E-fuels are a detour on our way to decarbonisation

It takes four times as much energy to drive a car on e-fuels compared to batteries. In addition, they emit as much air pollution as a car running on fossil fuels.

At the eleventh hour of the agreed EU-wide phase-out of Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) cars by 2035, Germany wanted to add a loophole. The push was championed by the oil and auto industries, to allow the continued production after 2035 of ICE cars. The push allowed for ICE cars beyond 2035 if they run on synthetic petrol and diesel – also known as e-fuels. This article will reflect on some of the implications of this push.

E-fuels are made by separating hydrogen from water and adding CO₂. Although the fuels themselves may be made using renewable power, the process is energy intensive. The production of e-fuels would likely be a waste of valuable green energy and their combustion would require direct air capture technology to avoid releasing as much greenhouse gas as fossil fuels. It has been calculated that the e-fuels proposal would derail the decarbonisation of the new fleet and displace up to 46 million electric car sales. The e-fuel intended for new cars could instead have played a role in existing combustion engines not having to rely on fossil petrol. It is estimated that the new e-fuel cars could push old ICE cars to an additional burning of 135 billion litres of fossil petrol.

Furthermore, the complex production processes for e-fuels will make them expensive and energy-dense. In 2030, an average driver in the EU would pay €782 a year more for e-petrol than for conventional fuel, according to Transport & Environment studies. The Potsdam Institute has also calculated that the industrial-scale use of direct air capture to produce e-fuels would mean they would cost four times the price of petrol. Pulling molecules out of air and water is energy-intensive, making it four times more efficient to use renewable electricity to charge an electric vehicle battery than to use it to make e-fuel for a car, according to an International Council on Clean Transport (ICCT) study. If all planned e-fuel projects were to materialise, the Potsdam institute forecasts that, by 2035, global production would still cover only 10 per cent of Germany’s essential demand for e-fuels (from aviation, shipping, and the chemical industry).

And finally, the German push was also a sad day for air pollution, as combustion inevitably emits pollutants. While synthetic fuels can at least theoretically be carbon neutral, they still emit air pollutants, notably toxic NO₂ and carcinogenic particles. Cars running on e-fuels could emit up to 160,000 tonnes of additional NOx pollution in the EU by 2050 – more toxic emissions than from Italy’s car fleet in an entire year. A study comparing air pollution from e-fuels with petrol found no reduction in NOx emissions for any of the e-fuels tested, either in the lab or on road tests, compared to today’s petrol fuel, so the use of e-fuels in cars will have little impact on toxic NO₂/NOx pollution across Europe’s cities. While there was a decrease in particle number concentrations for e-fuels, they still emit an enormous number of particles – at least 2.2 billion particles for every kilometre driven. There was no difference in particle mass concentrations and there was an increase in carbon monoxide, ammonia and hydrocarbon emissions from e-fuels compared to fossil fuels. So, the push for e-fuels is not a push for cleaner air.
With road traffic being a large contributor to the air pollution problem in our cities, maybe e-fuels are best used in other areas. One person who is a bit more positive about e-fuels is Roland Dittmeyer, director of the Institute for Micro Process Engineering at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in Germany. Dittmeyer drives an electric vehicle but thinks e-fuel might be a helpful alternative for de-carbonising aviation where heavy batteries might be a hindrance for longer distances.

One might ask who, given all the above, would push for e-fuels in passenger cars?

Seven of the eFuel Alliance’s 15 board members currently work, or have previously worked, in the oil industry, including Jens-Christian Senger, ExxonMobil’s managing director in Germany. Even if the push for a fossil-free society is underway, the question is now one of speed and scale. The oil industry’s game is to slow things down in Europe while building up fossil demand elsewhere. But as the IPCC laid out very clearly, the future of our planet and our children requires us to move out of oil, coal and gas at breakneck speed.

Ebba Malmqvist

T&E 31 March 2023, "The big e-fuel lie https://www.transportenvironment.org/discover/the-big-e-fuel-lie/
PIK March 2023, E-Fuels - Aktueller Stand und Projektionen, https://www.pik-potsdam.de/members/Ueckerdt/E-Fuels_Stand-und-Projektion...