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Ex-engineer: Synthetic fuels could save a huge number of combustion engines - and the climate

2023-01-15T04:15:49.764Z


Ex-engineer: Synthetic fuels could save a huge number of combustion engines - and the climate Created: 01/15/2023 05:05 By: Julian Baumann The car industry relies on e-cars, but there are still billions of combustion engines on the road around the world. Synthetic fuels could be the solution for climate-friendly vehicle propulsion. Stuttgart/Karlsruhe - With the EU decision to only allow clima


Ex-engineer: Synthetic fuels could save a huge number of combustion engines - and the climate

Created: 01/15/2023 05:05

By: Julian Baumann

The car industry relies on e-cars, but there are still billions of combustion engines on the road around the world.

Synthetic fuels could be the solution for climate-friendly vehicle propulsion.

Stuttgart/Karlsruhe - With the EU decision to only allow climate-friendly new cars from 2035, the transformation in the automotive industry will probably have to accelerate further.

The big car manufacturers such as Mercedes-Benz or VW are increasingly focusing on the production of battery-electric passenger cars, commonly known as e-cars.

However, the problem arises that there is a gigantic number of vehicles with combustion engines, both in Europe and worldwide, which will not disappear from the streets without further ado.

Synthetic fuels could be the solution to this problem.

Shortly before the turn of the year 2022/2023, the Stuttgart-based sports car manufacturer Porsche started producing so-called e-fuels in Chile, which Porsche calls eFuels.

The synthetic fuel is produced there from wind and solar energy in a pilot plant set up together with Siemens and other partners.

Porsche has long been in favor of e-fuels, but the rest of the industry remains skeptical.

However, a chapter of a scientific paper available to

BW24

explains why climate-neutral fuels will be the future alongside e-mobility.

E-fuels as a solution for the "climate-neutral reuse" of the combustion engine stock

In the research initiative "reFuels - rethinking fuels", the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) has researched the efficient production and use of regenerative fuels together with numerous partners - including Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, Audi and Bosch.

Re-Fuels is the umbrella term for renewable, non-fossil fuels.

When the results were presented on September 19, 2022 in Karlsruhe, cost was still an obstacle.

In a chapter on reFuels, however, the retired engineer, scientist and long-time employee at Siemens, Hans Wagner, explained why synthetic fuels definitely have the potential to save the climate and national wealth.

At the request of

BW24

, Hans Wagner summarized the core statement of his chapter on refuels for our readers in simplified form:

There is a solution for the climate-neutral reuse of the world's gigantic stock of cars that run on fossil fuels today, but also for the reuse of existing means of transport and distribution, such as tankers, tankers and gas stations.

This solution is the production of artificial fuels, also called reFuels.

These artificial fuels are climate-neutral because during their production they use the CO₂ in the air that the cars previously “exploited” and combine this CO₂ with the hydrogen, which is obtained by breaking down water into hydrogen and oxygen.

This process is called electrolysis.

Electrolysis requires electricity, such as that which can be obtained from wind turbines or photovoltaic panels in windy areas such as Patagonia or in sunny areas such as Saudi Arabia or the Sahara or Namibia.

That artificial fuel is the champagne for the car is short-sighted nonsense, because the production costs (without the taxes) of fossil fuel are 60 cents per liter, that of climate-neutral artificial fuel in windy or sunny areas is already close to 80 Cent.

Added to this is the fact that artificial fuel is the ideal transportable "storage medium" for the green electricity that is not needed at the moment (the so-called flutter current).

So you don't need more batteries.

And then hydrogen is an intermediate stage in the manufacture of the artificial fuel.

It can be used efficiently to generate electricity in fuel cells for electric drives and must be burned just as efficiently in gas-fired power plants to boil breakfast eggs.

Conclusion: Climate-neutral fuels save our national wealth and at the same time our climate.

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Production of e-fuels should enable new supply chains and reduce dependencies

In September, the researchers at KIT announced that Germany's largest plant for the production of synthetic fuels would be built in Karlsruhe, which should produce more than 60 million liters a year.

With the start of e-fuel production by Porsche and Siemens in Chile at the end of December, production is picking up speed.

Hans Wagner explained in his chapter that this circumstance would also reshuffle the cards.

"Countries without oil but with a lot of wind can start producing gasoline and diesel from now on," he writes.

"New supply chains will emerge and dependency on the oil wells and their owners will decrease."

Billions of cars with internal combustion engines are still on the road worldwide.

With synthetic fuels, they could be driven in an environmentally friendly way.

© Marijan Murat/dpa

In the chapter on refuels, Hans Wagner said he was supported by KIT Professor Thomas Koch.

"I know Professor Koch from Professor Wellnitz in Ingolstadt, who built an H2 car with his students," Wagner explains to

BW24

.

"Professor Koch edited my chapter on reFuels." The Karlsruhe mechanical engineering professor recently explained that if the combustion engine is banned, there will be rush against the electric car.

With a breakthrough of e-fuels, in addition to the focus on the production of e-cars, the combustion engine would not have to be finally buried.

"With the production of climate-neutral synthetic fuels, the world's gigantic fortune in diesel and gasoline vehicles would be saved."

Source: merkur

All news articles on 2023-01-15

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