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Highways speed limit in Germany would reduce CO2 emissions by 2M tonnes
- oh_sigh 5y agoI'm shocked that a speed limit of 130km/h would have that much of an impact. I very rarely see cars operating beyond 130, usually only for occasional passing. Normal speed is closer to 110.
- the-dude 5y agoDo you drive in Germany?
- verst 5y agoIn Germany everyone drives above 130km/h (~80mph) on the sections of the Autobahn that do not have speed limits. When I was 18 I always floored my crappy very old Ford Fiesta going around 158 km/h (on a good day, downhill and probably with a tailwind haha). Driving my family's nicer cars I frequently drove 200+ km/h. When there is a good amount of traffic I would see a more realistic average speed of 160 km/h.
- oh_sigh 5y agoYes, west of stuttgart for the most part on 8. Maybe it's different elsewhere.
- un_montagnard 5y agoIf you're driving below 150km/h on the middle or left lane in Germany, you're actively putting yourself in danger.
- _ph_ 5y agoNo, you are not. You shouldn't suddenly move to a lane left of you without checking that there is no faster traffic oncoming though. And you might move right, if possible. But it is not a special danger.
- meibo 5y agoI'm not sure why you are getting downvoted, this is absolutely true on even just a semi-active Autobahn. Feels like people are actively out for you at that point, you'll have close-calls and will get nearly rear-ended by some Audi that wants to switch lanes where it shouldn't in no time.
- _ph_ 5y agoIt much depends on the traffic volume. On 3 lane segments, the speed often is higher, but in the typical commuter traffic it is quite slow.
- akmarinov 5y agoMaybe in the US, but that’s not the case in most places in Europe.
- jandrewrogers 5y agoIt isn't true in the US either. A large region of the country has 130 km/h limits, and those limits are only loosely enforced. I've lived in regions of the US where 140 km/h is the typical highway driving speed. Experience can vary widely depending where on the continent one lives. Some states do have low speed limits.
- lucb1e 5y ago> Normal speed is closer to 110. Average, you might be right. Many people definitely drive a lot faster (I guess that's where the sibling comments "do you drive in germany" come from), but then they get stuck behind an overtaking truck etc., and then there are people driving slower so the average speed across all lanes might very well be 110 at busy times (and of course you're most likely to drive when it's busy, so that's what you'd observe). The problem (emissions) might be from accelerating up to 150, then back down because someone driving 120 is overtaking someone else, the person behind you also has to brake, and repeat.
- mc32 5y agoHmm, we had 55mph imposed due to the 70s oil crisis. Wonder if we'll see an appetite for re-introducing it. I doubt it though. It's not the 70s anymore. Cars are safer and people are less likely to obey such things nowadays. I mean, most people go over 65 on highways.
- ggreer 5y agoMy first thought was, "Is 2 million tons of CO2 a lot?" According to Wikipedia, "Human activities emit over 30 billion tons of CO2 per year..."[1], so that's 0.007% of yearly CO2 emissions. Germany alone emits 700 million tons of CO2 per year, so that would be 0.3% of their share.[2] It seems like increasing adoption of electric vehicles would do a lot more to solve this problem. Ground transportation is responsible for 161 million tons per year in Germany (23% of their emissions). 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide#In_Earth's_atmosphere https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide#In_Earth's_atmo... 2. https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/germany https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/germany
- Popegaf 5y agoI'm sure if you used a bus and train instead of a car, you'd reduce way more. But hey, 2M is "really big number" so, let's impress people with that one. Seriously though, the time they spent discussing this could've probably been spent more productively discussing more environmentally impactful measures. This seems like busy work to be able to tell the voters "Look! We're doing something about the problem!".
- bjt2n3904 5y agoAnd by "doing something" we mean, doing something ineffective, and you bear all of the burden, and get none of the benefit.
- BitwiseFool 5y agoEvery little bit counts, but it's really disheartening to see just how little it is in the grand scheme of things.
- ggreer 5y agoAnother point of comparison: the mass of Earth's atmosphere is over 5 quadrillion tons.[1] 30 billion tons is 0.0006% or 6 parts per million. These are all really big numbers so it's important to scale them down to something more comprehensible. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Earth#Physical_properties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Earth#Physical_p...
- edrxty 5y agoThis seems like a good way to annoy people more than anything. With electric cars and solar energy it won't really matter how fast anyone goes in a decade.
- timkam 5y agoAs I remember, at least as a narrative, it is clear that having speed limits reduces traffic jams, congestion and accidents, and will actually help get people faster from A to B. Of course, no speed limit is part of the "brand" Germany, but I guess this could be maintained by some work-around. Happy to revise my opinion when presented with evidence to the contrary, but to me speed limits are to Germany what gun control is to the US.
- krylon 5y agoYes! That analogy sums it up perfectly!
- allendoerfer 5y agoExcept that German highways are one of the safest and America has school shootings. They are both holy cows, but very different holy cows.
- grillvogel 5y agoGermany had 3000 trafic related deaths in 2019. In 2019 in the US, 20 people died in "school shooting deaths" meaning someone who was shot at a school of some kind
- allendoerfer 5y agoThe US had 36,096 traffic related deaths in 2019. In Germany 0 people died in "school shooting deaths". You are not seriously suggesting that the US does not have a gun problem?! Of course it has one. We can argue about how to solve it, but what you are doing is almost belittleing children who died like this.
- zzkt 5y agoor shutting down a few lignite mines?
- Lev1a 5y agoCoal power plants are already on schedule to be phased out by 2038 [1] but even now the mix of imported energy+coal+gas+wind+solar+hydro+biomass and the last few nuclear power stations on the grid are sometimes not enough to meet the power needs, which is why some fossil fuel plants were restarted, their shutdown pushed back and even new ones announced [2]. This is in part due to the insane plan to phase out both nuclear AND coal at the same time which when combined with ever rising electricity usage is certainly a bad combination. The misplaced hysteria over the Fukushima incident leading to this plan and situation is just utterly insane (Germany in comparison to the Japanese coastline: no tsunamis, no (major) earthquakes, etc.). [1]: "On 26 January 2019, a group of federal and state leaders as well as industry representatives, environmentalists, and scientists made an agreement to close all 84 coal plants in the country by 2038. The move is projected to cost €40 billion in compensation alone to closed businesses. Coal was used to generate almost 40% of the country's electricity in 2018 and is expected to be replaced by renewable energy and natural gas.[18] 24 coal plants are planned to be closed by 2022 with all but 8 closed by 2030. The final date is expected to be assessed every 3 years." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Germany#Coal_power https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Germany#Coal_power) [2]: "As of 2017 Germany imported more than half of its energy" and "In 2020 a number of previously shut down fossil gas plants (Irsching 4, Irsching 5) were restarted quoting "heavy fluctuations of level of power generated from the wind and sun"[78] and a new fossil gas power plant was announced by RWE near the former Biblis nuclear power plant shut down in 2017. The project is declared as part of "decarbonization plan" where renewable energy capacity is accompanied by fossil gas plants to cover for intermittency.[79] A new fossil gas power plant will be also opened from 2023 in Leipheim, Bavaria to compensate for loss of power caused by "nuclear exit" in this region.[80] In 2021 plan to decommission Heyden 4 coal power plant was cancelled and the plant remains online to compensate for shutdown of nuclear power plan in Grohnde." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energiewende#After_2017 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energiewende#After_2017)
- freemint 5y agoWhy not both? The green party is against mining under the hambacher forest and for the speed limit.
- krylon 5y agoPersonally, I would welcome a speed limit on the Autobahn. OTOH, I don't own a car, so that's very easy for me to say since it wouldn't affect me. However, I don't think this is going to happen anytime soon. Outlawing music or the Internet would be more popular in Germany than a speed limit on the Autobahn. Every couple of years some politician floats the idea, and inevitably, the public backlash is huge, so nothing happens. Nothing will happen this time, either. Anyway, I have a gut feeling that moving all that cargo rolling around on the Autobahn every day to trains would have a bigger impact, but after decades of giving cars and roads preferential treatment and minimizing investments into the rail network, this would take at least a couple of years of intense construction work, which I don't see happening, either.
- undfg 5y agoWhy would you welcome a speed limit on the autobahn when you don't drive?!
- alrs 5y agoThe title of the article suggests that a speed limit on the autobahn would reduce CO2 emissions.
- t0mas88 5y ago1. It's a 0.3% reduction of the German CO2 emissions so that's not really a useful point. 2. Killing 100 people also reduces CO2 emissions, doesn't make it a good idea...
- p1necone 5y ago0.3% is not an insignificant amount. Find a few more things like this to do to reduce emissions and it will add up.
- lucb1e 5y agoIndeed, especially given the negligible amount of time this will add to a given commute, i.e. the majority of people's regular trips. Unless you drive from Munich to Hamburg at these speeds, but then you're just being a jerk to everyone who has to still live on this planet and should really be looking at the 300km/h trains. (Yes, they don't run every time they're scheduled for, but if more people put more money into the system, the system can improve.)
- horstmeyer 5y agoBetter introduce a speed limit for SUV and ICE cars, and make it mandatory for them to use the right lane. No speed limit for electric cars. Helps adoption and Germany keeps one of the last things that make it special.
- lucb1e 5y agoOr just generalize it. Why bother with labels? Manufacturers will make technically-not-an-SUV to get around it. Make sure the emissions of a particular model are known to the owner and set permissions based on emission levels, since emissions is what we're actually trying to optimize.
- freemint 5y agoOptimizing emissions has lead to "teaching to the test" in motor control software before.
- nottorp 5y agoHmm. No speed limit does seem a little wasteful because everyone floors it and goes to max fuel consumption. However, what's the impact of reducing the limit from 130 to 100? Suddenly commute times increase by 30 percent. That can be disruptive for people with longer commutes, especially since afaik the Autobahns are good enough that you can live in $LARGE_CITY and work in $NEXT_LARGE_CITY if you want.
- t0mas88 5y agoNearly nobody in Germany floors it all the time, because that's 250 km/h in a typical German car which is very tiring and inefficient. Much more typical that more than half drive 130 or less, a big group does 140 - 180ish depending on conditions and a tiny tiny group floors it all the time.
- pintxo 5y agoActual average speed on the Autobahn is 125 km/h [1]. [1] https://www.deutschland.de/en/topic/life/germany-and-the-autobahn-speed-limits-and-reality https://www.deutschland.de/en/topic/life/germany-and-the-aut...
- dathinab 5y agoYes cars which can safely go 250 km/h are also not typical for the whole of Germany but more like the more wealth 30-40% or so. Either way there are some areas in where you have no speed limit and a over-proportional amount of people which can afford such cars and also frequently use their cars (for non very short) commute and as such are more likely to buy such car (most times for enjoyable rides and status less often for going fast). So in this areas they might be typical.
- dathinab 5y ago> and a tiny tiny group floors it all the time I would like a max limit of ~160 km/h which would make driving the highways where such people appear over proportional often much more pleasant, also complement this with a awareness campaign about "Richtgeschwindigkeit" (~recommended max speed), accidents and insurance ;=)
- choeger 5y agoGerman highways are safer than most highways of most neighboring countries anduch safer than German country roads. They are also getting safer every year. And any speed limit will reduce CO2 emissions, that much should be clear. The real question should be: What kind of virtue signalling is it that demands this (arbitrary) limit of 130kph? On most German highways you can easily go 160 in a modern medium-sized car. Electrical cars have much lower carbon dioxide emissions. So what's the fucking point? I am really curious to understand why so many people see the absence of a speed limit as such a red flag. No one forces them to drive faster (source: I drive several hundreds of km per month around 120kph). Insurance companies already expect you to stay below 130 to get your full coverage. There are much more dangerous roads with speed limits in Germany. So why this fervor? I can only speculate but it really seems like some form of envy. There are people out there that do something unregulated and to some other people this is completely unacceptable.
- allendoerfer 5y ago> I can only speculate but it really seems like some form of envy. There are people out there that do something unregulated and to some other people this is completely unacceptable. I second that. It just isn't German to have something so seemingly unregulated. People will call the police when periods of rests are ignored or a machine is turned on on a Sunday.
- dathinab 5y ago> (arbitrary) limit of 130kph? It's not realy arbitrary, it's the "Richtgeschwindigkeit" on most (all?) highways with higher speed limits (the speed which you are recommended to not go over by a large degree and where your tend to pay less if you get into an accident while going over it). A bit above 130 km/h is a point at which the degree of death tend to noticeable increase in case of accidents, relevantly this includes the death of uninvolved 3rd parties. > No one forces them to drive faster ( Yes, but other people drive fast and potentially into you, I have seen more then just one or two near accidents because of people driving noticeable above 160 km/h on highway areas where it was allowed but not recommendable due to the amount of traffic. And I don't drive a lot. I also can forward the opinion my Dad has on this (who frequently needs to do multiple day trips spawning 300-500km/h and drives a car which can go ~200km/h). I don't remember the exact wording but it was basically something along side of: A speed limit makes sense but 130 km/h is to low. Way to many drivers are way to bad on judging when the traffic allows you to go 180 km/h and when it is dangerous. To many people think that because there is no tempo limit they can go with 180 or more on a non empty highway and I have seen and been involved in way to many nearly accidents which likely would have been deadly (if they would have happened) which involved people going at such high speeds. I mean sure if the highway is empty and dry and I'm not sleepy then going with 180 km/h or even more can be quite fun, but I which people would only do so if the highway is empty and dry. [And then he went on, about people being even worse at estimating safe speeds if rain, fog or snow is involved and how he was more then once nearly killed by someone going way to fast under such conditions.] (now back to my opinion): IMHO going fast is fun, but the highway is not meant to be fun it's meant to allow safe driving and going with really high speeds in the wrong situations you are not just endangering yourself. Anyway, idk if a cap at 130 is the right thing and there are also other factors like the environmental damage because of the ware of the rubber wheels, noise etc.
- adav 5y agoDon’t most German cars already have an electronic limiter to 155mph?
- Beldin 5y agoI think most production cars cannot sustain that - to say nothing of their tyres. I guess most top out somewhere around 200-225 kph (124-140 mph). And tyres even sooner - 160-180 kph is my guess.
- pintxo 5y agoYep, you need around 200 horsepower to reach 250km/h. Most cars have less power [1]. Consequently they also use cheaper tires, not rated for high speeds. Common tire limits are 190 and 210 km/h [2]. [1] https://www.destatis.de/DE/Presse/Pressemitteilungen/2018/11/PD18_459_85.html https://www.destatis.de/DE/Presse/Pressemitteilungen/2018/11... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tire_code#Speed_rating https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tire_code#Speed_rating
- pintxo 5y agoApparently, this ~is~ was a Gentlemen's agreement of the German automakers, to stop the competition for top-speed at 250km/h. Most adhered to it, except Porsche. But nowadays most offer you a special package which will remove the artificial limit, often for another 4-5 digit amount.
- cbmuser 5y agoKeeping Germany’s last six nuclear plant running and shutting down the coal-fired power plants Neurath, Niederaußem and Weisweiler minus a remaining capacity of 900 MW would save 70 million tons of CO2 per year which is about 10% of Germany’s total emissions annually. > https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_von_fossilen_Kraftwerken_in_der_Europäischen_Union_mit_der_höchsten_Kohlenstoffdioxidemission https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_von_fossilen_Kraftwerken... > https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_der_Kernreaktoren_in_Deutschland#Kernkraftwerke https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_der_Kernreaktoren_in_Deu... But I guess symbolism is more important than actually doing something that effectively reduces emissions. So let’s introduce a speed limit and shut down all nuclear power plants, yay.
- allendoerfer 5y agoI personally think it is just symbolic to introduce a speed limit. It seems to be mostly about hurting people with expensive cars, so they cannot have fun with them anymore. It does nothing. 0.3% does not help. It is optimizing towards a local maximum and does not bring us closer to the global maximum. We need to get rid of the whole concept of commuting to work via car. We need to reduce commutes altogether significantly. We need to reduce ICEs and use electric vehicels fueled by renewable energy instead. If we accomplish those three, the speed of the remaining vehicles will not matter at all. If we do not accomplish those things, we are screwed anyway. Introducing a speed limit will just give people the same warm feeling of a reusable shopping bag full of products with plastic packaging. People just want to do something, even if they know, it will not save them. And if it hurts the "enemy" and makes them seem like the good guys, all the better.
- lucb1e 5y ago> It seems to be mostly about hurting people with expensive cars, so they cannot have fun with them anymore. Absolutely not. Every car can go well above the speed limits of every European country except Germany's unlimited stretches for obvious reasons. I can perfectly well drive 160km/h to work in a median/average car, it's just not efficient. And enjoying your sports car is something you should really do on a race track. It can be safe to drive fast when it's totally empty, but you don't need a sports car to drive the kinds of speed where you want it to be empty. This affects everyone roughly equally. Heck, it might even hit the average person worse because they wouldn't take random time off work to drive to and pay entrance and insurance for a race track. At least for me it's not about spite; I'm a rich person myself. If someone wants to do sports on a public road when it's safe, go ahead, but also clean your fumes back out of the air when you're done please. It just turns out that we can't do attribution to atmospheric gasses, and historically we just conveniently ignored exhausts, so it feels weird to suddenly start requiring that you clean up after yourself.
- freemint 5y ago0.3% of German emissions or 0.007% of Global emissions is the emission of half a million of people with average emissions or more than 20 million africans. As for your comment on local vs global maxima i don't see any reason why optimizing a number should be non convex, such that local optima and global optima differ. > People just want to do something, even if they know, it will not save them. And if it hurts the "enemy" and makes them seem like the good guys, all the better. Maybe it is about boiling the frog and showing that German poltics can prioritize climate over perpetuating the current state of industry. Rail is helped by a top speed. Electrical cars are also made more efficient and less environmentally damaging when their top speed is lowered.
- legitster 5y agoI'm generally opposed to climate change solutions that seem focused on punishing people who want to enjoy something. Advocacy focusing on making other people feel bad doesn't seem to scale. The risk of blowback is not worth tiny incremental improvements. If someone wants to blast down the highway at 200mph, and they can do it in an electric car or pay for the cost of sequestering the carbon, I say let 'em. I wouldn't want to die on the battlefield of telling people to stop enjoying the things they enjoy and when we can just tell them to pay for its cost.
- freemint 5y agoDo you have a suggestion how we can make the people blasting down the highway at 200mph pay for sequestering carbon, without making everyone pay for it? Increasing fuel prices for the sake climate didn't turn out that popular in France. So if you have another solution that is implementable, please share.
- bradlys 5y agoThey already do by the fact that 200mph speed is much more fuel consumption per unit of distance traveled than say 60mph. There is no vehicle I know of that uses the same amount of fuel at 60mph as it does at 200mph for unit of distance traveled. Include the tax in gasoline per unit of volume and the people going 200+ will pay much more than those going 60. (Much much more)
- fomine3 5y agoI thought that why some Autobahn is still unlimited is to encourage Germany car manufacturer to develop high performance (or say premium) car.
- LargoLasskhyfv 5y agoHach! Diese Entschleunigung... Herrlich! Whow! Holy Cow! The final golfcarting show. Now one question remains: why produce cars going 200kph+ at all? After lifelong indoctrination that cars give freedom and status, now a hiatus from speeding? My heart is bleeding! What will the industry do now? And all the advertisment agencies? My my... revolution! We care about pollution! With the experimental overhead catenary installed for lorries/trucks on 3 sectors of Autobahn now, I can even imagine bumper cars! Yay! Aharrrharrrharrr! edit: Thinking further about this it seems like this could profit from comprehensive roll-out of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_enforcement_camera https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_enforcement_camera and section control. Turns out we already have the infrastructure for it: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mautbr%C3%BCcke https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mautbr%C3%BCcke (Nudge, Nudge)
- amai 5y agoGermany will introduce a highway speed limit when the US will adopt metric units.
- hackeraccount 5y agoWhat efficiencies are gained by having Germans fly down the autobahn? Isn't at least possible that whatever CO2 is added is outweighed by the increase in growth?