DAAD Climate Portfolio (3/3): Putting climate knowledge to use

International scientific cooperation expands knowledge about the causes of and solutions to climate change and thus plays a central role in achieving the climate and environmental policy goals of the United Nations 2030 Agenda. The DAAD climate portfolio shows how the DAAD's funding programmes strengthen international cooperation and is active for individuals and institutions across disciplines and national borders in three fields of action: promoting the acquisition of knowledge (1), boosting climate research (2) and putting climate knowledge to use (3).
This article is the third part of a three-part series of articles and is dedicated to measures on how to put climate knowledge to use. We report on a cooperation project between the Anhalt University of Applied Sciences in Germany and the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro that involves setting up a green hydrogen centre in the Brazilian port of Pecém close to the metropolis of Fortaleza.
José Tavares Araruna, a professor of civil and environmental engineering, gets excited when talking about green hydrogen. “The potential is huge,” says Araruna, who researches and teaches at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro. “We can make business and industry cleaner and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. And we can create prosperity.”
An expert in environmental compatibility testing, Araruna – in cooperation with Anhalt University of Applied Sciences – has just conducted the project “Development of a Life Cycle Analysis of Green Hydrogen Plants”. Together with his German colleagues, he travelled to the state of Ceará in the northwest of Brazil, where a large-scale green hydrogen centre is taking shape around the port of Pecém close to the metropolis of Fortaleza. The researchers talked to the authorities and to companies in industry as well as the water sector. They gathered data to analyse the climate impacts associated with producing green hydrogen there. And they created a database, providing the Brazilian authorities with a useful tool for ensuring efficient environmental management – so that the great potential Araruna referred to can be leveraged in the most sustainable way possible.
Transferring climate knowledge to society
Until the end of 2023, the project was supported by the DAAD with funds from the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). It is part of the programme German-Brazilian Research Cooperation in the Energy Sector – NoPa 2.0 in which Germany’s GIZ (Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit) is also involved. “There are various elements we want to support within our Climate Portfolio – one being the transfer of climate knowledge to society, business and politics and its use,” explains Niels Böhm from the DAAD’s Sustainable Development team. “This project is a very good example: research-based findings – in this case databases – are made available so that the knowledge can be used not only by universities but also by a broader public.”
Brazil plans to produce green hydrogen on a grand scale in the coming years – and to export it. The idea is to boost the country’s economic development and help other countries to adopt a more climate-friendly approach. In future, Brazil intends to generate the large quantities of green electricity needed to implement these plans with offshore wind farms. The government in Brasilia recently paved the way for this. To date, the country has not taken advantage of its huge coastline for offshore wind power. “The northwest of Brazil is of particular interest for offshore wind energy, especially the state of Ceará,” says José Araruna; being from the region himself, he is in a good position to assess the conditions there. “Ceará is one of the country’s least-developed regions, but in future we will be able to generate more energy than we need – and then use it to produce hydrogen.”
A million tons of hydrogen per year
“If you want to produce green hydrogen you must take the regional specifics into account, as the entire value chain can be quite different from one place to another despite the fact that everyone uses the same technology. The local circumstances simply vary,” says Sven Ortmann from the Department of Economics at Anhalt University of Applied Sciences. He has travelled to Brazil several times for the project. “We looked into how it could be done and worked out what would function well and what wouldn’t.” One advantage that Ceará offers for example is favourable climatic conditions. “There is a very steady onshore wind there,” explains Ortmann. “I’d never experienced such a constant wind from one direction before.” Solar energy could also be used, says Ortmann. “However, there are too many clouds during the wet season, which isn’t much good. The wind, on the other hand, is stable and reliable.”
Another advantage is that a wind turbine manufacturer is already based in the region where the large-scale hydrogen centre is being built, dispensing with the logistic complications involved in shipping in the huge rotor blades. The centre, which will be situated in a special economic zone, is expected to produce a million tons of green hydrogen per year from 2030. Part of this is to be used to decarbonise local industry, while the rest will be exported. There is certainly a great deal of interest. “35 companies have already signed a memorandum of understanding to produce hydrogen, including big companies like Shell and BP,” says Araruna. “This is a very promising site for hydrogen production.”
The challenge posed by scarce water resources
There are a number of obstacles, however. Of particular concern is the shortage of water in the region. “Although green vegetation can be seen to the left and right of the road, a few metres further on the landscape is pretty desert-like, with sand dunes and so on,” is how Ortmann describes his impressions. “To produce hydrogen, you need water not only to split into hydrogen and oxygen by electrolysis, but also for cooling.” Various options were explored for the project, including desalination of seawater. Not only is this costly, however; it also poses an environmental risk if the highly saline residual fluid is channelled back into the sea. It would also be conceivable to use treated raw water, though this would require the necessary infrastructure.
“In our view the project was very successful,” says Ilona Daun, who is responsible for coordinating the programme at the DAAD. “Cooperation between the Brazilian and German partners worked well and is still continuing, which we are particularly pleased to see.”
Verena Kern (4 July 2024)