There is a lack of hydrogen and green electricity to generate it. And there are also far too few plants for the production of synthetic fuels. Climate-neutral heating with hydrogen or driving with e-fuels is therefore nonsense, according to the tone of many Twitter tweets and several studies on the building and transport transition. However, after a moment's thought, one can also come to the conclusion that there is a lack of reason above all.

After all, neither the energy irradiated by the sun nor is it water or carbon scarce on earth, at least no more scarce than copper, lithium and other raw materials needed for electrical storage. Above all, however, there is a lack of awareness among many circles that, from an economic point of view, scarcity always provides incentives, both for technical innovations and for concrete investments.

The fact that this is not academic wishful thinking on the part of economists and engineers is shown by numerous examples from the history of technology. A simple one is the construction of multi-storey car parks, when space in the city centres became scarcer after reconstruction in the fifties. A current example is the development towards electric motors that do not require rare earths.

Abandoning the 80 percent of the primary energy used in Germany that is currently still based on fossil fuels, i.e. reducing supply, could therefore also be seen as an opportunity for innovation. In order for this to actually lead to investment, however, one thing is indispensable: new paths must actually be open and not be blocked by overly complicated laws.