Coal power and e-mobility: short circuit in the "green" car plug

Environmental policy has miscalculated with its CO2 targets and the one-sided promotion of electromobility: As long as e-cars run on coal, no improvement in the climate can be expected. And there is still no sign of sufficient "green electricity" for Stromer.

European and German climate policy have acted. According to the EU target, traffic should become climate neutral. By 2030, CO2 emissions must fall by 38 percent to 59 grams / kilometer compared to 2005, otherwise the automobile manufacturers face high fines. The consequences for the German auto industry are grave because these limit values ​​can no longer be achieved by conventional combustion engines – even the most economical diesel. The specifications have sealed the end of the fossil internal combustion engine as a single drive.

It is worthy of criticism that German environmental policy – with the spearhead of the Ministry of the Environment (BMU) and Deutsche Umwelthilfe (DHU) – has practically ideologically committed itself to lowering CO2 emissions exclusively on battery electric cars as the main pillar of environmental and transport policy. Cars with internal combustion engines, above all diesel – on which the German auto industry and the national economy have lived well for decades – are to be deliberately displaced. As early as 2010, the federal government announced in the National Platform for Electric Mobility (NPE) the goal of getting one million battery-electric automobiles (BEV) on German roads by 2020.

What a miscalculation. Because this calculation was made without the customers, even public authorities refused to buy electric vehicles. Instead of the targeted one million battery electric cars, there were actually only 136,617 on January 1, 2010 (0.3 percent of the total number of cars). If you add plug-in hybrids – which is absolutely legally permissible – 238,792 units (0.5 percent of the number of cars).

The question is: What makes the most sense for the environment and the economy as a whole in terms of environmental policy: battery electromobility, plug-in hybrids or optimized fossil fuel-burning cars? Or system change towards hydrogen and synthetic fuels?

The dispute in science on these questions raged long and violently. In the meantime, it has become clear that the one-sided focus of German environmental policy on the battery electric car under the German framework results in exactly the opposite of what one actually wants: namely a sustainable reduction in CO2 emissions in road traffic.

Coal electricity leverages climate benefits

The environmental policy of the BMU, combined with the DUH, drives out the fossil CO2 devil through the even more fossil Beelzebub. The "green car socket" or the "green electric car" cannot exist in Germany for decades under the specific energy policy conditions. The fleet of modern combustion engines, as only the German auto industry is able to build, will have a better CO2 balance for years to come than the planned fleet of electric cars, which is expected to grow to 10 million by 2030.

This is the result of scientific analyzes from an economic point of view by the Ifw Kiel and CO2 analyzes by the European Environment Agency, officially prepared. The main question of the investigations is what the CO2-optimal drive system is now and for decades to come under the German energy framework.

As a decisive criterion for the choice of the CO2-optimal drive system, the EU Environment Agency compares the emissions of various vehicle and fuel types over the entire life cycle: not only the CO2 emissions of the fuel source during use, but also those caused by the manufacture and disposal of the respective vehicle type caused CO2 emissions, i.e. the entire life cycle of the car – "cradle to grave", not just "tank to wheel".

The results of this comprehensive CO2 life cycle comparison of combustion versus electric cars are remarkable – and devastating for German environmental policy. Because electricity from coal as a drive source generates the highest CO2 emissions at well over 300 grams / kilometer (g / km), electric cars (BEV)

• at over 300 g / km, the highest CO2 emissions if it is only driven with coal electricity,
• At around 70 g / km, the lowest CO2 emissions only when driving with "green" electricity, generated from sustainable sources.
• In the case of fossil gasoline and diesel engines, CO2 exhaust emissions are in the middle range at around 220 g / km. Hydrogen and e-fuels were not investigated.

In plain language, this means that battery-electric cars (BEVs and PHEVs in electric mode) are CO2-free and only run on green electricity. Operated with coal-fired electricity, there are only local environmental improvements, but only there, not in the overall CO2 balance.

The key to climate-neutral electromobility is therefore the power source.

In the case of electric cars powered exclusively by coal, the global CO2 pollution from electric cars is increasing instead of decreasing. Even plug-in hybrid vehicles are more environmentally friendly with fossil fuel and diesel in combustion mode than with coal-fired electricity in electric mode. Climate protection is not improved simply by shifting CO2 emissions from the exhaust of the cars to the chimneys of the coal-fired power plants.

Hydrogen and e-fuels are in the starting blocks

Even with an EU electricity mix of 50 percent coal-based electricity by 2050, the environmental balance of electric cars is significantly worse than that of modern combustion engines. This is exactly what happens in Germany due to the specifics of the German Energy supply the case. The planned strong expansion of energy from wind and sun (EEG) is required in full to compensate for the supply shortfall in German electricity generation through the dismantling of nuclear energy and the phase-out from coal. In plain language: Any additional supply of "green" electricity is needed to replace high-carbon electricity from coal. That makes sense from an environmental point of view because it is the first use. Green energy for the growing demand of the planned market growth of battery electric cars (BEV) will not be available for a long time, according to Ifw Kiel.

Conclusion: A growing number of BEV fleets on German roads will foreseeably be able to be fired exclusively on the basis of coal-fired electricity. This leads to the paradoxical situation that the CO2 balance of the German car fleet is deteriorating and not improving due to the advance of electric mobility – regardless of whether the electric cars are now on the road in addition to or as a replacement for combustion engines.

Only when the energy supply in Germany comes mainly from "green" sources can electromobility fully exploit its CO2 advantages over combustion engines. Until then, interim solutions and no one-sided focus on the electric car are needed. Hydrogen and e-fuels are in the starting blocks as CO2-neutral alternatives – politics just has to want to.