E-fuel platform manager advocates for synthetic fuels

A former leader of the FDP has become the managing director of an e-fuel platform, a digital marketplace designed to coordinate the supply and demand of synthetic fuels. These fuels are produced by extracting hydrogen from water using electricity and combining it with carbon dioxide to create synthetic crude oil.

In an interview, the former FDP leader argued that electric vehicles alone cannot achieve climate-neutral mobility. He suggested that the existing fleet of internal combustion engines must be supplied with e-fuels on a large scale. He further stated that bans on combustion engines could hinder the necessary industrial scale-up of e-fuel production, suggesting that more combustion engines might actually be needed to make the transition worthwhile.

However, the report notes significant efficiency challenges, as only about 15 percent of the energy used in the production process remains available for vehicle propulsion. Additionally, while the e-fuel platform's website claims to have a deliverable plant in Morocco capable of producing 75 million liters of fuel using 220 MW of power, preliminary research suggests such a facility does not currently exist.