The car maker lobby VDA even says today that stricter emission standards are not needed. Btw, the chairman of the VDA is Matthias Wissmann, wo used to be the German transport minister.
The other sad thing is, that the praised German car manufacturers are about to loose against new comers from the US and China. Good for the environment and the health of the people of course .... but how said Gorbatschow: "Who comes to late ..."
But that is the trouble: Our ministers all have their fallback positions in the industry. Just have a look at the former Schroeder government and what happened to those people.
The guy known as Gazprom Gerhardt, who coincidentally decided to phase out nuclear power? Yeah, sad story.
Besides, while most natural gas consumed in Germany may be for space heating and/or industrial heat, it also provides about 9% of the electricity, which is still a good chunk of money for Gazprom Gerhardt.
By the way, who is the "we" in "we had to force him"?
The heating in Grundremming is new to me, only found a press release from 2012 in which is mentioned. Anyway.
We is the basis of the Social Democratic Party of Germany. In which there was a majority agains the usage of nuclear power for a long time now. It was part of the party platform in 1998.
Also it was his home state of Lower Saxony. The Wendland region was the centre of the resistance against nuclear power. And it was never about the safety of the plants itself but about what should we do with the radioactive waste. A question still unanswered to this day.
The issue in this discussion about Diesel and Gerhard Schröder is a different one. When he was Prime Minister of Lower Saxony and when he was the Chancellor, he always listened to the automotive industry. And this haunts us to this day.
Either or. Combined cycle ("GuD") is more efficient than coal, simple cycle responds faster. But you'll never guess what responds the fastest---it's the large nuclear plants (http://www.mb.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/sites/Archiv/pdf/Sonderdruc..., p.10).
Waste should be recycled, unlike the wastes from fossil fuels, such as NOx, which have to be released into the atmosphere.
Anyway, at least we can agree that Gazprom Gerhardt was a crook.