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Aerial view of the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant which sits on the edge of the Pacific Ocean at Avila Beach in San Luis Obispo County, California on March 17, 2011.
Mark Ralston | AFP | Getty Images

California is not keeping up with the energy demands of its residents.

In August 2020, hundreds of thousands of California residents experienced rolling electricity blackouts during a heat wave that maxed out the state’s energy grid.

The California Independent System Operator issues flex alerts asking consumers to cut back on electricity usage and move electricity usage to off-peak hours, typically after 9 p.m. There were 5 flex alerts issued in 2020 and there have been 8 in 2021, according to CAISO records.

On Friday, Sept. 10, the U.S. Department of Energy granted the state an emergency order to allow natural gas power plants to operate without pollution restrictions so that California can meet its energy obligations. The order is in effect until Nov. 9.

At the same time, the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant, owned by Pacific Gas and Electric and located near Avila Beach in San Luis Obispo County, is in the middle of a decade-long decommissioning process that will take the state’s last nuclear power plant offline.  The regulatory licenses for reactor Unit 1 and Unit 2, which commenced operation in 1984 and 1985 will expire in November 2024 and August 2025, respectively.

Diablo Canyon is the state’s only operating nuclear power plant; three others are in various stages of being decommissioned. The plant provides about 9% of California’s power, according to the California Energy Commission, compared with 37% from natural gas, 33% from renewables, 13.5% from hydropower, and 3% from coal.

Nuclear power is clean energy, meaning that the generation of power does not emit any greenhouse gas emissions, which cause global warming and climate change. Constructing a new power plant does result in carbon emissions, but operating a plant that is already built does not.

California is a strong advocate of clean energy. In 2018, the state passed a law requiring the state to operate with 100% zero-carbon electricity by 2045.

The picture is confusing: California is closing its last operating nuclear power plant, which is a source of clean power, as it faces an energy emergency and a mandate to eliminate carbon emissions.

Why?

The explanations vary depending on which of the stakeholders you ask. But underlying the statewide diplomatic chess is a deeply held anti-nuclear agenda in the state.

“The politics against nuclear power in California are more powerful and organized than the politics in favor of a climate policy,” David Victor, professor of innovation and public policy at the School of Global Policy and Strategy at UC San Diego, told CNBC.

Earthquake country

Diablo is located near several fault lines, cracks in the earth’s crust that are potential locations for earthquakes.

Concerns about nuclear plants and earthquakes grew after the 2011 disaster at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in Japan. On March 11, 2011, a 9.0-magnitude earthquake struck Japan, causing a 45-foot-high tsunami. Cooling systems failed and the plant released radioactive material in the area.

In July 2013, the then on-site Nuclear Regulatory Commission inspector for Diablo Canyon, Michael Peck, issued a report questioning whether the nuclear power plant should be shuttered while further investigation was done on fault lines near the plant. The confidential report was obtained and published by the Associated Press, and resulted in an extensive review process.

The Hosgri fault line, located about 3 miles away from Diablo Canyon, was discovered in the 1970s when construction was in early stages and the NRC was able to make changes to the research and construction plans. Peck’s filing brought attention to another collection of nearby fault lines — the Shoreline, Los Osos and San Luis Bay.

All of these discussions of safety are set against a backdrop of shifting sentiment about nuclear energy in the United States.

“Since Three Mile Island and then Chernobyl there has been a political swing against nuclear—since the late 1970s,” Victor told CNBC. “Analysts call this ‘dread risk’ — a risk that some people assign to a technology merely because it exists.  When people have a ‘dread’ mental model of risk it doesn’t really matter what kind of objective analysis shows safety level. People fear it.”

SAN LUIS OBISPO, CALIFORNIA -JUNE 30: Anti nuclear supporters at Diablo Canyon anti-nuclear protest, June 30, 1979 in San Luis Obispo, California. (Photo by Getty Images/Bob Riha, Jr.)
Bob Riha Jr | Archive Photos | Getty Images

For citizens who live nearby, the fear is tangible.

“I’ve basically grown up here. I’ve been here all my adult life,” Heidi Harmon, the most recent mayor of San Luis Obispo, told CNBC.

“I have adult kids now, but especially after 9/11, my daughter, who was quite young then, was terrified of Diablo Canyon and became essentially obsessed and very anxious knowing that there was this potential security threat right here,” Harmon told CNBC.

In San Luis Obispo County, a network of loud sirens called the Early Warning System Sirens is in place to warn nearby residents if something bad is happening at the nuclear power plant. Those sirens are tested regularly, and hearing them is unsettling.

“That is a very clear reminder that we are living in the midst of a potentially incredibly dangerous nuclear power plant in which we will bear the burden of that nuclear waste for the rest of our lives,” Harmon says.

Also, Harmon doesn’t trust PG&E, the owner of Diablo Canyon, which has a spotted history. In 2019, the utility reached a $13.5 billion settlement to resolve legal claims that its equipment had caused various fires around the state, and in August 2020 it pleaded guilty to 84 counts of involuntary manslaughter stemming from a fire caused by a power line it had failed to repair.

“I know that PG&E does its level best to create safety at that plant,” Harmon told CNBC. “But we also see across the state, the lack of responsibility, and that has led to people’s deaths in other areas, especially with lines and fires,” she said.

Heidi Harmon, former mayor of San Luis Obispo
Photo courtesy Heidi Harmon

While living in the shadow of Diablo Canyon is scary, she is also well aware of the dangers of climate change.

“I’ve got an adult kid who was texting me in the middle of the night asking me if this is the apocalypse after the IPCC report came out, asking me if I have hope, asking me if it’s going to be okay. And I cannot tell my kid that it’s going to be okay, anymore,” Harmon told CNBC.

But PG&E is adamant that the plant is not shutting down because of safety concerns.

The utility has a team of geoscience professionals, the Long Term Seismic Program, who partner with independent seismic experts to ensure the facility remains safe, Suzanne Hosn, a spokesperson for PG&E, told CNBC.

The main entrance into the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power plant in San Luis Obispo, Calif., as seen on Tues. March 31, 2015.
Michael Macor | San Francisco Chronicle | Hearst Newspapers via Getty Images

“The seismic region around Diablo Canyon is one of the most studied and understood areas in the nation,” Hosn said. ”The NRC’s oversight includes the ongoing assessment of Diablo Canyon’s seismic design, and the potential strength of nearby faults. The NRC continues to find the plant remains seismically safe.”

A former technical executive who helped operate the plant also vouched for its safety.  

“The Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant is an incredible, marvel of technology, and has provided clean, affordable and reliable power to Californians for almost four decades with the capability to do it for another four decades,” Ed Halpin, who was the Chief Nuclear Officer of PG&E from 2012 until he retied in 2017, told CNBC.

“Diablo can run for 80 years,” Halpin told CNBC. “Its life is being cut short by at least 20 years and with a second license extension 40 years, or four decades.”

Local power-buying groups don’t want nuclear

PG&E offered a very different reason for closing Diablo Canyon when it set the wheels in motion in 2016.

According to legal documents PG&E submitted to the California Public Utilities Commission, the utility anticipated lower demand — not for energy in general, but for nuclear energy specifically.

One reason is a growing number of California residents buying power through local energy purchasing groups called community choice aggregators, the 2016 legal documents say. Many of those organizations simply refuse to buy nuclear.

There are 23 local CCAs in California serving more than 11 million customers. In 2010, less than 1% of California’s population had access to a CCA, according to a UCLA analysis published in October. That’s up to more than 30%, the report said.

The Redwood Coast Energy Authority, a CCA serving Humboldt County, strongly prefers renewable energy sources over nuclear, Executive Director Matthew Marshall told CNBC.

“Nuclear power is more expensive, it generates toxic waste that will persist and need to be stored for generations, and the facilities pose community and environmental risks associated with the potential for catastrophic accidents resulting from a natural disaster, equipment failure, human error, or terrorism,” said Marshall, who’s also the president of the trade association for all CCAs in California.

Consequently, the Redwood Coast Energy Authority has refused all power from Diablo Canyon.

There are financial factors at play, too. CCAs that have refused nuclear power stand to benefit financially when Diablo shuts down. That’s because they are currently paying a Power Charge Indifference Adjustmentfee for energy resources that were in the PG&E portfolio for the region before it switched over to a CCA. Once Diablo is gone, that fee will be reduced.

Meanwhile, CCAs are aggressively investing in renewable energy construction. Another CCA in California, Central Coast Community Energy, which also decided not to buy nuclear power from Diablo Canyon, has instead invested in new forms of energy.

PALM SPRINGS, CA – MARCH 27: Giant wind turbines are powered by strong winds in front of solar panels on March 27, 2013 in Palm Springs, California. According to reports, California continues to lead the nation in green technology and has the lowest greenhouse gas emissions per capita, even with a growing economy and population. (Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)
Kevork Djansezian | Getty Images News | Getty Images

“As part of its energy portfolio in addition to solar and wind, CCCE is contracting for two baseload (available 24/7) geothermal projects and large scale battery storage which makes abundant daytime renewable energy dispatchable (available) during the peak evening hours,” said the organization’s CEO, Tom Habashi.

Technically, California’s 2018 clean energy law requires 60% of that zero-carbon energy come from renewables like wind and solar, and leaves room open for the remaining 40% to come from a variety of clean sources. But functionally, “other policies in California basically exclude new nuclear,” Victor told CNBC. 

The utility can’t afford to ignore the local political will.

“In a regulated utility, the most important relationship you have is with your regulator. And so it’s the way the politics gets expressed,” Victor told CNBC. “It’s not like Facebook, where the company has protesters on the street, people are angry at it, but then it just continues doing what it was doing because it’s got shareholders and it’s making a ton of money. These are highly regulated firms. And so they’re much more exposed to politics of the state than you would think of as a normal firm.”

Cost uncertainty and momentum

Apart from declining demand for nuclear power, PG&E’s 2016 report also noted California’s state-wide focus on renewables, like wind and solar.

As the percentage of renewables continues to climb, PG&E reasoned, California will collect most of its energy when the sun shines, flooding the electricity grid with surges of power cyclically. At the times when the electricity grid is being turbocharged by solar power, the constant fixed supply of nuclear energy will actually become a financial handicap.

When California generates so much energy that it maxes out its grid capacity, prices of electricity become negative — utilities essentially have to pay other states to take that energy, but are willing to do so because it’s often cheaper than bringing energy plants offline. Although the state is facing well-publicized energy shortages now, that wasn’t the case in 2016.

PG&E also cited the cost to continue operating Diablo, including compliance with environmental laws in the state. For example, the plant was has a system called “once-through cooling,” which uses water from the Pacific Ocean to cool down its reactors. That means it has to pump warmed ocean water back out to the coastal waters near Diablo, which alarms local environmental groups.

Finally, once the wheels are in motion to shut a nuclear plant down, it’s expensive and complicated process to reverse.

Diablo was set on the path to be decommissioned in 2016 and will operate until 2025. Then, the fuel has to be removed from the site.

“For a plant that has been operational, deconstruction can’t really begin until the fuel is removed from the reactor and the pools, which takes a couple years at least,” Victor told CNBC. Only then can deconstruction begin.

Usually, it takes about a decade to bring a nuclear plant offline, Victor told CNBC, although that time is coming down.

“Dismantling a nuclear plant safely is almost as hard and as expensive as building one because the plant was designed to be indestructible,” he said.

Politics favor renewables

All of these factors combine with a political climate that is almost entirely focused on renewables.

In addition to his academic roles, Victor chairs the volunteer panel that is helping to oversee and steward the closing of another nuclear power plant in California at San Onofre. There, an expensive repair would have been necessary to renew the plant’s operating license, he said.

Kern County, CA – March 23: LADWPs Pine Tree Wind Farm and Solar Power Plant in the Tehachapi Mountains Tehachapi Mountains on Tuesday, March 23, 2021 in Kern County, CA.(Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
Irfan Khan | Los Angeles Times | Getty Images

“The situation of Diablo is in some sense more tragic, because in Diablo you have a plant that’s operating well,” Victor said. “A lot of increasingly politically powerful groups in California believe that [addressing climate change] can be done mainly or exclusively with renewable power. And there’s no real place for nuclear in that kind of world.”

The pro-nuclear constituents are still trying. For example, Californians for Green Nuclear Power is an advocacy organization working to promote Diablo Canyon to stay open, as is Mothers for Nuclear.

“It’s frustrating. It’s something that I’ve spent well in excess of 10,000 hours on this project pro bono,” said Gene Nelson, the legal assistant for the independent nonprofit Californians for Green Nuclear Power.

“But it’s so important to our future as a species — that’s why I’m making this investment. And we have other people that are making comparable investments of time, some at the legal level, and some in working on other policies,” Nelson said.

Even if California can eventually build enough renewables to meet the energy demands of the state, there are still unknowns, Victor said.

“The problem in the grid is not just the total volume of electricity that matters. It’s exactly when the power is available, and whether the power can be turned on and off exactly as needed to keep the grid stabilized,” he told CNBC. “And there, we don’t know.”

“It might be expensive. It might be difficult. It might be that we miss our targets,” Victor told CNBC. “Nobody really knows.”

For now, as California works to ramp up its renewable energy resources, it will depend on its ability to import power, said Mark Z. Jacobson, a professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Stanford. Historically, the state has imported hydropower from the Pacific Northwest and Canada, and other sources of power from across the West.

“California will be increasing renewable energy every year from now on,” Jacobson told CNBC. “Given California’s ability to import from out of state, there should not be shortfalls during the buildout.”

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Honda’s Prologue electric SUV is taking the US by storm

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Honda's Prologue electric SUV is taking the US by storm

Honda’s first electric SUV, the Prologue, is already a top-selling EV in the US. With demand picking up, the Honda Prologue is shaping up to be a hit.

Honda Prologue EV sales are picking up in the US

The electric SUV was the fifth best-selling EV in the US, with sales topping 12,600 in the third quarter.

According to Cox Automotive, the Prologue trailed only Tesla’s Model Y, Model 3, Cybertruck, and the Ford Mustang Mach-E.

The performance is impressive, given that Honda didn’t sell a single EV in the US last year. With over 4,100 Prologue’s sold in October, Honda continued outpacing several rivals. The electric SUV outsold the Ford Mustang Mustang Mach-e, which sold 3,313 units in the US last month.

Through October 2024, Honda Prologue sales reached 18,309 in the US, compared to zero last year. Honda began delivering Prologue models in March.

Based on GM’s Ultium platform, the SUV offers up to 296 miles of driving range. Although it uses the same platform as new Chevy, Cadillac, and GMC models, Honda fine-tuned the EV to help it stand out.

Honda's-Prologue-US
2024 Honda Prologue Elite (Source: Honda)

Honda added a multi-link front and rear suspension to give it a more “sporty” feel. The Prologue also features built-in Google with AppleCarPlay and Android Auto support, something GM has abandoned.

2024 Honda Prologue trim Starting Price
(w/o $1,395
destination fee)
Starting price after
tax credit

(w/o $1,395
destination fee)
Starting price after
tax credit

(with $1,395
destination fee)
EPA Range
(miles)
EX (FWD) $47,400 $39,900 $41,295 296
EX (AWD) $50,400 $42,900 $44,295 281
Touring (FWD) $51.700 $44,200 $45,595 296
Touring (AWD) $54,700 $47,200 $48,595 281
Elite (AWD) $57,900 $50,400 $51,795 273
2024 Honda Prologue prices and range by trim

The 2024 Honda Prologue EX FWD trim starts at $47,400. With the $7,500 federal tax credit, the electric SUV could be bought for under $40,000 (not including the destination fee).

Electrek’s Take

Although Honda took longer to introduce its first electric SUV in the US, the company is quickly looking to make up ground.

The Prologue, like GM’s new Chevy Equinox and Blazer EVs, is seeing sales surge in the US as new models roll out to dealerships.

Despite headlines claiming EV sales are “slowing” or “cooling,” many automakers, including Honda and GM, are posting record numbers. It isn’t a secret. With long-range models, tech-loaded EVs offered at an affordable price, GM and Honda are proving the demand is there.

Are you ready to see what all the hype is about? Check out Honda’s electric SUV for yourself. You can use our link to find deals on the 2024 Honda Prologue at a dealer near you.

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Coinbase’s big election bet is about to be tested

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Coinbase's big election bet is about to be tested

How Coinbase is looking to drive crypto voters to the polls

WASHINGTON — In the first few years after founding Coinbase, CEO Brian Armstrong shied away from Washington, D.C. But as his ambitions for his crypto exchange scaled, so too did his need to curry favor on Capitol Hill.

“About five or six years ago, we realized that crypto was getting big enough that we needed to go really engage actively in a policy effort, so I started coming out to D.C.,” Armstrong, who started Coinbase in 2012, told CNBC in September, following a day of meetings with political leaders.

Now, it’s practically Armstrong’s full-time job, and Coinbase’s money is all over the nation’s capital. The company was one of the top corporate donors this election cycle, giving more than $75 million to a group called Fairshake and its affiliate PACs, including a fresh pledge of $25 million to support the pro-crypto super PAC in the 2026 midterms. Armstrong personally contributed over $1.3 million to a mix of candidates up and down the ballot.

The tech industry’s biggest names have dotted Washington for years to try and push their agendas as their market caps have expanded, but for Coinbase, the matter is potentially existential.

SEC Chair Gary Gensler sued the firm last year over claims that it sells unregistered securities. A judge has since ruled that the case should be heard by a jury. Coinbase has fought back vociferously, and has also said that it wants to work with regulators to come up with a proper set of laws governing the nascent industry.

Meanwhile, Coinbase faces a growing list of competitors.

In the company’s latest quarterly earnings report last week, Coinbase missed on the top and bottom lines due to lower transaction revenues and a drop in subscription and services revenues. The shares plummeted 15%.

Data from CCData shows the exchange is losing spot market share to industry rivals like Crypto.com. And investors have many new options for accessing bitcoin and ethereum since the SEC greenlit spot funds this year. BlackRock’s ETF chief Samara Cohen told CNBC that 75% of its bitcoin buyers are crypto investors who are new to Wall Street.

Washington can’t save Coinbase from the competition, but the company is betting that, with favorable lawmakers in place, it can be the leader in a thriving industry rather than under the constant threat of lawsuits and Wells notices.

Armstrong said his D.C. visits normally took place once or twice a year. Then it got to be at least a quarterly occasion. And the pace has only increased.

“In the beginning, a lot of people didn’t know what crypto was,” Armstrong said of his earlier trips. Now, “the discussion has advanced, really, to, how do we pass clear rules, create legislation in the United States?”

Coinbase's legal chief on crypto's 2024 election spending

An SEC sans Chair Gensler

Paul Grewal, Coinbase’s chief legal officer, attended a fundraiser in San Francisco in June that raised $12 million for former President Donald Trump. It was hosted by venture capitalist David Sacks, a former Trump critic who became an outspoken supporter when he became the Republican nominee.

Grewal later joined a fundraiser in Nashville in July for the former president.

Trump has never shown much of an aptitude for the nuances of crypto, but he’s welcomed the industry’s financial support. He was applauded in the summer, when he vowed to fire Gensler as head of the SEC if he wins.

Grewal told CNBC that he’s had “many conversations” behind closed doors with both the Trump camp as well as Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign. Heading into Election Day on Tuesday, the candidates were in a virtual dead-heat.

“What I think we’re hearing from both campaigns is they get it,” Grewal said. “They understand that in swing state after swing state, there are enough voters who care about crypto that the candidate and their campaigns need to give voice to the concerns of those voters in supporting sensible rules for crypto, sensible legislation coming out of Congress, and that’s very encouraging.”

Grewal said that Trump “came earlier to this pro-crypto view,” but said that Harris recognizes the need for “an agenda focused on promoting sensible rules for crypto as much as any other technology.”

But Coinbase has stayed out of the presidential contest and focused its finances exclusively on Congressional races, as the company looks to help assemble a group of lawmakers with favorable views of the industry.

The Stand With Crypto Alliance, launched by Coinbase last year, has developed a grading system for House and Senate candidates across the country.

In the Ohio Senate race, for example, the organization gives Democratic incumbent Sen. Sherrod Brown, who chairs the banking committee, an “F” grade, versus an “A” grade for his Republican rival Bernie Moreno, a blockchain entrepreneur. Some $40 million of crypto money has been directed at defeating Brown, and one PAC has paid for five ads designed to boost awareness of Moreno. The race is very close and is crucial in determining which party will control the Senate.

Stand with Crypto, which has enrolled 1.4 million advocates across the country, is also working to mobilize digital asset owners living in swing states. This effort involved a cross-country bus tour through battlegrounds focused on getting these residents registered to vote.

Crypto climbs and bitcoin nears all-time high ahead of U.S. election

“It’s really extraordinary, given how razor-thin the margin of victory was in the 2020 election, to see crypto not only be an issue, but potentially a determinative issue in terms of the presidential cycle,” Faryar Shirzad, Coinbase’s chief policy officer, said in an interview.

Shirzad said that last year, he and his team concluded that the only way to get politics out of crypto was “to build our own political operation.” He said the goal is to “neutralization the politicization of the crypto issue and talk about it on the merits.”

Coinbase is far from alone. Nearly half of all corporate money raised this election comes from crypto firms.

Fairshake, one of the top spending PACs this cycle, told CNBC it’s raised around $170 million this election and disbursed approximately $135 million.

Ripple Labs is another one of Fairshake’s top political donors.

The company, which has spent more than $100 million battling Gensler, has given around $50 million to Fairshake. Several executives have also contributed to a mix of Democratic and Republican candidates in races across the country.

Ripple’s head of U.S. public policy, Lauren Belive, told CNBC at a fintech conference in Las Vegas that the company was motivated by the SEC’s overreach.

“We really wanted to put people into office that could learn about this technology and understand this technology, because we need Congress to act and to create federal statutes and not have this enforcement regime,” said Belive. She added the regulator has issued over 100 enforcement actions against crypto-aligned companies.

Crypto donor Chris Larsen on why he's giving millions to the Harris campaign

The crypto voter

Bitcoin slumps to $67,000 level on eve of U.S. election: CNBC Crypto World

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No backing down on CO2 targets, says EU’s next transport head

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No backing down on CO2 targets, says EU's next transport head

The next European commissioner for sustainable transport drew a hard line in a hearing this week: Apostolos Tzitzikostas backs e-mobility and has no intention of watering down the EU’s plan to ban new registrations for ICE cars in 2035. Problem is, it’s not clear how he aims to make this happen.

At an hours-long hearing Monday before the Transport Committee, live-reported by Politico, the man designated the take the top seat in transport as EU commissioner, Greek politician Apostolos Tzitzikostas, clearly talked the talk. He held firm that he won’t delay next year’s emission targets, regardless of relentless pressures from the automobile industry.

“We have specific rules and goals that we want … and we have to stick to the plan. Otherwise the message the European Union will convey … is not a message of stability and trust,” he was quoted as saying via Politico. “We know very well that the technology is going forward.”

What about Europe’s automobile industry, which employs 14 million people across the bloc and is deep in crisis mode and facing a potential 15 billion euros a year in fines by failing to meet the CO2 targets? Profits are tanking, factories are closing, and European automakers are losing dominance to Chinese competition. Don’t worry, Tzitzikostas said. He will offer a full-scale plan early in his tenure, so we’ll just have to wait and see what this means: more restrictions on Chinese-made vehicles, more government subsidies on electric vehicles?

“We have to make everything in our power to make [the car sector] survive,” Tzitzikostas said. “The automotive industrial plan will give answers to all these skepticisms you might have.”

“There is no reason to be worried.” Hmm, vagueness isn’t very comforting, I’m sure.

However, one solution put on the table was the EU’s support of all-electric company fleets, which account for half of all new registrations across the EU. Doing so would also create a second-hand market in EVs in that most company fleets are purchased by lease, so cars are replaced a few years later. “I can’t say if it would be done by incentives or taxation, but I can’t exclude legislative action.”

From 2035, cars emitting CO2 may not be registered in the EU, which was put in place by Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s “Green Deal” during her first term in office. To secure a majority vote for her second term, she called for an exemption for combustion engines that are operated with e-fuels. One thing that was clear from the hearing is that Tzitzikostas too supports that position, and wants e-fuels to be included in legislation up for review in 2026.

The future commissioner also wants to drive investment and solutions into sustainable transport, looking into greener air travel by scaling greener fuels, and making rail travel more attractive by allowing rail travelers to use a single ticket and booking system for cross-border train journeys. Lest the automobile industry panic even further, Tzitzikostas added that he does not want to lose sight of road transport and helping European carmakers make the shift to electric vehicles. But again, no details here.

“Commissioner-designate Tzitzikostas talked a good game about cleaning up Europe’s top polluter, transport,” said William Todts, executive director of T&E in a statement. “He showed commitment to e-mobility, scaling clean fuels for aviation and shipping, and solving rail ticketing. But he said very little about what exactly he would do when appointed Commissioner. His repeated refusal to commit to a much anticipated EU law to electrify corporate car fleets was bewildering.”

Still, it’s early days for Tzitzikostas, whose closing remarks, after more than three hours of grilling by MEPs, got a hearty round of applause. His confirmation vote quickly followed, so the tough job of handling Europe’s green transition will soon be all his.

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