Transport Minister Winfried Hermann (Greens) puts pressure on the development of so-called synthetic fuels. “Now it is important that Germany and the EU enter into the necessary international energy partnerships with windy and sunny countries and that they are supported in building the necessary infrastructure,” wrote Hermann in a guest article for the Badische Latest News and the Badisches Tagblatt (Saturday). “The EU must create the legal framework to boost the market for hydrogen and electricity-based fuels.”
Investments in the hundreds of billions
The market for hydrogen and its derivatives is still in its infancy. “It will take another five to ten years before synthetic fuels can be produced in industrial quantities,” Hermann made clear. Until then, investments in the three-digit billion range are necessary. “In the transitional period, it will therefore be about admixtures with fossil fuels.”
With a billion-dollar program in the fight against inflation, the USA offers the best conditions for building a climate-friendly hydrogen and refuels economy. “If the EU does not quickly set clear and simple rules for investments, international investment capital will overtake Europe,” said Hermann. Plant manufacturers and suppliers from Baden-Württemberg would lose a real opportunity. Fuels that are produced on the basis of renewable energies are referred to as reFuels.
Recommended Editorial Content
With your consent, an external survey (Opinary GmbH) will be loaded here.
Always load polls
Climate-neutral fuels
In a letter to Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck (Greens), Hermann urges support for synthetic fuels, as the “Stuttgarter Nachrichten” (Monday) writes. It is about setting the regulatory framework for the production of climate-neutral fuels “urgently and promptly”. Hermann therefore proposes, among other things, a tax incentive.
The CDU and the Greens are now in agreement on the subject and are marching in the same direction, announced the economic policy spokesman for the CDU parliamentary group, Winfried Mack, on Sunday. That is good for climate protection. “Now it is important to work together to overcome the resistance and ideological reservations in the federal government and partly also in Brussels against a consistent expansion of hydrogen and synthetic fuels.”
If that doesn’t succeed, the climate protection goals of Paris will be a long way off and the economy will lose competitiveness compared to the USA, Mack emphasized. In particular, Baden-Württemberg must be quickly and comprehensively connected to international hydrogen pipelines, Mack demanded.
save emissions
FDP faction leader Hans-Ulrich Rülke welcomed Hermann’s initiative. But this must also apply to the passenger car sector, he said: “Without synthetic fuels in the passenger car sector, no climate protection!”
In his guest article for both newspapers, the minister warned that synthetic fuels are not a panacea. “You must not tempt people to leave everything as it is and put off climate protection in transport.” Compared to 2019, the country must save around 13 million tons of CO₂ by 2030 in the transport sector alone. “That corresponds to more than five times the emissions that the city of Karlsruhe emitted in 2017,” Hermann made clear with a comparison.
(tw)
