Reducing emissions in primary industry
Office of Technology Assessment at the German Bundestag
2024
Wuppertal Institut
The industrial sector is the second largest emitter of greenhouse gases after the energy sector. Most of these emissions can be attributed to primary industry: primarily, steel production, cement production and basic chemicals. The Office of Technology Assessment at the German Bundestag commissioned Prognos with compiling an expert report on the opportunities for the successful transformation of the industry. The Wuppertal Institute was also involved in the project as a subcontractor.
The aim of the project was to record the current technologies in these industries and their applications as well as the savings potential for low carbon production. In addition, policy options for the promotion of a sustainable transformation for primary industry were also to be identified.
The new low-emission technologies and processes that make a climate-neutral primary industry possible are either already available or will be in the near future. However, it is integrating them into the industry that poses the greatest challenge. This begs the question as to how the transformation of the production of steel, cement and high value chemicals can be achieved in Germany and what the prerequisites are.
The core results of the study are as follows:
Prognos’ contribution comprised:
The Wuppertal Institute’s work comprised:
For this purpose, current studies and interviews with experts from primary industry, plant engineering as well as industry associations were analysed.
Prognos used quantitative and model-based analysis on the socio-economical impacts of the transformation to expand on these results.
The report (PDF in German)
Project team: Dr Almut Kirchner, Paurnima Kulkarni, Jan Limbers, Sebastian Lübbers, Dr Fabian Muralter, Dr Alexander Piégsa
Latest update: 06.06.2024
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