Prof. Dr. Dr. hc Lothar Abicht: The fifth industrial revolution

A

distinguishing factor of the second industrial revolution

around 1900 (Industry 2.0) was the start of mass production based

on electrification.

If you ask about the next phase of the industrial revolution (Industry 5.0), the use of artificial intelligence or cyberphysical systems and the Internet of Things (IoT) are often mentioned. However, two facts still receive too little attention. On the one hand, the revolutionary potential of digitalisation comes up against serious limits. These concern, for example, insufficient effects in increasing labour productivity, the lack of new genuine disruptions exception: quantum computers) in recent years, or the approach to physical limits of semiconductor technologies. It seems as if the fourth industrial revolution is losing momentum and entering the „toils of the plain“. Digitalisation is increasingly developing in an evolutionary manner. Digital technologies are becoming available everywhere, just as electricity has been since the second industrial revolution. Life without digital technologies is unthinkable; their collapse would paralyse the entire industrial society. What is missing, however, are real new revolutionary leaps in technology. According to current knowledge, even the use of artificial intelligence or quantum computers would not fundamentally change this. The second often underestimated fact is a shift in the focus of action for the economy and society as a whole in response to the extreme threat of climate change. This is caused by human activities since the beginning of the 1st Industrial Revolution. Climate-damaging gases, especially CO2, have led to a significant increase in global temperatures by more than one degree in the historically short period of 200 years.

If emissions are not massively curbed, the rise in temperature will continue and lead to negative consequences that can hardly be overestimated. Phenomena that can already be observed, such as rising sea levels, storms, hot spells, droughts and heavy rainfall, could lead to parts of the planet becoming uninhabitable in the 22nd century. Against the background of an increase in the earth‘s population to about 10 billion people, this is a frightening idea. What is needed is a rapid and radical reduction in the emission of climate-damaging gases. This can be limited in various ways. The most important ways are a complete change in our way of life and a complete restructuring of our technological basis. At the core of the restructuring of the technological basis is the absolute reduction of emissions of climate-damaging gases to the point of negative emissions (removal of CO2 from the atmosphere and storage in the earth). This is only possible through a radical transformation of the entire technological base, from energy production to transport, chemical production, construction, the building of machinery and equipment and the heating of buildings. This transformation is the essence of the fifth technological revolution and in many cases requires overcoming technological paradigms that have evolved over centuries. The fifth industrial revolution is taking place preferably in the world of atoms and not in the world of bits and bytes! Unlike the industrial revolutions that preceded it, the focus is not on a single technological change such as mechanisation, electrification or digitalisation. Rather, the concern is to change all technologies to meet a common goal – decarbonisation. Technologies that use fossil energy sources or raw materials and blow the carbon stored in oil, natural gas or coal into the atmosphere as CO2 after combustion must be replaced by alternatives. This concerns all sectors of the economy.

In Germany, the release of climate-damaging gases, measured in carbon dioxide equivalents, is distributed as follows. About 8.5 percent are released by agriculture, 19.8 by transport, 16.3 by buildings, 24.1 by industry and 29.9 percent by the energy sector. To achieve climate neutrality, all emissions are to be driven to zero by 2050 with the exception of agriculture, for which a residual amount of 37 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents is indicated. How far-reaching the change should be becomes clear at the latest when looking at the implementation in various sectors of the economy. Naturally, the energy industry is particularly affected. Here, extensive substitution processes are inevitable. It starts with the sources of primary energy, the carbon- containing materials coal, natural gas and petroleum. It continues with the carriers of the so-called final energy, petrol, diesel or gas, which are used for heating, transport or industrial processes. The primary energy carriers coal, crude oil and natural gas must be replaced by renewable energies (wind, sun, hydropower). Drives, heat generation or chemical processes can then no longer rely on gas, diesel or petrol. Electricity will take their place. Its share of final energy will rise from the current 20 percent to about 80 percent in Germany by 2050. Of course, this will be green electricity that is generated in a climate-neutral way. The restructuring of the energy industry will therefore not only have consequences for the generation of primary energy from renewable sources. The grids for distributing the massively increasing amounts of electrical energy will also be significantly different from those of today. Their transmission capacity will increase drastically. They will become intelligent and enable an optimal interaction of strongly fluctuating energy production and increasing energy consumption.

However, electricity alone is not suitable as an energy source for all processes. As conventional final energy sources are discontinued in the future, so-called green hydrogen will be used to supplement electricity. Its production with the help of green electricity will certainly not only take place in Germany. Above all, sun-rich countries in the southern hemisphere will establish themselves as producers. Green hydrogen will also play a central role in the chemical industry or in steel production in the future, where it will replace coke, natural gas or crude oil not only as an energy source but also as a basic chemical material. Steel production alone, in which iron oxide is reduced in the ore with coal, today generates seven percent of global CO2 emissions. The chemical industry faces the challenge of completely reorienting essential parts of its basic material production with green hydrogen and green electricity. The energy- intensive production of building materials must also rethink. A particularly extreme example is the production of cement, which accounts for eight percent of all emissions worldwide. Here, it is not only energy consumption that releases CO2. During the processing of the basic material calcium carbonate (CaCO3), CO2 bound in the rock is released.

The same applies to transport, where green electricity and green hydrogen take the place of traditional fuels. This applies equally to road and rail transport. In the area of air traffic and for the old stock of motor vehicles with combustion engines, synthetic fuels will be used in a transitional period, which are also mainly produced with green electricity. Their disadvantage is their low efficiency. For example, an e-car with a battery travels at least five times as far with the same amount of electricity as a combustion car with electricity-based fuel.

Even if the topic of energy dominates at first glance, all these changes require massive new developments in the technologies used. Electric motors, batteries or fuel cells are taking the place of combustion engines. Steel production with green hydrogen takes place in so-called direct reduction plants, which differ fundamentally from classic blast furnaces and steel converters. Chemical plants are fundamentally changing their face. We are entering the fifth industrial revolution. It not only enables us to effectively combat climate change, but also lays the foundations for the infrastructure of the future. And for countries like Germany with a strong industrial base, there are economic opportunities at home and especially in exports, where German industry could build on the successes of the 1970s as a supplier of cutting-edge technologies.

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