few and only stand-alone parts are operated, with no overall concepts. Economic evaluation is missing nearly completely. Economic analysis shows a factor 3 more expensive green technologies. Even if a large optimization potential of about 30% during manufacturing optimization is assumed as significant, cost increases would result. To make green products nevertheless competitive, the approach is to increase the carbon-source cost analogue, e.g., by CO2/ton taxes by around EUR 100, which would lead to about factor 3 higher consumer prices regarding the material amount. Furthermore, some countries would not participate in such increases and would have benefits on the world market. Whether any customs-duties policy could balance that is generally under question. Such increasing costs are not imaginable for any social-political system. Therefore, the only chance to realize consequent climate neutrality is to speed up research on more efficient and economic technologies, including, e.g., reaction intensification technologies such as plasma ionization, catalyst optimization, section coupling to cement, steel and waste combustion branches as well as pinch technology integration and appropriate scheduling. In addition, digital twins and process analytical technologies for consequent process automation would help to decrease costs. All those technologies seem to lead to even less personnel, but who need to be highly educated to deal with complex integrated systems. Research and education/training has to be designed for those scenarios. Germany as a resource-poor country could benefit from its human resources. Germany is and will be an energy importing country.
Highlights
The target to achieve climate neutrality at least before 2050 is, for the chemical–pharmaceutical industry, quite a challenge as it is one of the highest CO2 generating industry by a chemical reaction thermodynamics definition [1,2]
COGs vs. GWP process-related product comparisons have proven to be of aid for valid decisions [3]
It has to be acknowledged that the Germany chemical–pharmaceutical industry has moving targets worldwide by competing with state-ruled and financed or subsidies industrial systems such as the US-market (US first) and China’s (MIC 2025), among others
Summary
The target to achieve climate neutrality at least before 2050 is, for the chemical–. pharmaceutical industry, quite a challenge as it is one of the highest CO2 (and equivalents) generating industry by a chemical reaction thermodynamics definition [1,2]. The chemical–pharmaceutical industry is, in Germany, the third largest branch after automotive and mechanical engineering, which leads to a massive contribution on employment, tax and well-being in society [7]. The German chemical–pharmaceutical industry is the third-largest worldwide in that specification [8]. Germany contributes in total only to about less than 2% to worldwide-GWP CO2 equivalents while being the 3rd largest economy worldwide [9]. Pharmaceutical industry)-branch associations [10] have demonstrated and explained the substantial contribution of the German chemical–pharmaceutical industry the last decades in doubling productivity while cutting GWP by half at the same time spans [11]. The question is how to generate for the total concept of a climate neutral world enough green power and how to close the main component recycles
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