The German ideological blinker crisis
The decline in scientific and critical literacy is obvious in the German society.
This is alarming.
Recently, there have been tremendous efforts to prevent further production of internal combustion engines, within the next 15 years, and push the production of electric cars forward.
But is this reasonable?
Is Germany repeating the same historical mistake?
Energy friendly nuclear power plants are shut down, without any scientific reasonable facts.
Indeed, Thorium molten salt reactors could be developed (http://www.copenhagenatomics.com/?p=2741).
The politician decides to favor one possibility, but without knowing the future limiting any options is not reasonable.
(If only research in so-called "renewable energies" is pushed, viable alternatives are ignored.)
This is an ideological blinkers effect.
The facts:
(ICEV: Petrol internal combustion engine vehicle; HEV: Hybrid electric vehicle; PHEV: Plug-in hybrid electric vehicle; BEV: Battery electric vehicle).
[PE International; From Experts in Sustainability LowCVP Partnership]
This does not take into account the enormous environmental destruction of mining.
I know, I know, Lithium for the BEV is often obtained by underground mining. But do not be fooled, underground mining has an enormous impact on the environment. As example, the water pumps in the Ruhrgebiet must run forever, otherwise, the Ruhrgebiet would be soon a Ruhr-lake (https://deutsche-wirtschafts-nachrichten.de/2013/11/12/steinkohle-pumpen-muessen-ewig-laufen-sonst-versinkt-das-ruhrgebiet/).
Obviously - ignoring environmental impact - relying solely on the carbon equivalent, BEV`s have less damaging impact.
However, this depends strongly on our investment in research.
There are scenarios where ICEV`s can have even lower impacts.
Again, we have to prevent a German ideological blinkers crisis.
Research has to be pushed in all directions, for BEV`s and ICEV`s.
Recent developments from Mazda with the spark controlled compression ignition (SPCCI), the SkyACTIV-X (http://www2.mazda.com/en/next-generation/technology/), near emission neutral combustion engines utilizing Blue-crude fuel (https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/emission-neutral-combustion-engines-new-fuels-could-make-flaig/; https://www.audi-mediacenter.com/en/audi-future-performance-days-2015-5097/audi-e-fuels-5104) should not be ignored.
Renewable energy led sometimes to negative electricity prices, but this is not a success of renewal energy rather it is a mistake of the "Energiewende". On stormy days too much electricity is produced that cannot be stored and need to be submitted to the grid. This energy could be used to produce fuel for ICEV`s and capture at the same time carbon dioxide.
Life cycle analysis is rather complicated and depending on many factors.
It is non-scientific to prevent developments in one technology and at the same time favor another without having sufficient data to satisfy the choice.
The German ideological blinker crisis is disturbing and a thread to research that will lead to our most environmentally friendly future.
And this blinker crisis is evident in many other countries.
