In Energy Crunch, Germany Turns Down Heat but Won’t Limit Autobahn Speeds

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https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/06/world/europe/germany-autobahn-speed-limits.html

By Christopher F. Schuetze, The New York Times. 

Excerpt: ...Germany is trying any range of measures to combat an energy crisis that is only expected to worsen this winter. Public buildings can be heated to just 66 degrees and most private pools not at all. Starting this month, billboards and other landmarks go dark at 10 p.m. The government has even extended the lives of two of the country’s last nuclear reactors. But the one thing Germany will not do, apparently, is put a general speed limit on the fabled autobahns, a proposal raised — and shot down — even though it could save gasoline and cut carbon dioxide emissions. ...The German Environment Ministry found that if a speed limit of 100 kilometers per hour, about 62 miles per hour, were put in place on the autobahns, with an 80 k.p.h. limit on other roads, Germany’s 48 million automobiles could save 2.1 billion liters of fuel every year. If drivers actually kept to that speed, 5.4 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions could be saved, about 3 percent of all CO2 emitted from transportation. If drivers kept to a speed limit of 130 k.p.h., or 80 m.p.h. — a more realistic limit — the savings would drop to 1.9 million metric tons, or just above 1 percent of total transportation emissions.… 

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