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WITH THE EU aiming to reduce 100 per cent of CO2emissions from all new vehicles sold after 2035 and a UK ban on new ICE car sales coming into force five years earlier, this could have a knock-on effect for owners of older cars. However, German transport secretary, Michael Theurer, has requested that the EU reconsiders its position on carbon-neutral fuels, issuing an exemption for e-fuels – and the UK could potentially follow.
The advanced technology uses no fossil fuels. Electricity created by wind turbines is used to produce hydrogen through electrolysis; in tandem, CO2 is captured from the ambient air or biological waste, and once combined they create eMethanol. Through a process of synthesis, the eMethanol is converted into synthetic gasoline, which enables the nearly CO2- neutral operation of petrol engines.
Porsche, in partnership with Highly Innovative Fuels, ExxonMobil and Siemens Energy, is leading the fight for renewable fuels. At the end of last year, Porsche opened its e-fuels pilot plant in Chile, where it is producing synthetic fuels on an industrial scale – 130,000-litres annually. Porsche has already invested over $100m (£81m) in the development and production of e-fuels, which could save its halo 911 model from electrification.
Member of the Executive Board for Development and Research at Porsche, Michael Steiner, comments: “The potential of e-fuels is huge. There are currently more than 1.3 billion vehicles with combustion engines worldwide. Many of these will be on the roads for decades to come, and e-fuels offer the owners of existing cars a nearly carbon-neutral alternative.”
In the UK, the Historic & Classic Vehicles Alliance (HCVA) is working with fuel specialist Coryton, and is pushing for government investment via the Automotive Transformation Fund (ATF), a £1bn programme supporting large-scale green industrialisation.
There are different categories of sustainable fuels, ranging from advanced bios to synthetics and e-fuels. Coryton’s work with advanced bios replaces fossil chemistry with a sustainable, environmentally-friendly alternative. It essentially recycles the carbon already present in our atmosphere, using waste to create a b
