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COST OF LIVING

German students call on government to ‘deliver’ on €200 energy payout

The German Student Union has responded with frustration at the lack of a clear deadline for the €200 energy payment promised by the government last year.

Published: 3 February 2023 12:24 CET
Students lecture hall
A student takes notes on their reading material in a lecture hall in Bremen. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Sina Schuldt

Matthias Anbuhl, chairman of the board of the Studierendenwerk (Students’ Union), told the Stuttgarter Zeitung on Friday that ministers needed to finally “deliver” on the long-delayed payout for students and trainees. 

In September, the federal government had signaled that students would be getting a €200 payout as part of a wider relief package to help people with rising costs. 

READ ALSO: Why students in Germany are still waiting for €200 energy payout

“They haven’t received anything yet, although they now have the higher costs for gas and electricity,” Anbuhl added.

Warning politicians to be clear about when the energy payment would arrive, Anbuhl said the long delays in rolling out the payment risked gambling away students’ trust. 

‘Home stretch’

According to Federal Education Minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger (FDP), students in Germany shouldn’t have to wait too much longer to get a boost. 

“We are entering the home stretch on this,” the FDP politician told DPA on Wednesday. A spokesperson for the ministry did not want to give a concrete date for the start of the payments, but Stark-Watzinger has previously said it would happen in winter. 

The major issue in delivering the relief payments has been the lack of a central database that records the bank account details of students. The federal government and the states are now trying to bring this data together on a joint online platform so that the money can be applied for centrally there.

READ ALSO: What students in Germany should know about the €200 energy payout

However, the opposition Left Party slammed the government for the lengthy delays and the fact that students were therefore unable to plan financially. 

“What Education Minister Stark-Watzinger and her ministry are doing here is simply embarrassing,” the party’s co-chair, Janine Wissler, told DPA. 

The enormously high gas and electricity bills were no trifling matter, she said, adding that many were in urgent need of payment.

“She must now clarify whether the end of winter means the calendar winter, the meteorological winter or simply a ministerial winter,” said Wissler. 

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ENERGY

In climate push, German chemical maker swaps oil for sugar

At one of Europe's largest chemical complexes, German group Covestro is trialling the manufacture of a key product using sugar as a base material instead of oil, as the industry seeks to reduce its carbon footprint.

Published: 10 March 2024 13:02 CET
In climate push, German chemical maker swaps oil for sugar

The pilot project involves producing “aniline”, a chemical used in making foams — used widely in mattresses and armchairs, as well as building insulation.

While large-scale, commercial production is probably years away, the experiment marks a small step in the chemical industry’s battle to slash carbon emissions as Earth faces a dire climate emergency.

Of the 100 million barrels of oil produced worldwide every day, “a quarter goes directly into the chemical industry,” said Walter Leitner, from Aachen University, which has been involved in the aniline project for a decade. “The chemical industry needs to be completely rebuilt.”

Plastics manufacturer Covestro — a former division of chemical giant Bayer — started trials at its complex in the western city of Leverkusen at the end
of 2023, after laboratory tests.

In a 100-square-metre (1,080-square-foot) room, aniline, a transparent fluid, is extracted from a 600-metre network of intertwined pipes.

Using a process developed by University of Stuttgart researchers, fermented sugar is treated with chemicals to make the product. Aniline is used as the base ingredient for chemical MDI, which is an essential material in manufacturing foams.

Traditionally, aniline has been obtained from crude oil derivatives like naphtha and benzene, but producing it emits large quantities of carbon dioxide, a key greenhouse gas.

Around six million tonnes of aniline are produced globally a year, around one million tonnes of it by Covestro. So far, the pilot project in Leverkusen produces just a tiny part of this, extracting just half a tonne of aniline a day.

Punishing energy costs

Some experts are sceptical about such an approach. The use of plant matter in manufacturing may cut out fossil fuels but whether it can lead to carbon neutrality “is often questionable”, Jens Guenther, from Germany’s Federal Environment Agency, told AFP.

This is particularly the case when it comes to the use of “so-called cultivated biomass like maize, sugar cane and sugar beet,” he said.

Janine Korduan, from environmental NGO BUND, pointed out that industrial agriculture generates “CO2 and methane emissions through land conversion and
the production of fertilisers and pesticides”, and also leads to “major losses of biodiversity and high water consumption”.

Nevertheless, Guenther said the use of plant matter in production processes would likely produce significantly lower greenhouse gas emissions than using fossil fuels, although opting for waste materials rather than crops produced in large-scale farming would be preferable.

Other German companies are experimenting in the area. Chemical giant BASF is seeking to use organic waste, agricultural products or vegetable oils to produce basic chemicals like aniline.

There are many barriers to taking such projects further, however. These range from the availability of the necessary organic matter, which is in great demand as the green transition gathers pace, to higher costs when compared to producing such chemicals with oil.

Scaling up the process will only be justified if it leads to “significant CO2 savings” in the manufacturing process, said Thorsten Dreier, a member of Covestro’s management board who is overseeing the technology.

There will also need to be proof that money “can be made in a competitive environment, in order to finance research here”, he said.

And for Germany, a major challenge will be persuading manufacturers to set up costly new sites for processing chemicals. The energy-intensive chemicals sector in Europe’s top economy has been facing a crisis since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine curtailed cheap Russian gas imports, sending power costs soaring.

Many companies are now more focused on shifting production to cheaper locations overseas, rather than expanding at home.

“Energy costs in Germany are currently three to four times higher than in the United States,” while a bloated bureaucracy is also weighing on industry, warned Dreier.

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