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EPP group vows to revise combustion engine ban ‘as soon as possible’ (www.euractiv.com)

submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 9 months ago (1 children)

The EPP could rebrand as the automotive party at this point.

I know it's off-topic, but if you want to know how Hungary got where it is, look no further than the EPP and how much car manufacturers (and others) are nearshoring to Hungary. No worker's rights, no Euro so that pay can be inflated even more. Funnily enough, Hungary is actually importing immigrants en masse, despite fighting the "migrant crisis" being Fidesz's main policy point.

Most of the EU's biggest woes can be traced back to the EPP's neoliberal agenda.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

Aww damn it. I was considering gritting my teeth and voting for the EPP because I want to keep v.d.Leyen, but I can't vote for this. I'm not a conservative but I like VDL and iirc she will only stay president if her party is the biggest.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago (1 children)

What's so good about VDL? As a German, I think she's terrible.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

They probably didn't hear about her scandals in Germany...

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Von der Leyen is a classic example of a politician that failed upwards. There is nothing she did that others couldn't have done better.

[+] [email protected] -25 points 9 months ago (3 children)

It was to be expected. Not only there is a lot of lobbying from the car manufacturer, but the reality is that the electric grid isn't ready yet for a "full electric transition" and unless we start massive investment in Nuclear/Renewable (Not just one nuclear power plant, every so and on and some parking with solar panels, we need to deal with old power plants closing, and replacing all the fossil fuel used in automotive it's a huge program) we can't switch to electric

[–] [email protected] 13 points 9 months ago

Not with that attitude 😎

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

and unless we start massive investment in ~~Nuclear~~/Renewable (Not just one ~~nuclear~~ power plant, every so and on and some parking with solar panels, we need to deal with old power plants closing, and replacing all the fossil fuel used in automotive it’s a huge program) we can’t switch to electrics

Ftfy

[+] [email protected] -7 points 9 months ago (2 children)

While renewable sources are awesome, they are still not as reliable as the other solutions. You still need a baseline to keep your grid up at night, when the wind wanes or during droughts (depending on your renewable source of choice). Nuclear is the next best thing. Low CO2, safe and cheap in the long run. If everyone in the EU was as commited to nuclear as countries like France, Finland and Belgium are we could get reliably cheap power everywhere, which would be an amazing asset for our future industrial growth!

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago (1 children)

The wind always blows somewhere. Diversification of locations across a country or ideally across Europe minimizes reliability issues. The rest can be covered by investment in storage technologies.

Meanwhile constructing nuclear plants would be a 30+ year approach (not even solution) to a <10 year problem, if it could even be done. And that's highly doubtful, if you look at the massive problems e.g. France has with maintaining it's aging plants, Britain has with the Hinkley Point C project (built by french experts that should have the necessary routine - this is not a matter of lack of experience) and so on.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 9 months ago (3 children)

30+ year approach? Where is that coming from? The median construction time for a nuclear reactor is 89 months, or 7,5 years. And it's not like we are only going to need it now either, our civilization is going to need reliable power sources for the foreseeable future, so why settle with alternatives that can only barely cover our needs now and need to be replaced with fossil fuels when not available, when a much cleaner option (that being nuclear) remains a possibility?

The wind always blows somewhere. Diversification of locations across a country or ideally across Europe minimizes reliability issues.

That somewhere will also need power, though. Not to mention, building interconnections across nations is an arduous task that requires time and financing on its own. According to the European Commission the current objective is reaching a 15% interconnection capacity by 2030 (meaning every member state should be able to export up to 15% of its capacity). And only 16 of 27 countries are on track with that objective. Sure, going forward with this will be great and very much necessary, but we cannot rely solely on interconnections, even when thinking 10 years from now.

Let's take last night as an example: here are the electricity map data for Germany. At midnight, despite having an enormous renewable capacity installed, the wind was evidently pretty low and of course solar was of little use, so they still had to fire up their coal, gas and biomass generators.

As this was going on, neighbouring Austria and Netherlands were doing great, with respectively 85% and 71% of their grids being powered by renewables, but unfortunately this wasn't nearly enough for power hungry Germany.
In the meantime, France, despite only using 24% of renewables in its mix, managed to get the 4th lowest carbon intensity on our continent and the 7th worldwide, with a carbon intensity over 10 times better than that of Germany.

The rest can be covered by investment in storage technologies.

Some day, sure. But we need reliable and clean energy now, not in the distant future. So the first step is improving our grids today, then when the technology allows it we can phase out nuclear too, and move to a fully renewable grid. But that simply cannot happen right now.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago

Some day, sure. But we need reliable and clean energy now, not in the distant future.

Exactly! That is why renewable energy (+storage) is the only solution a they are both significantly quicker to build up and significantly cheaper than nuclear already and getting ever more competitive, while the running costs for nuclear have been at the same relatively high level for ages.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

You can see right on the screenshot 57% renewables with wind being the biggest source of electricity. That means by adding 75% more renewables Germany would be able to support itself. The reason Germany sucks so badly at this is that it uses coal instead of gas. Gas power plants have a third of the emissions of a coal power plant per kWh. In terms of share of low carbon electricity Germany is doing alright and is building a lot recently. Since Germany has coal power plants instead of gas ones for the most part, it also means Germany is replacing those coal power plants. So this should go down quickly.

Also battery storage is growing extremly quickly in Germany and the rest of the plan is hydrogen in gas power plants for dunkelflaute. However at current rate Germany should have an electricity system as clean as France within a decade. The built up numbers for renewables are strong enough for that and we are talking about nearly 60% renewable electricity production last year already.

France has had a huge nuclear crisis in the last couple years with a rather long times half of the power plants being down due to technical issues. The UK is currently having 6 out of 9 npps down.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

Yes, the German "Energiewende" is actually well thought through. The only fuckup was the reliance on russian gas, that put a damper on it.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 9 months ago

Nuclear is the only solution for sustainable energy production. Unless we somehow revolutionize power storage, there is no other renewable means for mass-scale energy production with as little environment impact as Nuclear.

Solar at that scale would take up millions of acres only to be beaten by a rainy day. Wind turbines are notoriously unreliable, often don't last for very long, and can't be fully recycled. Not to mention they're ugly.

All the rest depend on your countries natural resources, and often force countries out of energy independence.

Nuclear is quick to develop (see parent comment source), safer than any other form of energy production, produces the least pollutants (see previous link), and takes up the smallest land area.

It's pretty obvious that Nuclear is the future.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Nuclear is much more expensive than renewables, and it's so stable and reliable that France has been importing a significant amount of power from Germany in the past two years because they couldn't properly cool their nuclear reactors.

Not to mention how most new nuclear projects go significantly above budget and take much longer to finish than originally planned.

[+] [email protected] -26 points 9 months ago (5 children)

I am really conflicted about this. On one hand I get that green policies are instrumental in stopping climate change before it's too late. On the other I know some people who work in the automotive industry and they all agree that we shot ourselves in the foot with this regulation. We ended up being the only committed ~~nation~~ block (whatever) while anyone else (namely China, India and the USA) kept doing little or nothing, token contributions if any, but few long run plans like we did.

Surely there is lots of lobbying from the car industry behind this EPP decision, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was also the genuine intention of many voters. Our industry is already falling behind, being the only ones concerned with green policies isn't helpful at all, it just allows everyone else to outcompete us.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 9 months ago

the others aren't doing anything to stop climate change, so we don't have to either

That is how they argue in kindergarten

[–] [email protected] 14 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

We ended up being the only committed nation block (whatever) while anyone else (namely China, India and the USA) kept doing little or nothing, token contributions if any, but few long run plans like we did.

If the EU played it that way on every issue, it would be a much shittier place to live.

A great example is the worker protections many of us enjoy here. We could be more competitive with shittier countries on that front and drive down worker benefits and quality of life, but who wants to live like the working class in China or even a lot of the US? It's god awful. Doing all your policy based on the desires of industry is a recipe for dystopia.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I am really conflicted about this. On one hand I get that green policies are instrumental in stopping climate change before it’s too late. On the other I know some people who work in the automotive industry and they all agree that we shot ourselves in the foot with this regulation. We ended up being the only committed nation block (whatever) while anyone else (namely China, India and the USA) kept doing little or nothing, token contributions if any, but few long run plans like we did.

Someone needs to lead the way. How is being more virtuous shooting ourselves in the foot, exactly?

[–] [email protected] -1 points 9 months ago (3 children)

How is being more virtuous shooting ourselves in the foot, exactly?

Let me clarify. It's great on an environmental standpoint, it's quite terrible on an industrial and commercial one. If we are the only ones imposing climate regulation, businesses and industries will move abroad where it's cheaper to operate. I'm not saying scrapping the green deal laws is a good thing, but I am saying that I can see the logic behind it. And it's not because of the evil capitalism either, it's a desperate attempt for European industry to stay relevant on the global stage.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago

Scrapping the green deal is the worst case scenario. Because it's a very weak attempt to start with. It's too littke, too late as is.

Business as usual will cost many times as much.

Forget the economy. There's more at stake than the f*ing automotive industry!

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago

If we are the only ones imposing climate regulation, businesses and industries will move abroad where it's cheaper to operate

What are you even talking about exactly. EU regulations for what cars are allowed will be exactly the same whether the cars are manufactured in the EU or elsewhere. And carmakers already have different factories in different regions of the world to serve each market.

Honestly, without some strict rules for European and US car manufacturers to get their shit together, they're only going to fall ever further behind China, which has the biggest EV manufacturer already. Fossil fuel burning combustion engines don't have any future anyway, because fossil fuels are finite, the climate crisis is accelerating ever further and EV are getting more and more competitive (they're already cheaper in the long run for mid and higher class cars). Carmakers aren't being done any favours by allowing them to drag their feet and become ever more obsolete.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

You are completely ignoring, that the automotive industries could have seen the writing on the wall and switch to engineering electric vehicles years ago. They didn't because they were complacent and now they are in trouble, because Tesla and the Chinese are leading the market. It's the industries mindset of "if we fuck up, the government is gonna bail us out, because it needs our economic power", that lead us into this problem.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago

So you are only ready to do the only right thing as soon as all the others are on board? How about doing the right thing regardless?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago

It prohibits sales of fossil fuel cars in the EU to final customers. Companies can still design them and sell them abroad. There is nothing illegal about that. What this does do is bring EU auto makers into a position, where they have to invest into green technologies. The important thing is that it is the right thing to do and we know how. So if we do not do it, other countries will and by being the leaders, we will have the best technology or at least have a good shot at it.

Obviously a lot of suppliers are going to have problems with it. When you built combustion engines, you have a hard time transitioning. However we also have demographic labour shortages, which means that it is a good step for us.