The second production process is fully 100 years old and is due to two German chemists, Fischer and Tropsch, after whom it is named. But let us return to the first process described, which we could call a variant of the century-old Fischer-Tropsch process and which in effect converts electrical energy into synthetic fuel. It is promoted by Porsche together with Siemens Energy and other companies, including the Italian Enel. In a press release on its website, Porsche reports that a pilot process is being developed in Chile, whose production capacity will be around 550 million litres of e-fuel by 2026.
It is obvious to everyone that the process can be called sustainable only if the electrical energy is produced by sustainable methods. It is no coincidence that Chile was chosen for this project, a country with ideal climatic conditions for wind power generation. Not least among the sustainability issues is the quantity of water the process requires, estimated at 9 litres for every litre of e-fuel.
The process is currently very expensive, partly because of very low energy efficiency in the production phase, which would bring the public price to figures much higher than those of electricity or fossil fuels. Projections of what the price might be once it is marketed on a large and very large scale are conflicting: for now we can assume a price of 20 euros per litre at the marketing stage, but this is purely indicative in the absence of a logistics and distribution chain.
As for the cost of production, according to an estimate by Efuel Alliance, an association bringing together all the companies engaged in promoting and producing synthetic fuels, ‘the production costs for one litre of e-fuel in 2025 will be between 1.61 and 1.99 euros and by 2050 could fall to between 0.7 and 1.33 euros per litre’. However, the final price to the consumer could differ depending on tax policies and government subsidies.
In the latest decisions taken by the European Council on electric mobility, as we know, the use of e-fuel is permitted alongside the total electrification of the vehicle fleet. In the long term, however, we should think less of using this fuel for personal mobility and more of using it for vehicles for which electrification is more problematic, for example aeroplanes or very heavy transport vehicles. It is therefore right to regard the use of synthetic fuels, or even of biofuels, which have not so far been included in the European regulation, as a complement to electrification and not as competition.
Another function that e-fuel could have is that of a system for transporting and storing energy. Converting electrical energy into hydrocarbons makes it possible to move the energy itself by traditional means. Moving hydrocarbons by ship, tanker or pipeline is much easier and more established than moving electricity. Fuel can therefore be produced in areas more favourable to electricity production and then transported even thousands of kilometres to the end users (although this solution too involves significant energy issues).
Clean synthetic fuels could be a major step forward compared with fossil fuels. The point is that they are still at a pre-industrial stage. So only with time, and only once their production, logistics and marketing have been consolidated, will it be possible to determine their real impact, in terms of production, actual sustainability and society.
