https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/may/05/e-fuels-cars-aviation
"Most bright red sports cars do not make much of their green credentials. Yet a
test run in Bicester, Oxfordshire, by the startup Zero Petroleum last month
gave a glimpse of a future in which combustion engines did not add new carbon
to the atmosphere. The car was running on e-fuel: petrol made using
electricity, hydrogen from water, and carbon captured from the air.
The automotive industry is steadily moving away from fossil fuels, and a firm
global consensus has emerged that battery electric vehicles are the way
forward. Yet that consensus took a knock in March when the EU – to the shock of
energy experts, environmental campaigners and much of the car industry – opened
a small back door to e-fuels.
E-fuels are likely to find a small niche at most, experts predict. In their way
stand fundamental constraints of physics, which would require even more green
energy. They are made in stages: first by splitting water using electricity to
create hydrogen, and then combining it with carbon from CO2 in a process that
requires high pressure and a catalyst. Every stage wastes some energy, and all
the electricity used must be zero-carbon.
“You’re basically trying to unburn petrol,” said Michael Liebreich, a
consultant on clean energy technologies. “You need an insane amount of solar to
do that.”
One big problem with the e-fuel dream is actually finding the stuff. There are
no plants producing it at scale in the world. Nevertheless, some companies have
spotted an opportunity."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
