On the wrong train

If the train is moving in an unfavorable direction politically, the consequences are far more problematic. More and more traditional companies, including important ones, are announcing that they are scaling back their activities in Germany and prefer to operate in neighboring countries. The extent of this can no longer be dismissed as minor collateral damage of an environmentally-oriented economic policy. The opportunity to continue operating our last nuclear power plants on a transitional basis was passed up because government experts claimed that their energy supply was not so significant and could easily be offset. Now, new gas-fired power plants of roughly the same size are to be built - which gives pause for thought.

Have the decision-makers in this government considered the environmental impact of dismantling nuclear power plants? This, together with the construction of new gas-fired power plants, is more than fatal. The decommissioning of highly developed production facilities and their rebuilding elsewhere is also paying into the same account.

It has long been clear from the figures that Germany has become Europe's laggard in terms of economic development. Many international experts also see energy policy as a significant cause of this. Formerly successful branches of industry in Germany are suddenly faced with tasks that are difficult to solve. In the long term, there is certainly cause for concern, as there are negative examples internationally of how interventions in the free functioning of markets, competition and price systems can affect the economic development of countries.

The train is moving, but who is driving it?

A drastic example is Argentina, which was one of the richest countries in the world around 100 years ago and now has a per capita income on a par with Mauritius. Of course, Argentina has been through more than patronage politics and redistribution ideologies. Nevertheless, our level of prosperity in an internationally competitive environment stands on feet of clay. Be that as it may, the train is moving and we can only hope that those who are setting the course will come to their senses. The only thing that companies can do in this situation is to maximize their own resource efficiency.

Even more than in previous years, it is important to analyze and question established processes and, if necessary, to rethink them conceptually. The automotive industry is doing this on a broad scale, as our introductory article in mo issue 3 2024 from page 12 shows. The optimization of pre-treatment and cathodic dip coating, where considerable amounts of resources are in motion, is also being tackled with new concepts(page 30 issue 3 2024). In a well-coordinated development effort, a major Stuttgart-based car manufacturer managed to avoid cost-intensive dryer conversions for the next generation of electric vehicles by using new low-temperature structural adhesives (page20 Issue 3 2024). From optimum coating thicknesses for bonded coatings to prevent squeaking and creaking in the interior(page 24 issue 3 2024) to highly efficient, mains-friendly electroplating rectifiers and the optimization of filtration or mass finishing processes, we hope to provide you with interesting suggestions for improving efficiency.