Transportation in a Changing Climate Part 2

    Ok, so in Part 1, I focused a lot on ground transportation and electrification; unfortunately, despite the promise of battery and fuel cell electric vehicles, these technologies will likely not be able to get us where we need to be to make all of our transportation carbon neutral. This is especially true when one considers how rapidly we need to reduce our emissions to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. The answer to fueling aircraft, container ships, and the millions of ICE cars and trucks that are currently on our roads (there are an estimated 1.3 billion worldwide) is to make fuel right out of the air. If this seems silly, hang with me for a bit. We really can make fuels like gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel right out of the air. These fuels are all made of hydrocarbons. All that is needed to produce them is hydrogen, carbon, and some chemistry. Better yet, these synthetically produced fuels are drop-in, meaning no modifications to current internal combustion engines would be required. Any car, truck, plane, etc. could use them like any other fuel.

 

    So how does this work, and how can it be carbon neutral? These synthetic fuels, also called e-fuels (because electricity is required to produce the hydrogen that goes into them), can be made from CO2 from the air and hydrogen from water produced with green electricity. Because the carbon component of these fuels is pulled from the air and the hydrogen can be produced without releasing carbon, these fuels can be completely carbon neutral. When burned, the carbon goes back into the air as CO2, and the hydrogen once again becomes water. Catalytic processes can be tuned to produce whatever fuel is wanted. Theoretically, your local gas station could produce the fuel you're putting in your car right on site. Any hydrocarbon can be produced. So beyond transportation fuels, the natural gas for your stove, the propane for your grill, or even the butane in the lighter you use to light your candles can be made through this process. There is lots of work being done to bring these fuels to market, and there are numerous test projects around the world and a number of industrial-scale projects in the works. In fact, German carmaker Porsche is one of the first companies to open a commercial-scale e-fuel pilot plant. Run with wind power, the facility, called Haru Oni, is located in Punta Arenas, Chile. This plant will initially produce 130,000 liters per year of gasoline to be used in Porsche's Mobil 1 Supercup. Porsche says that by 2026, Haru Oni will be producing 55 million liters of fuel, and just two years after that, more than 550 million liters.

 

    These e-fuels obviously have the potential to bring about a significant change to the carbon output of our transportation sector, all while smoothing the transition into carbon neutrality and solving some of the most difficult of our transportation issues, namely, how to make commercial jets and global shipping carbon neutral. With e-fuels, aircraft designers may not have to rapidly develop hydrogen-burning planes, and airlines could make their existing fleets carbon neutral without spending the billions of dollars needed to buy new planes. Of course, fans of ICE cars can rejoice that their beloved classic cars can still be used and meet even the most restrictive carbon mandates. With the potential that e-fuels have, many may ask, "Why electrify at all?" While e-fuels have the potential to dramatically help in our fight against climate change, they are not the ultimate solution for all of our transportation needs. To be truly carbon neutral, green electricity must be used to produce the hydrogen required to assemble these fuels; this, coupled with the energy required to drive these reactions, makes e-fuels far more energy intensive than the alternatives. Due to the amount of electricity required to produce these fuels and the inherent inefficiencies of ICEs (see Part 1), it is far more energy efficient to simply use the electricity to move, say, a car directly or use hydrogen produced through a fuel cell. Not to mention, e-fuels will still affect our air quality in the same way as today's fossil fuels.

 

    Of course, the ultimate impact of e-fuels is predicated on our ability to continue to rapidly expand green energy production. The good news is that e-fuels circumvent a major issue with renewables, which is storage. Again, renewables are at a disadvantage to traditional forms of energy production because they can't operate around the clock. No matter how large a solar facility you have, it still won't produce power at night, so storage of that electricity will be necessary in the fully renewable grid of the future. E-fuels get around that because they are storage. This may allow for a near-perfect scenario where the demand for e-fuels drives the expansion of renewable power. E-fuel plants could be coupled with large renewable energy facilities where the power from these facilities goes directly into e-fuel production. Ultimately, we will likely eliminate most uses for e-fuels in favor of more efficient options. At this point, the renewables that were once producing electricity exclusively for fuel production could be retrofitted with storage and connected to the grid.

 

    Like any major change, wide adoption of e-fuels faces an uphill battle. Billions of dollars of investments will need to be made in order to ramp up production. Traditional oil companies may balk at the idea and work hard to stifle it, although they too may find that producing e-fuels is more profitable in the long run than continuing to extract fossil fuels, especially if and when countries begin to enact hefty carbon taxes. On that note, let me point out that enacting a carbon tax, especially on the energy industry, is probably the best way to drive us towards carbon neutrality. Another way to get the fossil fuel industry on board is to apply their very heavy subsidies only to e-fuels, thus reducing the profitability of extracted fuels.

 

    We may also find that e-fuels have other benefits beyond their climate impact. They may greatly increase the energy security of many countries. No longer will countries with little fossil fuel resources be reliant on foreign sources. All they need to produce fuel within their own countries is air, water, and electricity. Today's fossil fuel companies may be nervous about what the future looks like for them, but hopefully they realize that money can be made in e-fuels and that promoting e-fuels may be in their best interest. As time goes on, the fossil fuel companies of today can become the clean energy companies of tomorrow. Let me point out to any of them that are resistant that companies unwilling to change with the times often cease to be. Adaptation is the key to longevity in business; that's why IBM has been around since 1911, and it's also why they don't still sell mechanical tabulating machines.

 

    Hopefully, in reading this series, you feel more hopeful that real climate solutions do exist and that we can make large and meaningful inroads into tackling humanity's carbon emissions. Making our transportation carbon neutral is just one piece of the puzzle. There are many other challenges, but with determination, hard work, sacrifice, and just a little bit of luck, we can meet those too.