Day 2 of Connecting Clean Mobility conference – funding transborder initiatives

Very practical indeed was the help offered to applications for funding of cross-border cooperation under Interreg IVa – part of the European structural funds programme. Gesucht: Ihre Projektideeen! Ms. Ingrid Klinge-van Roij of Interreg Office concluded her opening speech.

Integration of the Dutch-German border region was to be furthered during the day in various practical sessions. Topics ranged from mobility management – to stimulate a change in mobility behaviour – through a Biofuel Cities expert workshop, to North Rhine-Westphalian/Dutch cooperation in hydrogen projects.

Result
Apart from the conclusions that all parties should make use of existing national and EU funding, and that governments should create (also non-financial) support programmes to develop a stable platform, an extensive list of new project ideas was the day’s result. Some examples:

• Promote cross-border biofuels trade; an ‘e-bay for producers and buyers’ has already been launched
• Synthetic fuels in Megacities in the UK, NL (Randstad) and NRW
• Cross-border bus lines on alternative fuels
• Green corridors for alternative fuel driven vehicles across the EU

Scandinavian expert
The Green Corridors Network workshop saw enthusiastic presentations by young experts on funding problems and requirements in transborder cooperations. Fully improvised by Dr. Magnus Blinge from VINNOVA, Sweden, was the story of how Sweden ended up driving on ethanol. 17 to 20 per cent of new sales yearly, are environment-friendly vehicles, mostly ethanol-driven. Sweden’s green fleet comprises some 80,000 cars by now, on a population of 9.1 million.

What can the Dutch-German border region learn from the Scandinavian experience? Swedish cities began by setting emission standards for buses that only gas driven buses could comply with. Cars, led by municipal fleets and top managers’ company cars, followed. Then came a determining national policy intitiative: every filling station that sold over a certain amount of fuel (90 % of stations met the standard) was obliged to either install at least one alternative pump or invest in innnovation. Most chose the economic option – hence the boost in ethanol pumps. Government tried to compensate by subsidizing gas, but ethanol won.

This shows how govenment policies are not panaceas per se. Blinge fervently stressed the need to diversify and start testing new fuels immediately. He called for a more holistic view on alternative fuels, referring to near-slavery in Brazilian ethanol production and the unfair effect of European agricultural subsidies on ethanol prices.

Diversity and costs
That is what it all boils down to, according to many of the attendees and speakers: diversity and costs.

Chairman Ton Smit of Aardgas Mobiel (CNG Mobile) pleaded for diversity, proposing an end to seeing diesel and cng as opponents. High costs and market inequality for fuel cell-battery hybrid midi buses were the main complaints of attendees to the midi bus session of the hydrogen workshop. And in the biofuels session both clients and operators declared themselves ready to stop tendering by lowest price alone and start a more flexible system, for instance including maximum emission levels.

Not optimal
One can only conclude that fiscal and other stimulative measures, whether by the EU, national, or local, however well-meant, are still not optimal by far.

In the meantime, keep submitting promising transborder projects for Interreg funding. As chairman of the day mr. Jan Dekker, president of KIVI NIRIA put it: “We would be stupid not to use the money”.

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