One of the major contentious issues should actually disappear from the agenda today: The Council of Ministers will, in all likelihood, vote in favor of phasing out internal combustion engines by 2035 – including the FDP compromise on e-fuels. But there is skepticism among the industry and suppliers – mostly about the low binding nature of the agreement, reports Markus Grabitz.
Groundbreaking in Brandenburg: Europe’s first lithium converter is being built in Guben by the German-Canadian company Rock Tech. The project was unveiled yesterday. It is a prime example of what the EU wants to achieve with its Critical Raw Materials Act before it has even come into force, analyzes Leonie Düngefeld.
Things are also moving in the field of hydrogen. The Netherlands and Germany want to cooperate more closely in this field. For example, through Dutch participation in the German H2Gobal procurement initiative and new pipelines such as the Delta Rhine Corridor to North Rhine-Westphalia. You can read about when this is to get underway and what else has been discussed in our News. Just like the details of the trilogue agreement for the expansion of the European charging infrastructure for EVs. At just before 2 a.m., negotiators from the EU Parliament, Council and Commission reached a compromise on the Alternative Fuel Infrastructure Regulation – AFIR for short.
Today’s meeting of energy ministers is expected to clear the way for the phasing out of internal combustion engines in 2035. Franziska Brantner, Parliamentary State Secretary at the Ministry for Economic Affairs, is expected to be instrumental in confirming the trilogue result on CO2 fleet legislation with the vote of the German government. A test vote at the ambassador level on Monday indicated that a qualified majority in the state chamber for the legislation is likely following the e-fuels agreement between the Commission and the FDP. Poland and Italy, as well as other Eastern European countries, nevertheless plan to continue voting no.
On the part of the industry, the compromise is being commented on cautiously. VDA head Hildegard Müller welcomes the agreement but also said: “The final details of the agreement still need to be assessed”. Ralf Diemer of the e-fuel Alliance let skepticism seep through as to whether, against the backdrop of the Commission’s previous rejection of the technology, the implementation of the e-fuel strategy is in the right hands there. “We can only hope that the right decisions will now be made promptly to create planning and investment security”. Benjamin Krieger of Clepa, the umbrella organization for suppliers, is also cautious: “It now very much depends on the design. But the rules now announced for renewable fuels in road transport can become a positive signal for more technology freedom“.
While manufacturers and suppliers were reticent to make official statements, the world’s largest oil production company was pleased. Matthias Braun of the Saudi Aramco Research Center said, “the e-fuels compromise opens a door for the industry: it makes the industrial production of synthetic fuels for use in new cars interesting for investors”. The Saudi-based company is currently building two demonstration factories for the production of e-fuels in Bilbao and in Saudi Arabia, and is providing synthetic fuels for rally competitions and road races. The company has also announced plans to make industrial-scale e-fuels available at filling stations from 2030.
Behind closed doors, industry representatives are more outspoken. They complain that the agreement is not very binding: The FDP has received a signal that is only politically binding, while the deal remains vague in legislative terms. Another stakeholder points out: “If Germany agrees, the leverage is gone. The FDP must now rely on the Commission to keep its promises and deliver now”.
In addition, it is pointed out that the co-legislators could offer resistance. The Commission initially wants to use the type approval regulation for Euro 5 and 6 to ensure, with the help of a delegated act, that new vehicles with internal combustion engines can still be registered after 2035, provided they are fueled exclusively with e-fuels. The legal act could, for example, meet with reservations in Parliament. It is also conceivable that the legal act could later be rejected by the ECJ.
In regulatory terms, the breakthrough of e-fuels is still a long way off. For this to happen, binding and high quotas for the use of e-fuels in transport would have to be laid down in the Renewable Energies Directive (RED), says the industry. However, this is not foreseeable: Markus Pieper (CDU), RED rapporteur, is proposing a comparatively low quota of 5.7 percent and is already encountering major resistance from the member states.
Secondly, it would have to be ensured that manufacturers are credited for e-fuel vehicles in the CO2 fleet regulation system. Without this instrument, manufacturers would lack the incentive to produce. “The path for e-fuel vehicles will only be properly cleared when a dovetailing between sub-quotas in the RED and crediting via the CO2 fleet limits is guaranteed”, industry circles say.
The industry is therefore skeptical as to whether the compromise is a real game changer. The cards would only be reshuffled when the industry rethinks its strategy for decarbonizing the powertrain, which has so far been strongly focused on battery-electric mobility. So far, only Porsche is aggressively committing to e-fuels. However, there are first indications that something is moving. VW CEO Oliver Blume, who has been aggressively pursuing the e-fuel strategy at Porsche, has recently started talking about the “double e-strategy”, meaning e-mobility and e-fuels. BMW CEO Oliver Zipse, in his role as president of the umbrella organization ACEA, also repeatedly calls for openness to technology. Mercedes-Benz CEO Ola Källenius still says that the company will switch fully to electromobility by 2029, but always adds: “If the markets allow it“.
According to the industry, “if it turns out in two or three years that the sales figures for e-cars remain unsatisfactory and the expansion of the charging infrastructure also falls short of the targets, e-fuels vehicles could become the alternative for achieving the climate targets“.
A railroad track on the edge of the forest south of the German-Polish border town of Guben, a few hundred meters from the Neisse River: freight cars filled with lithium rock from Canada are soon to arrive here. Europe’s first lithium converter is to start operations in two years on the adjacent brownfield site, where so far only a few sand mountains can be seen. The German-Canadian company Rock Tech is building an industrial plant here that will process the lithium-bearing rock into lithium hydroxide – which should be enough for 500,000 batteries for electric cars per year. Rock Tech presented the construction plans at a groundbreaking ceremony yesterday.
Local value creation, targets for the circular economy, fast approval procedures and a simultaneous expansion of strategic raw material partnerships: The project in Brandenburg is a prime example of the European raw materials strategy, which the EU Commission recently underpinned with a legislative proposal.
24,000 tons of lithium hydroxide per year are to be produced by the converter in Guben from 2026 and supplied to local cathode and battery production. Mercedes-Benz will purchase 40 percent of the material for e-car production.
“Brandenburg will thus cover the entire value chain in the future, from raw material preparation to battery and cell production to e-car construction as well as battery recycling”, said Brandenburg’s Minister of Economic Affairs Jörg Steinbach (SPD) during the event.
According to the Brandenburg Economic Development Board (WFBB), 33 companies and nine research institutes in the state are already involved in the value chain for batteries; further investments are under construction or in preparation. In addition to lithium processing by Rock Tech and the Tesla plant in Grünheide, BASF, for example, produces cathode material at its Schwarzheide plant. The company also plans to start up a recycling plant for black mass from batteries at the same site in early 2024.
Dietmar Woidke (SPD) explained that Brandenburg shows what economic policy must be like that is geared toward a climate-neutral future. The new jobs in the battery value chain replaced those that would be lost as a result of the coal phase-out. At the same time, he called for respect for the people affected by these changes.
In a sense, the Critical Raw Materials Act applies to this project before it has even come into force. The permitting process received strong political support and was accelerated – two years after the decision to locate in Guben, Rock Tech can already begin testing and preparations thanks to an early start permit. A second partial permit is still pending, but is expected by the end of the year.
The lithium mineral spodumene is initially to be sourced primarily from Rock Tech’s mining project in Ontario, Canada. Canada is considered to be one of the EU’s most promising raw material partners. The raw material could also be supplied in the future from Australia, which has the world’s largest spodumene deposits. The EU and Australia plan to conclude a free trade agreement soon, which will also include a chapter on critical raw materials.
Europe is no longer in danger of being left behind only by China and South Korea, but now also by North America, said Dirk Harbecke, CEO of Rock Tech. The Inflation Reduction Act’s subsidy programs made it more attractive for many companies to set up production facilities in the US, he said. “But we need a stable supply chain for battery cells here in Europe”, he stressed. “And for that, we also need the support of politicians“.
Harbecke also hopes that the recently announced EU funding programs to support strategic future technologies will have a positive impact on the lithium converter. In the Net Zero Industry Act, the EU Commission proposes that at least 85 percent of the EU’s annual demand for batteries should come from its own production. The projects are to receive financial support via the Innovation Fund and InvestEU.
The Critical Raw Materials Act, which was unveiled at the same time, calls for at least 40 percent of the EU’s annual demand for strategic raw materials such as lithium to be met by domestic processing by 2030. Whether the lithium converter can apply as a so-called strategic project to benefit from the corresponding funding is not yet clear, a Rock Tech spokesman explained.
However, funding of €150 million is already being examined at the European Investment Bank (EIB), which corresponds to just under a quarter of the expected costs. In addition to the project in Guben, Rock Tech is planning three more converters in Europe and one in North America.
Rock Tech says it aims to become the “world’s first circular lithium company“. The Guben lithium converter is expected to use about 50 percent recycled material by 2030 – but this depends on how well the market works, a spokesman said.
If the Commission’s draft Critical Raw Materials Act has its way, at least 15 percent of raw material needs should come from recycling in 2030. However, the long use of batteries is delaying the ramp-up of capacity: E-vehicle batteries are in use for around 15 years. Experts expect the European recycling market for lithium-ion batteries to grow strongly over the next twenty years, with a time lag from the growth of electromobility, and to pick up by the mid-2020s at the latest.
In order to develop innovations for recyclable lithium and hydrogen production, Rock Tech is participating in the German Lithium Institute (ITEL) in Halle together with the building materials industry. In addition to CO2-neutral production, research is also to be conducted there into the use of the by-products, which could be used for the gypsum and cement industries, for example. The announced zero waste strategy remains just a promise for now.
“For me, it’s the most beautiful job in the world”. A sentence that tends to degenerate into a phrase for many. In Tobias Schmid’s case, however, it comes across as authentic. The director of the North Rhine-Westphalia Media Authority (LfM NRW), which watches over private broadcasting in the state, wants his work to promote media freedom and democratic values. Idealism is also what unites him and his colleagues, he says. This “common ground” ensures a sense of community in the organization and, in Tobias Schmid’s case, fulfillment in his job.
Schmid’s path into the media world has been more down to chance than anything else: After studying law, he started his legal clerkship, his goal being to become a public prosecutor. But the working conditions put him off, he changed his plans, worked in a law firm focusing on copyright, at Sat.1 and for several years as general counsel at teleshopping broadcaster HSE 24. “That was a bit bizarre at first, you first have to come up with the idea of even doing that”, Schmid recalls. “But it was a lot of fun”. He then moved to RTL, where he stayed for several years.
Finally, Schmid was proposed for the post of Director of the State Media Authority. The doctor of law has been in office since 2017, and last year he was confirmed for another six years. His tasks: classic management, setting priorities, networking various media organizations.
He himself says that time management and patience were not among his strengths. Nevertheless, he manages to hold many positions and offices at the same time. He is the European representative of the Conference of Directors of the State Media Authorities, and also a board member of the European Regulators Group for Audiovisual Media Services (ERGA). This group plays a decisive role in the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA), which is intended to protect the media from the influence of politics on editorial decisions.
The fact that the EU wanted to create a separate supervisory authority for this purpose did not go down well in Germany: Last year, the Bundesrat sent a subsidiarity complaint to Brussels. The European Commission has convergence difficulties with the high degree of independence in media supervision, says Tobias Schmid. That’s why he understands the countries, especially with concerns about too much state influence. “It is important that the EMFA is improved at this point, because the European Commission’s ability to intervene, even if it is well-intentioned, is very incompatible with the principle of independence“.
Schmid sees a major challenge for the media industry in preserving journalistic diversity. “It is the life insurance of freedom of opinion. And freedom of opinion is the life insurance of democracy“. He says it thrives on discourse, which flourishes through different opinions in different media. The pressure on print media, especially regional and local, radio and, more recently, television, is increasing enormously, he said. One task of the regulatory authorities is to stabilize journalistic diversity, says Tobias Schmid. Kim Fischer
One of the major contentious issues should actually disappear from the agenda today: The Council of Ministers will, in all likelihood, vote in favor of phasing out internal combustion engines by 2035 – including the FDP compromise on e-fuels. But there is skepticism among the industry and suppliers – mostly about the low binding nature of the agreement, reports Markus Grabitz.
Groundbreaking in Brandenburg: Europe’s first lithium converter is being built in Guben by the German-Canadian company Rock Tech. The project was unveiled yesterday. It is a prime example of what the EU wants to achieve with its Critical Raw Materials Act before it has even come into force, analyzes Leonie Düngefeld.
Things are also moving in the field of hydrogen. The Netherlands and Germany want to cooperate more closely in this field. For example, through Dutch participation in the German H2Gobal procurement initiative and new pipelines such as the Delta Rhine Corridor to North Rhine-Westphalia. You can read about when this is to get underway and what else has been discussed in our News. Just like the details of the trilogue agreement for the expansion of the European charging infrastructure for EVs. At just before 2 a.m., negotiators from the EU Parliament, Council and Commission reached a compromise on the Alternative Fuel Infrastructure Regulation – AFIR for short.
Today’s meeting of energy ministers is expected to clear the way for the phasing out of internal combustion engines in 2035. Franziska Brantner, Parliamentary State Secretary at the Ministry for Economic Affairs, is expected to be instrumental in confirming the trilogue result on CO2 fleet legislation with the vote of the German government. A test vote at the ambassador level on Monday indicated that a qualified majority in the state chamber for the legislation is likely following the e-fuels agreement between the Commission and the FDP. Poland and Italy, as well as other Eastern European countries, nevertheless plan to continue voting no.
On the part of the industry, the compromise is being commented on cautiously. VDA head Hildegard Müller welcomes the agreement but also said: “The final details of the agreement still need to be assessed”. Ralf Diemer of the e-fuel Alliance let skepticism seep through as to whether, against the backdrop of the Commission’s previous rejection of the technology, the implementation of the e-fuel strategy is in the right hands there. “We can only hope that the right decisions will now be made promptly to create planning and investment security”. Benjamin Krieger of Clepa, the umbrella organization for suppliers, is also cautious: “It now very much depends on the design. But the rules now announced for renewable fuels in road transport can become a positive signal for more technology freedom“.
While manufacturers and suppliers were reticent to make official statements, the world’s largest oil production company was pleased. Matthias Braun of the Saudi Aramco Research Center said, “the e-fuels compromise opens a door for the industry: it makes the industrial production of synthetic fuels for use in new cars interesting for investors”. The Saudi-based company is currently building two demonstration factories for the production of e-fuels in Bilbao and in Saudi Arabia, and is providing synthetic fuels for rally competitions and road races. The company has also announced plans to make industrial-scale e-fuels available at filling stations from 2030.
Behind closed doors, industry representatives are more outspoken. They complain that the agreement is not very binding: The FDP has received a signal that is only politically binding, while the deal remains vague in legislative terms. Another stakeholder points out: “If Germany agrees, the leverage is gone. The FDP must now rely on the Commission to keep its promises and deliver now”.
In addition, it is pointed out that the co-legislators could offer resistance. The Commission initially wants to use the type approval regulation for Euro 5 and 6 to ensure, with the help of a delegated act, that new vehicles with internal combustion engines can still be registered after 2035, provided they are fueled exclusively with e-fuels. The legal act could, for example, meet with reservations in Parliament. It is also conceivable that the legal act could later be rejected by the ECJ.
In regulatory terms, the breakthrough of e-fuels is still a long way off. For this to happen, binding and high quotas for the use of e-fuels in transport would have to be laid down in the Renewable Energies Directive (RED), says the industry. However, this is not foreseeable: Markus Pieper (CDU), RED rapporteur, is proposing a comparatively low quota of 5.7 percent and is already encountering major resistance from the member states.
Secondly, it would have to be ensured that manufacturers are credited for e-fuel vehicles in the CO2 fleet regulation system. Without this instrument, manufacturers would lack the incentive to produce. “The path for e-fuel vehicles will only be properly cleared when a dovetailing between sub-quotas in the RED and crediting via the CO2 fleet limits is guaranteed”, industry circles say.
The industry is therefore skeptical as to whether the compromise is a real game changer. The cards would only be reshuffled when the industry rethinks its strategy for decarbonizing the powertrain, which has so far been strongly focused on battery-electric mobility. So far, only Porsche is aggressively committing to e-fuels. However, there are first indications that something is moving. VW CEO Oliver Blume, who has been aggressively pursuing the e-fuel strategy at Porsche, has recently started talking about the “double e-strategy”, meaning e-mobility and e-fuels. BMW CEO Oliver Zipse, in his role as president of the umbrella organization ACEA, also repeatedly calls for openness to technology. Mercedes-Benz CEO Ola Källenius still says that the company will switch fully to electromobility by 2029, but always adds: “If the markets allow it“.
According to the industry, “if it turns out in two or three years that the sales figures for e-cars remain unsatisfactory and the expansion of the charging infrastructure also falls short of the targets, e-fuels vehicles could become the alternative for achieving the climate targets“.
A railroad track on the edge of the forest south of the German-Polish border town of Guben, a few hundred meters from the Neisse River: freight cars filled with lithium rock from Canada are soon to arrive here. Europe’s first lithium converter is to start operations in two years on the adjacent brownfield site, where so far only a few sand mountains can be seen. The German-Canadian company Rock Tech is building an industrial plant here that will process the lithium-bearing rock into lithium hydroxide – which should be enough for 500,000 batteries for electric cars per year. Rock Tech presented the construction plans at a groundbreaking ceremony yesterday.
Local value creation, targets for the circular economy, fast approval procedures and a simultaneous expansion of strategic raw material partnerships: The project in Brandenburg is a prime example of the European raw materials strategy, which the EU Commission recently underpinned with a legislative proposal.
24,000 tons of lithium hydroxide per year are to be produced by the converter in Guben from 2026 and supplied to local cathode and battery production. Mercedes-Benz will purchase 40 percent of the material for e-car production.
“Brandenburg will thus cover the entire value chain in the future, from raw material preparation to battery and cell production to e-car construction as well as battery recycling”, said Brandenburg’s Minister of Economic Affairs Jörg Steinbach (SPD) during the event.
According to the Brandenburg Economic Development Board (WFBB), 33 companies and nine research institutes in the state are already involved in the value chain for batteries; further investments are under construction or in preparation. In addition to lithium processing by Rock Tech and the Tesla plant in Grünheide, BASF, for example, produces cathode material at its Schwarzheide plant. The company also plans to start up a recycling plant for black mass from batteries at the same site in early 2024.
Dietmar Woidke (SPD) explained that Brandenburg shows what economic policy must be like that is geared toward a climate-neutral future. The new jobs in the battery value chain replaced those that would be lost as a result of the coal phase-out. At the same time, he called for respect for the people affected by these changes.
In a sense, the Critical Raw Materials Act applies to this project before it has even come into force. The permitting process received strong political support and was accelerated – two years after the decision to locate in Guben, Rock Tech can already begin testing and preparations thanks to an early start permit. A second partial permit is still pending, but is expected by the end of the year.
The lithium mineral spodumene is initially to be sourced primarily from Rock Tech’s mining project in Ontario, Canada. Canada is considered to be one of the EU’s most promising raw material partners. The raw material could also be supplied in the future from Australia, which has the world’s largest spodumene deposits. The EU and Australia plan to conclude a free trade agreement soon, which will also include a chapter on critical raw materials.
Europe is no longer in danger of being left behind only by China and South Korea, but now also by North America, said Dirk Harbecke, CEO of Rock Tech. The Inflation Reduction Act’s subsidy programs made it more attractive for many companies to set up production facilities in the US, he said. “But we need a stable supply chain for battery cells here in Europe”, he stressed. “And for that, we also need the support of politicians“.
Harbecke also hopes that the recently announced EU funding programs to support strategic future technologies will have a positive impact on the lithium converter. In the Net Zero Industry Act, the EU Commission proposes that at least 85 percent of the EU’s annual demand for batteries should come from its own production. The projects are to receive financial support via the Innovation Fund and InvestEU.
The Critical Raw Materials Act, which was unveiled at the same time, calls for at least 40 percent of the EU’s annual demand for strategic raw materials such as lithium to be met by domestic processing by 2030. Whether the lithium converter can apply as a so-called strategic project to benefit from the corresponding funding is not yet clear, a Rock Tech spokesman explained.
However, funding of €150 million is already being examined at the European Investment Bank (EIB), which corresponds to just under a quarter of the expected costs. In addition to the project in Guben, Rock Tech is planning three more converters in Europe and one in North America.
Rock Tech says it aims to become the “world’s first circular lithium company“. The Guben lithium converter is expected to use about 50 percent recycled material by 2030 – but this depends on how well the market works, a spokesman said.
If the Commission’s draft Critical Raw Materials Act has its way, at least 15 percent of raw material needs should come from recycling in 2030. However, the long use of batteries is delaying the ramp-up of capacity: E-vehicle batteries are in use for around 15 years. Experts expect the European recycling market for lithium-ion batteries to grow strongly over the next twenty years, with a time lag from the growth of electromobility, and to pick up by the mid-2020s at the latest.
In order to develop innovations for recyclable lithium and hydrogen production, Rock Tech is participating in the German Lithium Institute (ITEL) in Halle together with the building materials industry. In addition to CO2-neutral production, research is also to be conducted there into the use of the by-products, which could be used for the gypsum and cement industries, for example. The announced zero waste strategy remains just a promise for now.
“For me, it’s the most beautiful job in the world”. A sentence that tends to degenerate into a phrase for many. In Tobias Schmid’s case, however, it comes across as authentic. The director of the North Rhine-Westphalia Media Authority (LfM NRW), which watches over private broadcasting in the state, wants his work to promote media freedom and democratic values. Idealism is also what unites him and his colleagues, he says. This “common ground” ensures a sense of community in the organization and, in Tobias Schmid’s case, fulfillment in his job.
Schmid’s path into the media world has been more down to chance than anything else: After studying law, he started his legal clerkship, his goal being to become a public prosecutor. But the working conditions put him off, he changed his plans, worked in a law firm focusing on copyright, at Sat.1 and for several years as general counsel at teleshopping broadcaster HSE 24. “That was a bit bizarre at first, you first have to come up with the idea of even doing that”, Schmid recalls. “But it was a lot of fun”. He then moved to RTL, where he stayed for several years.
Finally, Schmid was proposed for the post of Director of the State Media Authority. The doctor of law has been in office since 2017, and last year he was confirmed for another six years. His tasks: classic management, setting priorities, networking various media organizations.
He himself says that time management and patience were not among his strengths. Nevertheless, he manages to hold many positions and offices at the same time. He is the European representative of the Conference of Directors of the State Media Authorities, and also a board member of the European Regulators Group for Audiovisual Media Services (ERGA). This group plays a decisive role in the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA), which is intended to protect the media from the influence of politics on editorial decisions.
The fact that the EU wanted to create a separate supervisory authority for this purpose did not go down well in Germany: Last year, the Bundesrat sent a subsidiarity complaint to Brussels. The European Commission has convergence difficulties with the high degree of independence in media supervision, says Tobias Schmid. That’s why he understands the countries, especially with concerns about too much state influence. “It is important that the EMFA is improved at this point, because the European Commission’s ability to intervene, even if it is well-intentioned, is very incompatible with the principle of independence“.
Schmid sees a major challenge for the media industry in preserving journalistic diversity. “It is the life insurance of freedom of opinion. And freedom of opinion is the life insurance of democracy“. He says it thrives on discourse, which flourishes through different opinions in different media. The pressure on print media, especially regional and local, radio and, more recently, television, is increasing enormously, he said. One task of the regulatory authorities is to stabilize journalistic diversity, says Tobias Schmid. Kim Fischer
