Online retail is booming, with some 3.65 billion packages being sent in Germany in 2019 and that figure likely to rise considerably because of the coronavirus pandemic. This has led to a veritable deluge of packaging waste – a problem German French start-up LivingPackets aims to solve with something called, simply, The Box.
The northern German city of Hamburg has extended a program to subsidizing the purchase of electric and conventional cargo bicycles.
US automaking giant Ford has joined the German e-scooter market. This summer, Ford subsidiary Spin rolled out two-wheelers in the western German cities of Cologne, Dortmund and Essen.
Germany’s public utilitites regulatory body, the Federal Network Agency (BNetzA), says that the country made major progress in expanding its power grid in 2019.
Combatting climate change is not only potentially essential to human survival. According to a study by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), it makes just as much economic sense.
One intriguing idea for how to store excess energy produced by renewable sources for when it is needed is power-to-gas technology. It converts electricity into hydrogen via electrolysis, which is then introduced into the natural-gas network.
Regional train authority SFBW has purchased 20 Siemens Mobility hybrid-battery trains for use in the southern German state of Baden-Württemberg.
Germany is building the world’s first-ever hydrogen fueling station for passenger trains. Work on the facility in the northern town of Bremervörde is set to commence in September.
On July 23, the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy’s Digital Hub Initiative – together with the Dutch group The Next Web – hosted its first-ever “Start-Up Games.” The event saw innovative fledgling businesses pitching ideas to international investors. And the winner was Hamburg’s Breeze Technologies.
One source of the plastic waste that is increasingly endangering the environment, particularly in the world’s oceans, are detergent and cleaning solvent containers. German company Ecotab is trying to do something about that.
