Are there empty shelves in the supermarket?
AdBlue shortage could lead to new crisis
Created: 09/13/2022 05:04
By: Constantin Hoppe
Should there be a shortage of AdBlue, entire supermarket shelves could remain empty.
© Arnulf Hettrich/Imago
The gas crisis is having a wide impact: Due to the high gas prices, AdBlue producers are now also coming under pressure.
This could lead to another wave of inflation.
Kassel – Consumers are currently groaning under the high prices.
Whether for electricity, gas or in the supermarket - the costs are skyrocketing everywhere.
And the end of the road has not yet been reached: now, in view of the gas crisis, AdBlue for diesel engines is threatening to become scarce.
Trucks are dependent on the substance and may then no longer be able to drive.
Entire supply chains could be paralyzed.
That would have a major impact on consumers, as hna.de writes.
A shortage of AdBlue would mean that almost all haulage companies and transport companies would no longer be on the road with their articulated lorries to deliver goods for supermarkets and dealers.
Companies, petrol stations and supermarkets such as Aldi, Lidl, Rewe and Co. would have major delivery problems.
And that could lead to the next wave of inflation.
The gas crisis is already having an impact on retailers' inventories.
AdBlue shortage and empty supermarkets: The cause lies in the gas crisis
AdBlue is a liquid urea solution and is injected into vehicles with an SCR catalytic converter to reduce nitrogen oxide emissions.
There it reacts with the pollutants and converts them almost entirely into water vapor and harmless nitrogen.
A clean affair as long as there is AdBlue in the tank.
AdBlue | |
---|---|
Owner: | Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA) |
introductory year: | 2009 |
Distribution: | worldwide |
The solution is a by-product of fertilizer production.
But this industry is also suffering greatly from the gas shortage and the energy crisis.
Production requires a lot of gas.
For example, one of the largest fertilizer producers in Germany, SKW nitrogen works Piesteritz in Wittenberg, is threatened by the gas crisis
Production stop and short-time work in October, as the dpa reported.
Empty supermarket shelves at Aldi, Lidl & Co.: Manufacturer SKW is threatened with a production stop in October
However, in addition to fertilizers, SKW also produces AdBlue.
Almost every truck in the forwarding, logistics and transport industry in Germany runs on diesel and therefore requires AdBlue.
"The vehicles also bring the groceries to the supermarkets," said a spokesman for SKW to the dpa.
If the AdBlue tank is empty, the engine control in modern vehicles refuses to restart, the vehicle - regardless of whether it is a car or truck, delivery van, rescue or fire engine - then stops, explains the ADAC.
Significantly more vehicles would be affected than just trucks.
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Empty shelves at Aldi, Lidl, Rewe due to lack of AdBlue?
AdBlue was already running out at the end of 2021 - the gas crisis could now further fuel this development.
According to the Handelsblatt
, shortly after the Ukraine conflict escalated into a war, the price for AdBlue had
doubled and has now quadrupled.
And in the meantime, most of the stocks of AdBlue have been used up by most freight forwarders, as
explained by transport company Georg Mayer to
BR24 .
However, alternative drives also have to contend with disadvantages: they too suffer from the high energy costs, which applies in particular to vehicles with natural gas engines.
AdBlue shortage and empty supermarkets: freight transport or the environment - a dilemma
In Germany, around 3.1 billion tons of goods are delivered by truck every year, according to statistics from the Federal Statistical Office.
These would then largely remain standing, because even if alternative drive systems are on the rise in trucks, they are not yet widespread.
According to the European automobile manufacturers association ACEA, less than 5 percent of the trucks registered in Germany in 2020 had an alternative drive.
So could the supermarket shelves remain empty in just a few weeks due to the lack of AdBlue?
In an emergency, the vehicles would either have to stop or the policy would have to allow the emission of much dirtier exhaust gases, Mayer explained to
BR24
.
But the latter would have a severe impact on the environment.
(con)