Cars that have a dual drive system, consisting of a battery drive and a combustion engine, should also be registered after 2035. This is how Chancellor Friedrich Merz put it in his letter to the President of the EU Commission and added a prerequisite: the remaining emissions in the automobile and fuel sectors would have to be offset. Since then, a debate has been raging not only in Brussels offices, the focus of which is the question of how this could be achieved. The only thing that is clear is that a vehicle registered in 2036 will most likely still be in operation in the middle of the century, at a point in time when the European Union wants to be climate neutral. If the car is not to be fueled with fossil gasoline or diesel, an alternative must be found, or better yet two, because even though most hybrid drives use a gasoline engine, diesel still has a significant market share in large and frequently moving vehicles. Now it is already not the case that the only thing that flows into the tank at the pump is processed petroleum. Ten percent of the common E10 gasoline fuel and seven percent of diesel are based on biological raw materials. As long as no forests are cleared for their cultivation, this results in significant CO2 savings. According to data from the European Statistical Office, the reduction achieved in this way is on average 5.6 percent. A car whose emissions are 100 grams of CO2 per kilometer, officially measured at the exhaust, actually deposits around 95 additional grams in the atmosphere. It would make sense to continue on this path and first increase the renewable proportion of the fuel as much as possible, so that the engines of the around 250 million cars on Europe’s roads are not damaged. To do this, detailed regulations must be adhered to; they prescribe what a fuel placed on the market may or may not contain. HVO is already approved for many diesel engines. For diesel fuel, the way to increase the biogenic content without using agricultural land is initially through hydrogenated vegetable oils, commercially referred to as HVO (“hydrated vegetable oil”). To produce them, waste from food production, including animal fats, is cleaned, pumped with hydrogen and chemically converted into a suitable form. Since the density is somewhat lower than that of fossil diesel, HVO in its pure form may only be used in vehicles approved for this purpose. Europe’s largest car manufacturer Volkswagen has approved 100% HVO for almost all models built in 2015. The Wolfsburg-based company now wants to launch a website where car owners can check whether their model can tolerate the substance. All vehicles could fill up with HVO as an admixture to normal diesel. A share of 30 percent would be possible, estimates fuel expert Thomas Garbe from Volkswagen, without violating the existing diesel standard. The road is rockier for the gasoline engine. It would be technically possible to double the bio-ethanol content to around 20 percent without damaging seals and metal surfaces in today’s engines. However, since it is an alcohol, the oxygen content would then be above the limit permitted by the European directive on fuel quality – meaning its sale would be prohibited. A new standard for E20, says Garbe, has already been developed and only needs to be implemented into current law. Refineries could work with green hydrogen. The emissions that occur during fuel production in the refinery are rarely in the spotlight. But here too, a significant contribution to the climate could be made, for example by no longer producing the hydrogen required for desulfurization from natural gas, but using electrolysis using renewable electricity. Shell is building a PEM electrolyser with an output of 100 megawatts at the Wesseling site south of Cologne, which is expected to be the largest such plant in Germany when it goes into operation in 2027. And yet this project also shows what a mammoth task converting all refineries would be: the amount of 16,500 tons per day only covers around a tenth of the hydrogen demand that occurs in the refinery. 100% on-site generation would be a major undertaking simply because of the electricity required – it would be equivalent to a nuclear power plant running around the clock. If the hydrogen is already there, there is a case for using it to produce liquid fuel. Tim Böltken, founder of the company Ineratec, is already doing this today, in the Höchst industrial park in Frankfurt. For production, which started in the summer, he uses the Fischer-Tropsch process, patented 100 years ago but useless for a long time. To do this, carbon dioxide is initially broken down using water vapor, then carbon monoxide and hydrogen are fed into a reactor in which a wild mixture of hydrocarbons is created on fissured surfaces using a catalyst. The process control, i.e. residence time, temperature and pressure, can influence to a certain extent the chain length of the resulting molecules. “Almost surprisingly problem-free”: E-fuel production in Frankfurt-HoechstLucas BäumlBasically any fuel can be produced from the raw material, a type of synthetic crude oil. Ineratec is currently concentrating on processing it into kerosene because the aviation industry not only has fixed quotas for sustainable fuels, but also a small percentage of them must be of non-biological origin. The same systems could also be used to produce diesel replacements. In an interview with the F.A.Z. Böltken reports that the system ran “almost surprisingly well” in the first six months. Although there is sometimes a lack of carbon dioxide from a biogas plant, and the hydrogen supply through the industrial park is not always running smoothly, the target production volume of 2,500 tons will probably be achieved next year. They are now planning a facility ten times larger and are looking for a location for it. “We will definitely make a decision next year,” says Böltken and does not rule out the possibility that the plant could be built in Northern Europe. At the same time, Ineratec is working with the catalyst manufacturer Sasol to increase the yield. The aim is to produce up to 15 percent more kerosene with the same amount of raw materials. Cobalt is used as the catalyst material, but it can be reactivated again and again, so a constant supply is not necessary.E-methanol available from DenmarkWith the new catalyst, the Fischer-Tropsch process could make up for a disadvantage compared to the most important competing process. This is based on producing a single raw material, namely methanol, from hydrogen and carbon dioxide. Here too, the technical feasibility has already been proven. In Kassø, Denmark, 40 kilometers north of Flensburg, the company European Energy and the plant manufacturer Mitsui have been producing so-called e-methanol since May. This can be used in ship engines designed for this purpose, which not only has a climate advantage, but – because it is free of aromatics, sulfur and other unwanted components – also burns almost completely without soot. Methanol can also be processed into gasoline using established processes. This is exactly what the company German E-Fuel One is planning. The first commercial plant is scheduled to go into operation in Steyerberg, northwest of Hanover, by 2029 at the latest. BMW, among others, wants to use the 75 million liters of gasoline produced there annually for the initial filling of new vehicles. The fact that production is worthwhile despite the high energy costs in Germany is the result of an international division of labor. The company buys the e-methanol, the production of which is energy-intensive, from abroad. “We don’t have to pay for the electricity,” says managing director Christian Hanke. When it comes to possible suppliers, you look not only at countries in the southern hemisphere, but also at Scandinavia. And if necessary, you could also use biomethanol to bridge the gap. Hanke wants to announce the final starting signal next year. Only on a laboratory scale: E-fuels for the 911 Cup racing seriesPorsche AGA lack of capital is not the reason why Porsche partner HIF has so far only produced a small amount of synthetic gasoline. When the company, in which the sports car manufacturer, a Chilean energy supplier and some financial investors are involved, put its first pilot plant on the Strait of Magellan into operation at the end of 2022, its plans were ambitious. By the end of the decade, 6,000 wind turbines were to be installed and their output would be used to produce synthetic fuels. So far, a single wind turbine continues to rotate. A lack of approvals has delayed the project, says Thorsten Herdan, who manages HIF’s European business. However, the time was used to work with a Japanese shipyard to design a system concept that was completely modular. This not only reduces capital intensity, but also construction time. Now HIF wants to set up plants in Chile and Uruguay in parallel; the final investment decision could be made next year. More on the topic Anyone who talks to HIF, Ineratec or other potential providers will always hear the word “investment security”. After all, plants are being built that are supposed to run for at least 20 to 30 years, which requires reliable regulation. There is currently little incentive for cars, at least European ones, to invest in new fuels in the long term. The currently valid fleet emissions guidelines for vehicle manufacturers do not take into account the addition of renewable fuels. The introduction of emissions trading for the transport sector has been postponed. And in Germany, the European directive for renewable energy, which stipulates low minimum quotas for non-biological fuels, has not yet been translated into national law.
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