Exercise books, screws, fuels: What goes on sale in Germany must meet a standard. This makes sense for diesel and gasoline, because motorists want to be able to rely on the fact that the visit to the gas station does not end with a major engine failure. Nevertheless, the desire to deal with the details of fuel standards is not pronounced.

A traffic light party benefits from this, it can claim to have cleared the way for the sale of synthetic fuels in their pure form. This is not entirely factually correct, because the sale of synthetic fuels has never been prohibited. Rather, the Tenth Ordinance on the Implementation of the Federal Immission Control Act is to be adapted so that diesel replacement may also be served in accordance with the DIN EN 15940 standard. Although it ignites somewhat more easily than petroleum-based diesel and also has a slightly lower energy content per liter, it is already approved by many manufacturers for diesel cars. So far, it has not been produced on the basis of green hydrogen and carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, but from plant residues, often from the cake left over from palm oil production.

There are other, more sustainable ways to the climate-neutral combustion engine open, as described several times in the F.A.Z. At least technically, because even German regulations do not change the de facto ban on combustion engines from Brussels. If you want to create a plan B for resource-intensive electric mobility, you have to move away from CO2 measurement on the exhaust pipe and towards a holistic view of the energy chain.