@RAKraemer‘s "Post Paris Analysis": Betting on the Future

My "Post Paris Analysis": What a Great Success! 

The governmental negotiations may not have delivered anything close to what was needed to avoid massive hunger, dislocation, state failure, migration and even conflict, but, hey, it was better than expected.

Besides, the French really nailed it with the final document adopted by 1000 mayors from around the world.  Their pledges, and the credibility of their commitments, made the government negotiations look pale in comparison.

An then there was the register of pledges. Look at the total of emission reductions pledged, which they keep revising as new commitments come in. The world had the opportunity, and used it, to send a vote of no confidence to their governmental leaders.

What gives me hope for the future are two things:

• One is the review mechanism, the "ratchet", that can only know one direction: more ambitious policies in the future, especially as existing technologies get cheaper, new ones emerge, and the urgency of global overheating and rising acidity of the oceans become ever more obvious.
• The other is the recognition by anyone with economic sense that 2015 was the Global Parity Point for renewable energies, the year when they became cheaper, for new investment, than fossil or nuclear energy. 

From now on, only fossil minds, the deluded, the corrupt, and those with intent on procuring nuclear weapons capability will invest in anything but renewable energies and storage in a smart grid.  The fast-growing renewable energy sector is even eroding the business case for operating EXISTING nuclear and fossil plants!  This economic reality will translate into ever faster transformations of the energy, transport, housing, and industrial systems.  Renewable energies will be the winners, and will take the market, take it all.

The shortcomings of the governmental negotiations in Paris no longer matter.  Retrograde politicians and climate diplomats, in the pocket of the incumbent industries, can only slow that process down but not stop it. 

The German Feed-in Tariff is a Revenue-Raising Instrument, not a Subsidy

The German feed-in tariff for renewable electricity is a revenue-raising instrument, not a subsidy.  As part of the Energiewende suite of policies, it stimulates the development of renewable-energy industries for solar energy, wind power, biomass and bioenergy, and geothermal energy worth over 40 billion Euros in annual turnover, employing just under 400,000.  The businesses and their employees pay taxes and social security contributions, earning the German federal government, the Länder (states) governments and municipalities billions in Euros annually in fiscal revenue.  That is the opposite of what a subsidy does.
 
The feed-in tariff, or "FiT", is financed through a levy on the electricity bills of households and small enterprises.  It is not paid out of public budgets, nor does it diminish fiscal revenue. By its nature, the feed-in tariff is thus not a subsidy.  It should be noted that large industrial users of electricity – if they are exposed to international competition – enjoy very large discounts on the levy.  These reductions, constituting de-facto exemptions, may be considered subsidies.  In its routine application of state-aid disciplines to ensure that no distortions in competition unduly disturb the functioning of the European Union‘s internal market, the European Commission found these reductions to be acceptable practice in the circumstances.

The FiT does stimulate and support the generation of renewable electricity as a commercial activity on German territory, carried out by businesses largely based or registered in Germany, with staff that for the most part lives and pays taxes in Germany. By stimulating domestic production and thus reducing the reliance of fossil fuel imports, the policy strengthens the balances of trade and payment.  The increased fiscal revenue is a logical consequence of the growth of domestic value generation.

This simple set of facts is often denied by distractors of the Energiewende, either out of ignorance or in cynical misrepresentation of the German green power shift away from nuclear and fossil energy towards safe, clean, sustainable and cheaper renewable power.  They may thus seek to present the Energiewende falsely as expensive, economically irresponsible and the outcome of an irrational "knee-jerk" policy response to the tragic nuclear catastrophe in Fukushima on 11 March 2011.  Their purpose is to send the message that only a rich country like Germany could possibly afford such a policy, as they seek to stop the Gerrman Energiewende from inspiring other nations.  It should be obvious to any neutral observer that feed-in tariffs in similar institutional settings would help those countries in the Eurozone that suffer from high deficits and debt.

Why is the planned "Contract for Difference" (CfD) designed as a financial aid for the construction and operation of the proposed new nuclear power plant at Hinkley Point in the UK considered a subsidy when appears to be similar to the German FiT?  The answer lies in the detail, which make the CfD very unlike the FiT.  The differences lie in the natures of the technologies supported, the level, duration and future evolution of the payments, their effect on business risk (and borrowing cost), in how they are embedded in the wider regulatory framework which includes far-reaching guarantees, the nature of the contracting party for the builder and operator of the proposed plant, and other aspects.  The CfD will come under renewed scrutiny in the European Court of Justice as well as the European Commission, where it is most likely to be found to be in law what it is meant to be in practice: a subsidy.

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This entry is my response to a comment to a letter to the Financial Times entitled "Reality is that new nuclear carries significant economic risk".  For your convenience, here is the version published on 4 June 2015:

Sir, Nick Butler’s Comment article “Germany’s decision on coal brings a clash of wills” (May 24) on the German Energiewende (energy turnround) seems to play on a number of dominant but misleading narratives. It is simply not the case that Germany subsidises renewables — rather, the Energiewende works with feed-in-tariffs which set incentives and give support, but no subsidies. Furthermore, domestic consumer energy prices have risen less than for other energy products, and it is just untrue to say that there have been increases in energy prices for German industry. 

It could be helpful to reflect that Germany uses 20 per cent of all European electricity, and its decision to go nuclear-free by 2020, hitting power and CO2 targets by investing in renewables and energy efficiency, grid network infrastructure, and planning for trans-boundary pumped storage hydroelectricity, with CHP gas and some coal as interim measures, may prove significant. Key to the Energiewende is the planned reduction in primary energy, a reduction in electricity consumption, and a continuing and substantive reduction in carbon emissions — including a wholesale reduction in coal. 
 
Decisions on nuclear power cannot be separated from prior energy policy choices, and Germany has demonstrated a very strong commitment to the renewable evolution. Innovative German practice includes the first implementation of a fixed price feed-in-tariff, and huge purchases of solar photo voltaics (PV), which have driven down the world price of modules. Energy futures have also devolved to the local level, with communities securing political agreements under which the Bundesländer (federal states) are enabled to set goals and locations for renewable generation. This ensures that local energy resources benefit not only the energy companies but also the local people, with profits and employment kept in the region. Germany’s non-nuclear energy policy is framed in the context of national pride and scientific-technological achievement, twinned with economic expansion.

The reality is that new nuclear carries significant economic risk. The UK plans to guarantee the French government nuclear corporation EDF an index-linked contract price of £92.50 for each megawatt-hour — twice the current market price of electricity — over a 35-year locked-in contract period. UK nuclear subsidies will be funded through levies on all consumer energy bills, and the Treasury has offered a credit guarantee to underwrite up to £10bn of debt on the project. Given the risk profile of new nuclear, the fees for guarantees being offered to EDF by the UK government are well below the commercial rates — especially in the light of current experience of quite startling nuclear construction cost and time overruns in Finland and France.

Paul Dorfman
Honorary Senior Research Associate,
Energy Institute, University College London, UK

 

R Andreas Kraemer
Founder and Director Emeritus,
Ecologic Institute, Berlin, Germany

R. Andreas Kraemer – Aquarian CV

R. Andreas Kraemer is a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) on a peninsula between the Deep Lake and the Holy Lake in the Havel river system, near the Glienicke Bridge of Cold-War fame also known as the Bridge of Spies.  He is also a Senior Fellow at the Center for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) in the Grand River basin draining into Lake Erie, one of the Laurentian Great Lakes.  In 2015, he was Visiting Scholar at the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research (CEEPR) of the MIT Institute of Technology in the Massachusetts Bay on the banks of the Charles near its mouth in Boston Harbor.

As Visiting Assistant Professor of Political Science and Adjunct Professor of German Studies, R. Andreas Kraemer teaches European integration, environmental and water management policy in the Spree Program of Duke University, located in the Eno River basin on the Eastern Seaboard of the United States.

From 1995 to 2015, he established and directed Ecologic Institute near an old shipyard on the Spree in the Elbe basin; the institute has an office also on the Zenne in the Scheldt basin.  In 2008, he initiated the foundation of the legally and financially separate, independent Ecologic Institute US sitting on high ground near the confluence of the Potomac and the Anacostia rivers in the watershed of the Chesapeake Bay on the Eastern Seaboard.  

Ecologic Institute's notable water policy & management program covers resources, services, law & economics, governance, harvesting of policy solutions & trans-national learning: ecologic.eu/water 

Andreas' school years were spent on the banks of the Leine river in the Northern German plains, near the Mittelland Canal linking all German river basins from East to West.  He also completed training in Administration and Management in Industry here.  His studies of International Trade & Environmental Technology took him to the banks of rivers Medway (England), Spree and Havel (Germany) and Seine (France), before he took up employment within sight of the Rhine.

R. Andreas Kraemer was born near the source of the Emscher river in the Rhine basin, then heavily polluted and physically modified - a symbol of the highly industrialized 'Rhenish-Westphalian District' with its coal mines and steel mills.  He was baptized with water from the Ruhr, the drinking water source for the region, and during his childhood he lived in various locations in the Emscher basin.

Andreas lives with his family near the 'Duck Pond', so called by the American Forces during their time in the area, and likes to spend his holidays on the frozen waters on the slopes around the Isère (France), in the white-water of the Middle Fork of the Salmon (Idaho), in the tranquil Brede River Valley (England) around Winchelsea (the 'wind-chilled sea') and the shores of the Seven Seas of Rye in the English Channel.

Currents in a Life on Water: R. Andreas Kraemer‘s Aquarian Biography

R. Andreas Kraemer was born near the source of the Emscher river in the Rhine basin, then heavily polluted and physically modified - a symbol of the highly industrialized 'Rhenish-Westphalian District' with its coal mines and steel mills.  He was baptized with water from the Ruhr, the drinking water source for the region, and during his childhood he lived in various locations in the Emscher basin

Andreas' school years were spent on the banks of the Leine river in the Northern German plains, near the Mittelland Canal linking all German river basins from East to West.  He also completed training in Administration and Management in Industry here.  His studies of International Trade & Environmental Technology took him to the banks of rivers Medway (England), Spree and Havel (Germany) and Seine (France), before he took up employment within sight of the Rhine.

From 1995 to 2015, he established and directed Ecologic Institute near an old shipyard on the Spree in the Elbe basin; the institute has an office also on the Zenne in the Scheldt basin.  In 2008, he initiated the foundation of the legally and financially separate, independent Ecologic Institute US sitting on high ground near the confluence of the Potomac and the Anacostia rivers in the watershed of the Chesapeake Bay on the Eastern Seaboard.  

As Visiting Assistant Professor of Political Science and Adjunct Professor of German Studies, R. Andreas Kraemer teaches European integration, environmental and water management policy in the Spree Program of Duke University, located in the Eno River basin on the Eastern Seaboard of the United States.

Ecologic Institute's notable water policy & management program covers resources, services, law & economics, governance, harvesting of policy solutions & trans-national learning: ecologic.eu/water

On Sabbatical from Ecologic Institute in 2015-2016, R. Andreas Kraemer is a Visiting Scholar at the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research (CEEPR) of the MIT Institute of Technology in the Massachusetts Bay on the banks of the Charles near its mouth in Boston Harbor, and a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) on a peninsula between the Deep Lake and the Holy Lake in the Havel river system, near the Glienicke Bridge of Cold-War fame.

Andreas lives with his family near the 'Duck Pond', so called by the American Forces during their time in the area, and likes to spend his holidays on the frozen waters on the slopes around the Isère (France), in the white-water of the Middle Fork of the Salmon (Idaho), in the tranquil Brede River Valley (England) around Winchelsea (the 'wind-chilled sea') and the shores of the Seven Seas of Rye in the English Channel.

Bemerkungen zum 2014 Global Think Tank Ranking aus deutscher Sicht

Anlässlich der Vorstellung des jährlichen Rankings am 22. Januar 2015 in Berlin

Prof. R. Andreas Kraemer
Direktor, Ecologic Institut – www.ecologic.eu
Visiting Assistant & Adjunct Professor, Duke University

"Alle Jahre wieder", so könnte man sagen, "wird mit vielen Tausend Mitwirkenden ein globales Ranking der Think Tanks erstellt, und der Sieger ist immer die Brookings Institution aus den USA, und Chatham House aus London wird Europameister".  Auch im Jahre 2014 war es wieder so – und das ist durchaus verdient. 

Das Think Tank Ranking gab es erstmals für das Jahr 2006 und nun zum 8. Mal in Folge.  Jedes Jahr gibt es Verbesserungen in der Methode, neue Kategorien, besser geographische Zuschnitte, und einen wachsenden und immer kompetenteren Expertenpool, der am Ranking mitwirkt.  Jetzt waren es über Mitarbeiter von 6681 Think Tanks und über 9000 Einzelpersonen, die nicht in Think Tanks arbeiten, zusammen insgesamt über 21.500 Personen, die zur Mitwirkung eingeladen wurden.

Das Ranking ist ein "offenes und demokratisches Verfahren"; der Verantwortliche, Prof. Dr. James McGann von der Universität von Pennsylvania, hält nichts von Bewertungen in kleinen Gremien hinter verschlossenen Türen und strebt eine weltweite Beteiligung an.  So gab es über 3500 Wissenschaftler, Journalisten, politischen Entscheider, Direktoren und Mitarbeiterinnen oder Mitarbeiter der vielen Think Tanks, Förderer und Sponsoren, die bei der Nominierung und den Abstimmungen mitgewirkt haben, und noch einmal über 1950 Experten für Regionen oder Themengebiete, welche das Ranking geprüft und seine Qualität gesichert haben.  In einer Art "Crowd-Sourcing" kontrollieren sie die Arbeitsschritte, prüfen Plausibilität und identifizieren so Fehler, die sich einschleichen können. 

Auch die (etwa 30-40) Forschungspraktikanten im Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program (TTCSP) an der Universität von Pennsylvania sind wichtig; das Ranking hat nur ein kleines Budget und ist auf die Hilfe von zahlreichen Studenten angewiesen.

Das TTCS-Programm der Universität von Pennsylvania hat Aktivitäten in knapp 100 Ländern und begleitet jetzt den Aufbau von regionalen und globalen sowie thematischen Think-Tank-Netzwerken als Schritt zu dauerhaften Partnerschaften.  Die hier geschaffenen weltweiten Verbindungen helfen nicht nur bei der Stärkung und Professionalisierung von Think Tanks sondern auch bei der Datensammlung und Einwerbung von MItwirkenden für das Ranking.

Über die Jahre gab es eine Reihe von Verfeinerung in der Methode, in den technischen, vor allem datentechnischen Grundlagen sowie in den geographischen, thematischen und sonstigen Kategorien.  Im 2014er Ranking waren dies vor allem:
•    Die Kategorie "Gesundheit" wurde aufgeteilt in "internationale" und "nationale" Gesundheitspolitik; auch eine Reaktion auf die Ebola-Krise
•    Eine Reihe von geographischen Zuweisungen wurde geklärt; Russland in letzter Entscheidung Europa zugeordnet

Weitere Schwachstellen bestehen und werden nach und nach angegangen:
•    Einige Regionen sind unterrepräsentiert (auch weil es dort weniger Think Tanks gibt)
•    Besonders USA aber Nordamerika insgesamt und Europa sind überrepräsentiert
•    Möglicher "Bias" (Verzerrungen, die trotz der breiten Teilnehmerbasis bestehen)
•    Technische Probleme und Umständlichkeit (die mit der Zeit abgebaut werden)

Deutsche Think Tanks im Rankingergebnis 2014

Bezogen auf die im Vergleich zum Vorjahr unveränderte Zahl von 194 Think Tanks liegt Deutschland auf dem 4. Platz hinter den USA, China und Grossbritannien; Indien ist um einen Platz zurückgefallen und liegt nun auf dem 5. Platz, gefolgt von Frankreich.  Dieser 4. Platz ist Ausdruck der politischen Offenheit und Meinungsvielfalt hierzulande.  Herausragend ist die Stellung der politischen Stiftungen, auch aufgrund ihrer internationalen Engagements.  Diese belegen in der entsprechenden Kategorie die Plätze 1-3, 6, 8, und 20; sie sind in vielen Kategorien gut vertreten. 

Erste Plätze werden auch belegt von
•    Max-Planck Institut in der Kategorie "Wissenschaft und Technologie"
•    Transparency International in "Transparenz und gute Regierungsführung"
•    Münchner Sicherheitskonferenz in der Kategorie "Think-Tank-Konferenz"
•    Konrad-Adenauer Stiftung und Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung in "Think-Tank-Netzwerke"

Zahlreich "im Feld gut vertreten" sind deutsche Think Tanks besonders in den Kategorien:
•    Weltweit
•    West-Europa
•    Wirtschaftspolitik
•    Umwelt
•    Think-Tank-Netzwerke
•    Innovative Ideen
•    Beste Themen-Kampagne
•    Einfluss auf Politik
•    Gewinnorientierte Think Tanks

Gar nicht vertreten sind deutsche Think Tanks in anderen Regionen der Welt sowie in den thematischen Kategorien:
•    Bildung; was eine Ländersache ist und hierzulande hauptsächlich auf Deutsch diskutiert wird, weswegen die fehlende internationale Ausstrahlung verständlich ist
•    Energie & Rohstoffe; was angesichts von Energiewende und Rohstoffsicherungsinteressen der deutschen Industrie erstaunlich ist.  Die Energiewende ist ein Quell für "Soft Power" für Deutschland in aller Welt, aber die Strahlkraft des Themas wird offenbar nicht mit Think Tanks in Verbindung gebracht
•    Gesundheit; was angesichts der rein nationalen Diskussion trotz der Bedeutung Deutschlands als Leitmarkt der Gesundheitsindustrie nachvollziehbar und dennoch bedauerlich ist

Neben den politischen Stiftungen sind weitere deutsche Think Tanks öfters gerankt:
•    Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP)
•    Deutsche Gesellschaft für Auswärtige Politik (DGAP)
•    Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE)
•    IfW Institut für Weltwirtschaft, Kiel
•    IfO Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung (auch CESifo)
•    Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung (DIW Berlin)
•    Transparency International
•    Ecologic Institut
•    Bertelsmann Stiftung
•    Zentrum für Europäische Wirtschaftsforschung (ZEW)
•    Potsdam-Institut für Klimafolgenforschung (PIK)

Bei der Betrachtung des Ranking im Ganzen entsteht der Eindruck, dass diejenigen Think Tanks im Vergleich besser abschneiden, die
•    auch oder vorwiegend in englischer Sprache publizieren, was auch den Einfluss stärkt,
•    außerhalb des eigenen Landes oder in internationalen Netzwerken präsent sind,
•    kurze Namen haben und dabei auf Sonderzeichen verzichten, und vor allem
•    konsistent eine unverwechselbare englische Namensentsprechung führen ("Branding").

Hier sind deutsche Think Tanks im Schnitt besser als andere in nicht-englisch-sprachigen Ländern, aber sie können sicher noch mehr tun.  Das Ranking gibt Ansporn dazu.

Why Germany Has No Need for North-to-South Power Lines

Melissa Eddy, writing in the New York Times on Christmas Eve 2014, fails to explain why "Germans Balk at Plan for Wind Power Lines" to bring wind power from the North to the power-hungry South: The North-to-South transmission lines are not needed; they are a waste of money, designed to increase the cost of the Energiewende and thus do discredit it, and to split the environmental community in various ways.  Here is why:

The promoters of these North-to-South "Electricity Autobahns" have you believe that Germany has good wind only offshore in the North, and faces the risk of black-out in the South, when the last nuclear power plants go cold at the end of 2022. (If they go cold; these folks also float the idea of "extending the running time of nuclear power plants beyond 2022" whenever they have a chance.) Their map shows Germany as an island. Look at a map of the European power grid and you understand what nonsense has been planted in the general public‘s and many a politician‘s mind. (On the side: One of the proposed transmission lines was designed to bring lignite power from the East into the South. It was sold as "necessary for the Energiewende" but was in fact the exact opposite.)

The capacity of the existing North-to-South transmission lines is fully sufficient in the (daily) average. More demand management and storage in the South would improve capacity utilisation. Many large industrial power users have ways to become "swing consumers" and reduce their demand when power prices are high. The innovative businesses in Germany‘s South could benefit from even lower average power prices if they put their mind to it. Increasingly inexpensive storage, built up incrementally and flexibly in the South close to demand centers, is way more economical than large-scale and indivisible, capital-intensive, medium-term investment in high-voltage transmission lines, which create strong economic and technical path-dependencies. The German auto industry, which is strong in the South, could take a lead here.

There is wind also in Germany‘s South. Instead of putting turbines into the corrosive marine environment of the North and Baltic Seas, on muddy ground in 40m of water‘s depth in large off-shore parks that need to be connected to the grid in what are in effect vulnerable choke points, the turbines could rise above the forest canopies on the high plains and ridges of Southern Germany. The project sizes and risks, costs of grid connection and system integration would be way lower than with off-shore wind power.

Germany still has a massive problem with atomic power from France, which all too often clogs up the German grid in the West and South-West, including the North-to-South lines, on its way to Switzerland and Italy. It would be way quicker and cheaper to build an underwater cable from Marseille to Rome than to expand grid capacity in Germany just so that it can accommodate that atomic power.

The solution is Tunur, a company that wants to bring 24h solar power from Tunesia via an underwater cable to Italy (near Rome) and thus into the integrated European power market. Tunur power could replace the power currently imported into Italy from the North and reverse the flow across the Alps. Tunur‘s power is already sold in the UK, so the project is fully financed; it would not cost Germany a cent, just a vote for accelerating this private project as part of the 315bn Euro investment stimulus package.

Freeing up the German grid would also help reduce stress with Eastern neighbours Poland and the Czech Republic as "loop flows" would be reduced. A direct transmission line from Germany to the UK, again as part of the 315bn package, would facilitate regional grid integration and reduce France‘s ability to way-lay Tunur‘s power on the way to its customers. (Excuse me for the simplistic description of power flows across Europe and the Mediterranean.)

As a whole, the concept of building all these (8300km of) new power lines in Germany is part of a framing of the Energiewende that focuses on supply-sided expansion of large-scale and distant-from-demand renewable energy, denigrates the potential of more distributed generation and storage in a smart grid that would also enable demand flexibility to help reduce total system cost. Tennet, the transmission grid operator in question here, operates a regulated "cost-plus-margin" business and has an interest in making expensive investments for a regulated rate of return way higher than the current cost of capital.

Melissa Eddy is normally relatively knowledgeable and scrupulous in her reporting, but a number of blatant falsehoods give away some presumably heavy-handed editorial guidance.  Just to examples to prove this point: 1) The nuclear phase-out was agreed in 2000; it didn‘t need Fukushima. 2) Germany has record low power prices for businesses, the larger the user, the lower the price. No-one in German industry worries about any "growing cost" of the Energiewende, because a) the Energiewende costs only a little more than the business-as-usual maintenance of the risky and dirty power supply system that is now being replaced, and b) industry does not pay for the policy but gets all the benefit (in the form of very cheap power in a very reliable grid).

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Related post:
European Energy Policy after the Crimean Crisis: Focus on Flexibility

Chlorchemie – The Bad Business of Halogenated Organic Substances

This post is derived from a fact sheet for ÖkoVision, an investment fund or mutual trust investing in companies that, with their policies, busi­ness model, processes, products and services, are likely to succeed in an equitable and sustainable future industrial society and market economy.

Companies are not compatible with ÖkoVision if they produce, promote, trade, distribute, use (in significant quantities), or enable or promote the manufacture, trade, or use of halogenated organic substances.

As a principle, ÖkoVision does not invest in such companies.  The criterion is very important but not absolute, and attenuating circumstances are considered in judging businesses (see below for detail).

The criterion is about organic chemical substances or compounds, in which one halogen atom or several same or different halogen atoms form direct bonds with carbon.  Of concern are mass products of the chemical industry, such as PVC or halogenated solvents, and specialized chemicals, such as pesticides or biocides.  The criterion does not apply to pharmaceutical and other substances that produce large benefits with the use of small quantities, and for which no practical substitutes exist. 

Reasoning:

In chlorine chemistry ("Chlorchemie") or more widely "halogen-organic chemistry", substances are produced or used, in which a chemical bond exists between halogen atoms – fluorine, chlorine, bromine, or iodine – and carbon atoms.  All substances with a halogen-carbon bond and/or their biochemical or physical metabolites and degradation products are highly toxic, eco-toxic, carcinogenic, teratogenic, act as greenhouse gases and aggravate climate change and/or are damaging to the Earth‘s protective ozone layer. 

While some substances can be used in small quantities in medicine, where the benefits for humans outweigh the costs and damages, most such substances are so harmful in their manufacture, use, and disposal that cost-benefit assessments should stop their production, sale and trade.  Even if some halogenated organic substances are not hazardous per se, they become so when they react or degrade, for instance when incinerated, exposed to light or natural ultraviolet rays (in the strato­sphere).  The production of halogenated organic substances is hazardous; notorious large accidents in the chemical industry, such as at Bhopal, Schweizerhalle (Sandoz), or Toulouse, involve, as a rule, this class of chemicals.  Chlorine chemistry is an obstacle to the development of a sustainable and ethical industrial society and market economy. 

Chemical Background:

Halogens, the elements "born from salt" or "forming salt", form a group in chemistry‘s periodic table: Fluorine (F – no. 9 in periodic table), chlorine (Cl – 17), bromine (Br – 35) and iodine (I – 53)[1].

Their high chemical bond energy (or electronegativity or redox potential) is the key characteristic of halogens.  Fluorine has the highest chemical bond energy of all elements[2], and bond energy declines within the group from fluorine to iodine.  Each atom is lacking one electron in its outermost shell; they strongly seek to gain one electron and complete that shell (which charges them negatively or reduces them).  This characteristic makes elemental halogens extremely reactive; they can break up many chemical compounds and form new ones with particular properties of concern.  Some of the newly formed compounds are themselves very stable, while others are not.

Chemical Policy Background:

"Chlorchemie" symbolises a chemical policy controversy, at the heart of which are the manufacture, use, recycling (or better "down-cycling") and the (highly problematical) disposal of polyvinylchloride (PVC) and other mass or bulk products of the chlorine chemical industry.  Ozone-depleting chlorinat­ed or halogenated hydrocarbons are also part of the controversy.  There are also a range of sub­stances for special purposes as industrial chemicals or, for instance, as insecticides or fungicides.

It is known since 1885/1890 how pure chlorine on the one side and on the other potassium or sodium hydroxide can be produced using electrical energy (chloralkali electrolysis), where chlorine and potas­sium viz. sodium are always produced in fixed proportion (combined production).  The objective was (and to a degree still is) the production of potassium and sodium; chlorine emerges as a dangerous by-product (or waste), which has to be chemically bonded and stabilised before it could be disposed of (in landfills).  This was done by bonding of chlorine as chloroethene or vinyl chloride (C₂H₃Cl), which was then used to synthesise long-chained polyvinylchloride (PVC [C₂H₃Cl]_n) for landfilling.  PVC is still quite unstable, and in its decay releases the aggressive and corrosive chlorine.  For this reason, PVC was further stabilised with additives such as cadmium, and through the addition of plasticisers, such as a partly endocrine phthalates, was given properties that allowed PVC to be sold as a product.

The generation of combined products and by-products is a common feature of the chemical industry.  Not all such products can be put to good use.  Often the exact composition of mixtures of such pro­ducts is not known, and the separation of mixtures would be too cumbersome and expensive.  In such cases, initially in the interest of plant safety, mixtures with unknown or uncertain composition and characteristics were "fully chlorinated" or "fully halogenated" and thus homogenised.  This method of waste treatment produces large quantities of mostly short-chained halogenated alkanes[3], the fluoro-chloro-hydrocarbons (CFC), which have known properties and could be marketed as solvents, cooling agents, or propellants for spray cans, for instance.  Fully halogenated hydrocarbons are chemically very stable, no longer reactive, and thus very durable.  However, they rise to the stratosphere where they decay under the exposure to high-energy radiation from space and then damage the Earth‘s stratospheric ozone layer that protects life from the radiation. 

Chlorine chemistry is a history of converting hazardous waste into hazardous yet marketable products. 

Another aspect drives the continuing chemical policy controversy in addition to the history and the dangerous properties of the products of the chlorine chemical industry:  The production of chlorine and other halogens as feed-stock for the halogen-organic chemical industry requires enormous quantities of electrical energy.  For this reason, chloralkali electrolysis plants and nuclear power plants are found next to one another, with the chemical industry benefitting more or less directly from the subsidies and privileges given to nuclear power plants. 

The "Dirty Dozen" and the "Nasty Nine":

Chlorine and other halogens are prominent also in the "Dirty Dozen" and "Nasty Nine" regulated (or banned) by the Stockholm Convention. These are "persistent organic pollutants" or "POPs", namely dangerous insecticides, a fungicide, industrial chemicals and pollutants from combustion plants.

What this is not about:

The chemical bonds between halogens and carbon are at the core.  Chemical bonds with other elements of the carbon group or metals are not relevant here.  Not part of the controversy and thus not in focus here are inorganic halogen bonds, mostly salts.  Sodium chloride (NaCl) is cooking salt and on everyone‘s lips, and the halogens are important for human health (fluorine for teeth, iodine for the thyroid gland, …).  Industry lobbyists like to stress that "chlorine is not dangerous", as it is part of food.  The argument is designed to distract from the dangers cause by halogen-organic compounds.

Halogens also form bonds with other elements that are similar to carbon.  An example is silicon, and silicon chloride plays a role in semiconductors and the production of solar panels.  Although such compounds can be problematic, they are not part of the chlorine chemistry controversy. 

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[1]         There is also the rare, radioactive astatine (At – 85) and the artificial or man-made and highly unstable ununseptium (Uus – 117).  These are without practical relevance here.

[2]         As a consequence, no other chemical element can break the chemical bonds formed by fluorine, and physical energy in the form of electricity must be used to form pure fluorine (F₂); producing meaningful quantities of pure halogens requires energy-intensive technical processes at industrial scale.

[3]         Alkanes are chains of carbon atoms, which in their basic form are surrounded only by hydrogen (hydro­carbons); methane (CH₄) and ethane (C₂H₆) are most relevant here.