BBC Cover Up EU’s U-Turn On Car Ban
March 28, 2023
By Paul Homewood
The BBC has been strangely silent about the EU’s u-turn on the banning of sales of new internal combustion engine cars.
The EU Parliament originally voted last year for the ban, which would take effect in 2035. However Germany and Italy led a rebellion to block the move, and demanded that ICEs should still be allowed so long as they were able to use “carbon neutral” e-fuels, as I noted last week. The EU has now caved in to German demands, but curiously the BBC does not seem very keen for its readers to know!
I wonder why?
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
What exactly is a carbon neutral fuel?
It’s one where carbon emissions involved in the sourcing and burning of the fuel are net “carbon” zero or even – as in the case of Drax with CCS – net “carbon” negative. In the case of cars, it’ll be biofuels from digesters and similar or fuels “grown” from previously productive farmland. You know, the sort of crap in E10 that makes your car less efficient so produces the same of more “carbon”emissions. What’s that you say – “this is all creative accounting to the point of being a scam?” Honestly, David, wash your mouth out with (sustainably-sourced) soap and rainwater!
One without any carbon atoms?
Read all about it…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon-neutral_fuel
“What exactly is a carbon neutral fuel?”
One with a certificate purchased from the “usual suspects” that says it is?
See Drax for example!
An e-fuel is one where the carbon in the fuel has been extracted from the CO2 in the air. So when the fuel is burnt the extracted carbon is returned to the atmosphere as CO2 and the fuel is described as carbon neutral. The simplest is green methane/natural gas/CH4 which is made through anaerobic digestion and does exist. It could also be made via the Sabatier process using green hydrogen (80% efficiency) produced though electrolysis (65% efficiency) with a green energy source. The overall efficiency is around 50% and the whole process would be very expensive…although perhaps if it was not heavily taxed like petrol/diesel, because it is an e-fuel, the price could become acceptable as it does have several advantages over bevs….
Lose tax revenue from the motorist, the milked cow? I can’t see that happening.
Sleight of hand.
Because it’s the BB(EU)C.
Brussels Broadcasting Corporation.
Not sure that the EU climbdown is much of a triumph. Guess what price the e-fuels will be set at? My guess is sufficiently high to price ICE cars off the road. There’s always more than one way to skin a cat.
The Germans are in the business of building, selling and exporting cars. If e- fuels are too expensive to be able achieve that then e-fuels must go whatever Brussels may attempt by way of cat skinning.
Think about it….”demanded that ICEs should still be allowed so long as they were able to use “carbon neutral” e-fuels,”
Note the wording “able to use”. Any “e-fuel” should realistically be chemically indistinguishable from a conventional hydrocarbon so what is actually being said is…carry on with conventional ICEs.
Well spotted 🙂
I sincerely hope you are right, but until we see the actual wording of the Brussels edict, I will remain sceptical. I simply don’t trust the bastards.
Looks like a loophole to me, someone’s starting to get a sneaking suspicion that their mad scheme is all starting to go horribly wrong.
I wouldn’t put it past them to follow this up with a ban on sales of normal petrol and diesel (from 2035, or whenever), so forcing the e-fuel route rather than maintaining the status quo. I can’t see that going down well either as there’s no (volume) production that would satisfy demand. I would imagine e-fuel to also be rather expensive, and can’t see them reducing the duty and other tax levies on it.
They tried to ban incandescent light bulbs but you can still buy them. they are now called rough service bulbs. There are ways around anything.
e-fuels are basically hydrogen mixed with CO2 ( ironic) to produce liquid fuel. To be Co2 neutral the hydrogen has to be ‘green’ hydrogen, ie from renewable generated electricity. At least on paper. In practice of course it will like Netherlands green electricity from Norway, mainly indigenous coal generated.
Indeed as someone has already noted, how would anyone actually know what fuel you were putting in your ICE car.
The French are against it because they didn’t think of this wheeze first!
‘Its the way you tell ’em’
The French are against it because Macron has enough problems with his gilets jaunes and their fellow-travellers without digging himself any bigger holes.
We are heading for a tipping point where the average motorist and the average haulier is going to say ‘enough’. If there was any sort of coherent logic behind the push for net zero or for reducing atmospheric CO2 levels then most sensible people would be prepared at least to consider alternatives to petrol (as they would to domestic heating/cooking fuels).
There is no coherent logic at all to any of it and as the IPCC ramps up the same old scare stories with ever less believable evidence the time is approaching when the BBC will start to get the message.
As, with any luck, will the politicians.
I should have added that 10 years ago I was budgeting 40€ a month for diesel. Having changed cars I am (last week) paying just under 100€ to fill the tank (same capacity) with petrol! And that includes a 10c/litre “rebate” from the French government.
“e-fuels are basically….” almost exactly the same (possibly slightly better) than conventional fuels. No change in engine required.
I’m sure we would have heard from the BBC about the recent Berlin referendum too, if it had gone their way.
Apparently a lot of US ‘philanthropic’ cash went in trying to swing the result, the usual claims about it being what the majority of people want, with realists pointing out it is just a fast road to bankruptcy.
https://m.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/berlin-vote-could-turbocharge-german-capitals-climate-plans/853679057.html
That has been a massive humiliation for the eco-fascists and their wankerati followers – think St Gary of Crisps. Huge sums – millions – poured in by DemoTwats in the US, full media support, cultural events, etc. There was not even a No campaign as it proved they didn’t need one. The Yes votes despite all the propaganda were only 22,000 higher than the No votes but short of the 608,000 votes they needed for 25% of the electorate to win.
In passing, I was taken by the montage header with a strap-line about football teams feeling guilty about taking domestic flights. I thought, they don’t hesitate to drop the knee, or wear Pride armbands and rainbow laces – so, what we need is a team to say they don’t care about the so-called effects that flying has on climate, they are going to fly.
That is the sort of thing that will get people talking.
I recall that the BBC was completely silent when the climategate story broke in 2012, I think it was 2012. The internet was buzzing with the story for weeks before they finally got around to mentioning it.
After the 28 gate thing and the BBC branding anyone sceptical about global warming as a stupid flat earther, I’m wondering how they will handle the world waking up to the fact that it’s all total bollox and always was.
Yes, and a couple of years ago the BBC ran a complete travesty of the Climategate story portraying Michael Mann and Phil Jones as innocent victims!
And recently ran a Radio 4 breakfast time four parter on how the climategate emails were ‘stolen’ by Big Oil, Putin or the CIA. Now see Steve McIntyre’s climateaudit.org exposé of Briffa’s laptop password while in hospital and clearly not rocket science for a disaffected insider. Couldn’t the ‘investigative’ BBC have done that? Oh no had to be a whitewash. And see Ross McKitrick on the four climategate investigations. Let Jones off. ‘Incompetent beyond parody’
There was a good book on Climategate which put the emails into context. At the time the CRU were being subject to FOIA requests for data which leads to the most logical answer to where the emails came from. The emails had been gathered together because of the FOIA requests and an honest person at the CRU got the files and released them. The police whitewash claimed they were hacked but provided no evidence and to admit the truth was not an option to the ecofascists.
Climategate was November 2009.
A comment left on Lucia Liljegren’s “Blackboard” blog by Steven Mosher (sic!!), November 19th 2009 at 1:55 pm says:
“Lucia,
Found this on JeffIds site.”
[Long defunct link]
“It contains over 1000 mails. IF TRUE…
1 mail from you and the correspondence that follows.
And, you get to see somebody with the name of Phil Jones say that he would rather destroy the CRU data than release it to [Steve] McIntyre…:
And VERY MUCH MORE.
All very interesting. Our current King cancelled everything and sped off to the CRU trying to wipe away Phil Jones’s little tears.
Even George Monbiot was (very briefly) outraged at what the emails showed in plain sight.
Even three completely fraudulent and deliberately incompetent Inquiries were unable to completely hide the ugly truth, albeit the fraud continues and has been exacerbated every month of every year since that November day. Damn their black souls.
“Hide the decline!”
How time flies. I think that in my head I had confused it with the ship of fools incident when a bunch of morons went off to investigate the disappearing ice at the South Pole and got stuck. As I recall, the BBC and the Guardian had packed the ship with their reporters to cover the devastating melting going on. There was total silence from the lot of them when things didn’t go quite as planned.
Not only the BBC, also Sky News.
The Daily Express actually reported the first Climategate, but got a D-Notice slapped on it.
>>completely silent when the climategate story broke
Who is surprised. This is par for the course with the partisan BBC. There MUST be a directive document somewhere which instructs departments to memory hole anything which does not fit their multi headed lefty hydra like agenda while at the same time over promoting any twaddle which fits. Hence the incessant climate porn YET the silence when good news occurs. F ex. the way they relegated the good news about the Great Barrier Reef getting better after they hyperventilated for years that it was past dead to their Australian pages only. A totally cynical act, essentially hiding the counter narrative news. You will probably find that news about the EU on the cookery page….
The falling price of 2nd hand EVs and the fact that dealers were losing money was covered by the BBC yesterday. I as waiting for them to mention the EU’s about turn, but of course, absolute silence on the issue. It is also noticeable that the BBC has been extensively covering the unrest in Israel (a far-right government), but no mention of the farmer’s protests across the EU regarding the EU’s farming policies, and barely a mention of the French riots. The BBC News these days is mainly news about the BBC.
Far-right? I assume you are using the BBC description which of course applies to anyone who doesn’t follow their leftie agenda.
Anyone not to the Left of Vladimir Illich Lenin is classed as Far Right by the Wokies these days.
Really, what it comes down to now isn’t Right and Left anymore, it’s Right and Wrong!
Daytime TV poll shows nearly 3/4 of people think eco protestors should be prosecuted.
https://order-order.com/2023/03/28/watch-jolyon-loses-live-on-air/
Why is the BBC silent? Guess!
The next task is to ‘educate’ the EU that the e-fuels line is also a nonsense. Nobody is producing it, and is likely a trap to effectively outlaw ICE cars. E-fuels from renewables, as has been noted, makes absolutely no sense.
Lifted from their own website :-
Mission, values and public purposes
The Royal Charter states that the BBC’s object is “the fulfilment of its Mission and the promotion of its Public Purposes”
Our mission is “to act in the public interest, serving all audiences through the provision of impartial, high-quality and distinctive output and services which inform, educate and entertain”.
The Charter also sets out our five public purposes:
1. To provide impartial news and information to help people understand and engage with the world around them
The BBC should provide duly accurate and impartial news, current affairs and factual programming to build people’s understanding of all parts of the United Kingdom and of the wider world. Its content should be provided to the highest editorial standards. It should offer a range and depth of analysis and content not widely available from other United Kingdom news providers, using the highest calibre presenters and journalists, and championing freedom of expression, so that all audiences can engage fully with major local, regional, national, United Kingdom and global issues and participate in the democratic process, at all levels, as active and informed citizens.
“Mission, values and public purposes – About the BBC” https://www.bbc.com/aboutthebbc/governance/mission
‘Impartial’? Failed
‘Factual’? Failed
‘Range and depth of analysis’? Failed
Subject-qualified reporters/analysts: Major fail.
Etc…
Douglas , thank you for taking the trouble.
You just need to see what the political horror BBC have brought down on Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations to realize they are beyond help and need cutting off immediately from the Public Purse.
This is exactly also what their partners in news manipulation crime in the US MSM get up to and my god how it works!
As ever the devil is in the detail – e-fuels. Really just a concept, and because it is a concept it does not make it viable. Fiddle as much as you like but you caanot beat the laws of thermodynamics. Furstly you will need hydrogen to reduce the carbon dioxide to carbon monoxide then more hydrogen to produce syngas. The syngas can be converted to various e-fuels in a Fischer Tropsch process which is around 65% carbon efficient, meaning that a chunk of the inputs ends up being wasted as heat and flue gas. It barely works on low cost natural gas. On green hydrogen which takes 50 kWh of power to produce 1Kg of hydrogen with an energy content of 38 kWh/ kg it is going to abe a bit expensive. The “experts” are targeting a price of e-hydrogen of $1/kg. Go square that one. That means e-electricity being delivered to the hydrogen electolyser unit at <2cts/ kWh. They will be lucky to produce hydrogen at $5/kg. That makes the ICE defunct.
Ditto carbon neutral anything.
This climb down is just the start of a policy collapse as the threat of a loss of personal mobility causes a revolt. I’ll be bubblewrapping a couple of Citroen diesel’s for my grandchildren
Yep, looks like the wheels are coming off, doesn’t it?
BBC Cover Up EU’s U-Turn On Car Ban
Granting a special case for e fuel is hardly a u-turn.
This is not a victory; there is no reason to celebrate.
As had been mentioned elsewhere, this may be a victory, as the ICE cars must be ‘capable of running on e-fuel’, so as that has to be chemically very similar to existing fuels, means existing petrol/diesel could well continue as is.
The EU stipulation will be overturned, as will the entire zero CO2 scam, in a few years or less. Unlike all the invariably mendacious climate change predictions, this for real!
I feel that this will ALL fall apart the second time a parliamentarian’s Harrods delivery fails to arrive!
Has anyone contacted the BBC for an explanation?
Top gear site has a mention.
https://www.topgear.com/car-news/business/germany-wants-e-fuel-ice-cars-survive-eus-2035-petrol-and-diesel-ban
https://www.topgear.com/car-news/tech/what-are-e-fuels-and-how-are-they-made
Surely the British government should quickly follow suit otherwise EU manufacturers will benefit from 100 per cent of the British car market after 2030 while our own ice car manufacturers are forced to end production. Or are we banning all imports of ice vehicle manufacturers from the EU? This is far more important than the silence of the disgusti8ng BBC.
Actually, if I was living in the UK, I’d be betting on the Japanese! Mr Toyoda has stated that he’s not going for the “electric car”. AND his company makes good, reliable ICE cars!
Control freak Ed Miliband has been caught out AGAIN.
Despite all his preaching and promoting the destructive scam that is named Net Zero; here is a report of the sniveling wretch flying from England to Scotland.
Needless to say, the increasingly pointless Bias Broadcasting Cabal were not the ones to report his hypocritical behaviour.
“Ed Miliband Takes FLIGHT To Scotland For Net Zero Photo-Op”
BBC has now covered the story but spun the headline so a casual reader wouldn’t have a clue at the massive U-turn. It’s in the detail of the article but as dimly lit as possible!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-65105129
The BBC demonstrates its bias approach to news reporting here.
While ignoring developments in Germany surrounding ICE motor cars it does not overlook this bizarre legal claim from Switzerland.
‘The Swiss women – who call themselves the Club of Climate Seniors and have an average age of 73 – say climate change is putting their human rights, their health and even their lives at risk. Their evidence to the court includes their medical records.’
They want the ECHR to order Switzerland to work harder at reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
“Swiss court case ties human rights to climate change – BBC News” https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65107800.amp
The EU needs German money. He who pays the piper calls the tune. The EU is – and always has been – Germany’s poodle.
Well yes, hasn’tthe bbc been awfully quiet… but I think the german equivalent has also been “quite” quiet. and this morning on the “phoenix runde” on their Phoenix TV CHannel, MAny questions, many answers? Alexander Kaehler discusses…. but I hadn’t a CLUE what they were ‘blethering aboot’ because I reckon that either the bloke’s knikkers were in a real twist, OR, or, they had sped up the video playback. Mann! I just had to switch it off… were they trying to hide the decline that way, now? but it’s here to listen again ( I’m not) https://www.ardmediathek.de/video/phoenix-runde/viele-fragen-wenig-antworten-die-zerstrittene-ampel/phoenix/Y3JpZDovL3Bob2VuaXguZGUvMzA5ODA4Ng
The problem is that there is no U-turn. The ban still seems to be there for normal cars i.e. petrol and diesel.
You have to do a lot more than “mix CO2 with hydrogen” to make e-fuel. You have to react them chemically over a catalyst to make a liquid hydrocarbon fuel. Energy input will be needed to 1. extract CO2 from the air, 2. make hydrogen by electrolysing water, 3. compress the hydrogen, 4. react the hydrogen with the CO2. This energy input will be much greater than the energy output when this fuel is burned. So where is all this extra energy going to come from,
Was in the car with my wife listening to Womens’ Hour on the Biased Broadcasting Corporation, we nearly became victims of climate change when a woman from the CCC was interviewed. She spouted unadulterated junk science about how it was essential that the UK speeded up its net zero approach; not a question about the costs or benefits just cooing acquiescence! Just before this they were supporting a Swiss OAP based claim in the European Courts that Global Warming was reducing old-peoples’ life expectancy – no mention of the cold-killer effect of course. We survived for now…..
If I go to (say) France and buy an ICE vehicle there, will I be stopped from bringing it back on the ferry?
Also what about the Withdrawal Agreement and the Level Playing Field? Are we going to ban sales of EU ICE vehicles in the UK and if so what do these legal documents have to say about that ?
I wonder what the situation is for personal imports as that would not be a sale of a vehicle in the UK. Makes you think back to when companies were set up to import ‘grey’ vehicles to take advantage of the lower non-tax price of cars in Denmark and Germany compared to the UK.
Well I would have thought Germany’s energy policy with it subsides for renewables would be blatantly against EU state aid rules under any other circumstance especially as household subsides the cost of industrial electricity. Anyway Germany and France would want to export their car to the UK so I suspect they will make sure this is still allowed and wouldn’t be happy with Chinese car imports.
Also don’t forget about the Republic of Ireland. I doubt they would dare ban import from the republic to Northern Ireland.
Well NI is still in the Single Market. Does this not mean that anything from the EU can be placed on the market there without let or hindrance ?
Having been sold and registered in NI, can it not then be put on a ferry to Britain and driven around legally ?
“Well NI is still in the Single Market. Does this not mean that anything from the EU can be placed on the market there without let or hindrance ?”
I suspect in practice if we are talking about German or French car – yes unless they find a safety related issue e.g. the French with British beef and even then.
“Having been sold and registered in NI, can it not then be put on a ferry to Britain and driven around legally ?”
Yes like many bus & coaches do to take advantage of the fact Northern Ireland never changed its vehicle registration format in 1963 to contain an age identifier which happened as many councils in Great Britain had ran out of unused vehicle registration. I doubt they would make it harder to move a car from Northern Ireland to the rest of the UK than to the Republic of Ireland due to the way unionist would see it.
Surely it would have been easier to have four numerals instead of three.
On the European mainland and also outside Europe, I don’t think it is possible to identify the year of registration or manufacture from the number plate.
In some countries (but not all) outside the UK, you can see the town/region where the vehicle was first registered (or reregistered if you move house, for example Germany). Germany is a special case, but usually the registration number stays with the vehicle for its entire life unless you get a personal plate.
>>age identifier which happened as many councils in Great Britain had ran out of unused vehicle registration
“Surely it would have been easier to have four numerals instead of three.”
The original 1904 scheme always had 4 numerals but 1 was replaced with a letter to avoid increasing the number of characters on the number plates in the post 1963 year identifier system.