Progress races like a snail in this German way. And yet Roland Gumpert is so impatient! For him, the advantages of fuel cell propulsion are so obvious that he has no doubts at all: “This is the future, and not just on the road.” Fuel cells could heat homes, make hot water and generate electricity on the side. The beauty of it, he says, is that carbon dioxide is needed to produce the necessary methanol. “What we currently think of as waste turns into a feedstock that we use to make green methanol.” Gumpert calculated what the consequences of a worldwide conversion would be: “If methanol were temporarily stored in all petroleum reservoirs, the whole world would suddenly be carbon dioxide negative.” It will be a long way from “Nathalie” to that point. Too much resistance, too little courage for really new technological solutions in the fight against the climate crisis, says Roland Gumpert, who is nevertheless an optimist. “In history, it has always been the case that the better solution has prevailed in the end.”