Lorries cannot run without AdBlue. Or without drivers
沒有德國品牌的環保汽車尿素(AdBlue，一種觸媒還原劑)，或沒有司機，卡車就無法行駛。
“Lorries are vital for the transport of almost everything in Europe,” says Raluca Marian of the International Road Transport Union (IRU) in Brussels. Three-quarters of all goods in the EU travel by lorry.
布魯塞爾國際公路運輸聯盟(IRU)的Raluca Marian宣稱：「於歐洲，對幾乎所有東西的運輸而言，卡車是不可或缺的。於歐盟，四分之三的貨物經由卡車運輸。」
If half the bloc’s 6.2m heavy-duty vehicles (HDVs) cannot function, supermarket shelves will be empty within days and essential services reliant on ambulances and fire engines will break down.
倘若該集團(歐盟)620萬重型車輛(HDVs)半數無法運轉，則超市貨架將在幾天內空空如也，而仰賴救護車及消防車的基本服務會瓦解。
That could happen if stocks of AdBlue, a mix of urea and deionised water that neutralises nitric-oxide emissions from diesel engines, are depleted. As many as 4m European lorries are programmed to stop after a few kilometres without AdBlue.
倘若AdBlue(中和來自柴油引擎所排放一氧化氮之尿素與去離子水的混合物)被耗盡，那可能發生，多達400 輛歐洲卡車被程式設計為，在沒有 AdBlue的情況下，行駛幾公里後停止。
In August SKW Stickstoffwerke Piesteritz, a chemicals company in eastern Germany that makes about 40% of the country’s supply of AdBlue, stopped production because of exorbitant gas prices. The firm said it was losing €100m ($100m) a month. The firm said it was losing €100m ($100m) a month. In September SKW restarted 45% of its production after gas prices came down a bit. But the damage was done.
SKW Stickstoffwerke Piesteritz是一家位於德國東部，生產該國約40% AdBlue供應量的化學公司，由於過高的天然氣價格，停止生產。該公司表示，其一個月虧損1億歐元(1億美元)。於(2022年)9月，天然氣價格略有下降後，SKW重新啟動了其生產量的45%。不過，損害已經造成。
Constrained supply and higher costs for the two remaining big producers, BASF of Germany and Yara of Norway, pushed the price of a litre of AdBlue to €1.20, up from just 17 cents in August 2021.
由於剩下的兩大生產商，德國巴斯夫(BASF ：Badische Anilin und Soda Fabrik)及挪威雅苒公司，供應受到限制及更高成本，推升了AdBlue的價格，從2021年8月17歐分至1.20歐元。
In an open letter to Robert Habeck, Germany’s economy minister, and Volker Wissing, the transport minister, the chairman of Netzwerk Logistik Mitteldeutschland, a logistics group, lamented that for a haulage firm with a few hundred lorries this translates to extra annual costs of €500,000.
在致德國經濟部長Robert Habeck克及運輸部長Volker Wissing的一封公開信中，物流集團Netzwerk Logistik Mitteldeutschland的董事長抱怨，對一家擁有數百輛卡車的拖運公司而言，這相當於每年50萬歐元的額外成本。
The shortage of AdBlue is the latest blow to German trucking, which is already suffering from high fuel prices and a dearth of truckers. “We are short of 100,000 lorry drivers in Germany,” worries Dirk Engelhardt, head of the BGL, a haulage-industry association.
AdBlue的短缺，對本來就遭受高油價及卡車司機不足影響的德國卡車運輸業，是一項最新的打擊。聯邦道路運輸、物流暨廢物處理協會(BGL：Bundesverband Güterkraftverkehr Logistik und Entsorgung。也就是，拖車業協會)會長，Dirk Engelhardt擔憂道：「於德國，我們短少10萬名卡車司機。」
Across Europe 10% of vacancies are unfilled, says the IRU, equivalent to 425,000 people. Most of the tens of thousands of European truckers who retire every year are not replaced. Off-putting working conditions and the difficulty of combining the job with stable family life is discouraging youngsters and women (who make up just 3% of lorry drivers in Europe) from taking the wheel.
國際道路運輸聯盟(IRU：International Road Transport Union)表示，整個歐洲有10% 空缺未被填補，相當於42萬5千人。每年退休的數萬名歐洲卡車司機，大多數都沒有被接替。令人不愉悅的工作條件及難兼備工作與穩定的家庭生活，正使得年輕人及女性(於歐洲，僅佔卡車司機3%)打消從事駕駛職業的念頭。
Ms Marian wants the European Commission to recognise AdBlue as an “essential product without which logistics chains would stop”. Such a designation could require the chemical’s EU-wide availability to be monitored. She also suggests creating official AdBlue reserves. This seems like a long shot.
Marian女士希望歐盟委員會，承認AdBlue為“不可或缺的產品，沒有它物流鏈將會停擺”。這樣的表明可能需要，監控該化學品之歐盟範圍內的可資使用性。她也建議，創設官方的AdBlue儲備。這好似希望不大。
But even if Ms Marian does not get her way, the shortage of AdBlue may ease once gas-price brakes and other government schemes to mitigate the energy crisis enter into force around the EU. The shortage of drivers will be harder to solve.
不過，即使Marian女士沒能如願以償，一旦天然氣價格被剎住及其他緩解能源危機的政府計劃，在歐盟各地生效。AdBlue的短缺可能緩解。不過，司機的短缺會是較難解決。
A first step would be to make becoming a driver easier and cheaper: getting an HDV licence in Germany takes three years and costs up to €13,000, a big hurdle for most jobseekers. The exam is not available in Ukrainian or Turkish, languages spoken by immigrants who might otherwise be tempted by the profession’s decent pay.
第一步是使成為一名司機，更為容易且花費較為低廉：於德國，獲得重型車輛(HDV：Heavy-Duty Vehicle)駕駛執，證需三年時間且花費高達1萬3千歐元，對大多數求職者而言，這是一大障礙。該種考試不提供，否則可能由被該種職業，相當好薪酬所吸引之移民使用的語言，烏克蘭語或土耳其語。
網址：https://www.economist.com/business/2022/11/10/a-series-of-shortages-threatens-eu-supply-chains?utm_content=article-link-5&etear=nl_today_5&utm_campaign=a.the-economist-today&utm_medium=email.internal-newsletter.np&utm_source=salesforce-marketing-cloud&utm_term=11/14/2022&utm_id=1388750
翻譯：許東榮
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