German Environmental Award for ads-tec Energy: "Combustion engine is coming to its end"

Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in view of the challenges in climate and environmental protection, made a vehement plea for the "strength of democracy." "This approach will always be superior to populism and the arbitrariness of an autocracy!" said Steinmeier at the awarding of the German Environmental Prize by the Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt (DBU) in Mainz. The DBU awards the prize of a total of 500,000 euros annually. It is one of the most highly endowed environmental awards in Europe. This year, peat researcher Franziska Tanneberger and e-mobility pioneer Engineer Thomas Speidel share the prize.

"It is simply about preserving our livelihoods, to courageously continue to work with determination and day by day for the protection of climate, environment, resources, and biodiversity, despite multiple wars and crises worldwide. It is simply about preserving the livelihoods for people, but of course also for animals and plants," explained DBU General Secretary Alexander Bonde.

Business and science are repeatedly the origin of clever and innovative ideas to tackle this future task. Such insights and role models, in turn, have the potential to inspire other people to groundbreaking ideas, Bonde further believes. In times of increasing misinformation about climate and environmental issues, such motivators are all the more important "so that we do not let up on climate and environmental protection."

"The classic combustion engine will come to an end"

Addressing Thomas Speidel and referring to his work, the Federal President, with reference to Carl Benz and Gottlieb Daimler as "two of the most visionary German inventors" who, like Speidel, came from the southwest of Germany and "enabled individual mobility for the whole world," took a clear position. 

"The classic combustion engine, on which this mobility was based, will come to an end." Due to the "climate-altering" emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) from car and truck traffic, "there can be no reasonable doubt about this," said Federal President Steinmeier.

But how quickly e-mobility will become a widespread reality depends on "whether we find ways and means to overcome the existing technical and practical obstacles in everyday life." According to Steinmeier, this is where "the strength of democracy" lies: because it makes it possible to "correct dead ends, weaknesses, mistakes that are inevitable on the unknown path to comprehensive and sustainably effective climate and environmental protection," again and again. Only in a democracy can it be negotiated "how quickly and decisively we want - or, more precisely: have to go - this or that way." Equally important is "which compensation is fairly necessary for those who are facing significant upheavals and cannot tackle these as easily as others."
 

Finding Paths to E-Mobility

Award winner Speidel, for example, has found a solution for new ways of electric mobility: How to charge an electric car in the shortest possible time even in places where an extensive power grid for charging infrastructure is lacking. Intact moors are significant for a good climate and biodiversity. Moor researcher Tanneberger, who contributed to the first global report on moor conditions, is awarded the German Environmental Prize by the DBU because, according to Bonde, she "has driven forward the revitalization of moors as a driving force and at the same time built bridges between science, politics, and agriculture."

Daring Radical Transformation: Combustion Engine Supplier to E-Mobility Pioneer

Electrical engineer Thomas Speidel (57) is the CEO of the now publicly traded company ads-tec Energy in Nürtingen near Stuttgart, with further locations in Klipphausen near Dresden and Auburn in the U.S. state of Alabama. His portfolio includes more than 60 German and international patent applications. The DBU awards him the German Environmental Prize partly because, with his innovations in battery-buffered fast charging systems named ChargeBox and ChargePost, he enables electronic vehicle charging in minutes instead of hours, thus speeding up the expansion of electromobility. Additionally, because he has dared to lead his company through a radical transformation: from a combustion engine supplier to a pioneer of e-mobility.

Peatland as an Engine for CO2 Reduction

The Federal President also acknowledged Tanneberger's achievements with a clear stance - including a rhetorical excursion into poetry. The peatland has often been a "little appreciated landscape," said Steinmeier. Among other things, this has led to "peatlands being undervalued, readily sacrificed, drained, and used for agricultural purposes." Drained peatlands result in the release of large amounts of climate-damaging greenhouse gases. According to Steinmeier, peatland is rarely a topic in narratives, novels, songs, and poetry - and if so, then rather in darker variations, such as with the Westphalian poet Annette von Droste-Hülshoff. However, Tanneberger has succeeded in raising awareness of "how significant intact peatlands are for a good climate and also for biodiversity."