Press

Led by Fraunhofer ISI, the BOLD project provided scientific support accompanying three field trials and twelve other research projects on electric trucks powered by overhead lines. Together with ifeu and Öko-Institut and funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action, Fraunhofer ISI analyzed the acceptance of the technology, the opportunities and barriers in industry and the policy landscape as well as the climate and environmental impact of the technology. The now published final report describes the main lessons from these projects and assesses the potential rollout of the technology.

Existing strategies to reduce carbon dioxide emissions are unlikely to be sufficient to mitigate climate change. One way to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide (CO₂) in the air is through negative emissions, which is the removal of CO₂ from the air followed by storage. Various natural and technical processes are available for this purpose. One of these technical options is Direct Air Capture and Carbon Storage (DACCS). In the current Policy Brief, the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research ISI provides an overview of the opportunities and challenges of this process.

Mobile units for processing fruit and vegetables on-site may play an important role in food supply in 2035. The EU’s FOX project investigated the form that such local food chains might take. To this end, Fraunhofer ISI developed future scenarios that could be used to test the viability of business models for regional food processing and distribution.

Many European countries, including Germany, are planning large investments to develop and ramp up the hydrogen industry needed for this. Within the HyPat research project, a new study by Fraunhofer ISI, RIFS Potsdam and the German Energy Agency (dena) makes five recommendations to the EU and the Member States and reveals a significant mismatch between the ratio of current investments and the potentials of individual European regions for low-cost hydrogen production.