It’s Stellantis’ turn to express an interest in e-fuels. On April 20, the Franco-Italian-American car manufacturer announced that it was testing these new fuels, with the hope that this solution would one day be applicable to the 28 million Stellantis thermal vehicles (gasoline and diesel) currently in circulation in Europe. At stake ? A reduction potential of 400 million tonnes of CO2 between 2025 and 2050, the group assesses.
This is the whole promise of e-fuels. “We also talk about electro-fuels or synthetic fuels”, explains Florence Delprat-Jannaud, director of the “energy products” results center at IFP Energies nouvelles (Ifpen)*. “The interest is that they are produced without oil,” she continues. Instead, we use CO2 captured in industrial fumes or in the air, and hydrogen, a gas which has the advantage of being able to be produced from renewable energies”.
A first production plant in Chile
This CO2 + green hydrogen mixture gives methanol which, during a second refining, can be transformed into synthetic fuel ready to be used in the tanks, without any technical modification of thermal cars. And if, while driving, vehicles fueled by e-fuels still emit CO2, the idea is that this quantity be offset by that captured for its manufacture.
“If the rise of electric mobility is included in the roadmaps of automotive manufacturers, it would be surprising if manufacturers did not keep an eye on e-fuels,” said Guillaume Crunelle, sector expert at Deloitte consulting firm. Among them, Porsche took the lead by inaugurating, at the end of December, a first pilot plant in the south of Chile. The group hopes to be able to produce 55 million liters of e-fuel per year by 2025, then 550 million two years later. A drop of water compared to 45.8 million m2 [45,8 milliards de litres] road fuel consumed in France in 2021 alone.
Political battle in Europe
But just as much as in the labs, the future of e-fuels is also played out in politics. On March 28, the EU adopted a regulation requiring that new cars sold after 2035 in Europe no longer emit any CO2. This measure, one of the cornerstones of the European climate plan, should have de facto excluded thermal vehicles. In the home stretch of the negotiations, Germany has obtained from the European Commission that it undertakes to open a legal path so that the sale of thermal vehicles running on e-fuels can continue in 2035.
Olaf Scholz’s government is not yet won. A new legislative process is beginning with a view to classifying these e-fuels as zero-emission fuels, and should not be completed before the fall of 2024. “We will mobilize against it, even if it means going to court”, already warns Diane Strauss, director of the French branch of Transport & Environment (T&E), a federation of European NGOs specializing in mobility. 2035 must remain a firm deadline, giving no hope that the construction of thermal cars has a future beyond”
Very energy-intensive… And therefore precious?
For T&E, e-fuels cannot call this observation into question. “Their main limitation is that their manufacture is complex and requires a lot of energy,” she continues. By way of comparison, it would be necessary to mobilize five times more to make a car running on e-fuel rather than electricity travel 100 km. From this constraint, it results in two others: “Even if we can expect improved yields in the future, these e-fuels will remain a very limited and very expensive resource”. “Only the wealthiest will be able to afford it when other drivers will be pressured to bend the rules and buy conventional gasoline,” T&E feared in a March 22 statement.
However, Diane Strauss does not completely bury electro-fuels. “Because they will be precious and expensive, they must be reserved where they will be most useful,” she insists. Not the automobile therefore, “for which there are simpler and more direct ways of decarbonizing this sector”. The electric battery mainly.
Priority to aviation and maritime?
On the other hand, this same mixture of CO2 and hydrogen can also give e-kerosene, e-methanol or e-ammonia. So many fuels that are of interest to aviation and maritime transport, which “today lack solutions to decarbonise,” continues Diane Strauss. In this case, yes, e-fuels can be relevant. »
Florence Delprat-Jannaud and Antonio Pires Da Cruz, head of decarbonization programs at Ifpen, recall that the EU plans to push in this direction. ““RefuelEU Aviation”, a regulatory proposal still under negotiation, should impose a minimum of 5% e-fuel in aviation fuels in 2035 and 28% in 2050, illustrates Antonio Pires Da Cruz. A similar regulation is under discussion in the maritime sector. »
But the Ifpen researcher does not invite us to give up on road electrofuels. Including in Europe, where road transport is one of the main CO2 emitting sectors**. To decarbonize as soon as possible. “It is unlikely that we will succeed in electrifying all of a sudden, in the next few years, the entire European car fleet, continues Antonio Pires Da Cruz. E-fuels can help. Even if we can no longer buy new thermal vehicles after 2035, there will still be millions to circulate after. Here again, e-fuels could contribute to reducing their emissions. »
“Electric mobility also has its unknowns”
“Like any fledgling sector, the more we work on e-fuels, the more we can hope to improve yields and thus lower prices”, points out Guillaume Crunelle, at Deloitte, thus inviting us not to condemn them too quickly. “The error, above all, is to compare their price with that of current fuels”, he continues. We do not expect significant volumes of e-fuels before 2030-2035, when the car fleet is supposed to be massively electrified, he recalls. However, on this date, will these electric vehicles meet all our mobility needs? Will they be accessible to all budgets? And what will be the cost of electricity?…” In short, “electric mobility also has its unknowns,” recalls Guillaume Crunelle. And we could be very happy with low-carbon fuels for the challenger. »
We already know the referee, listening to Florence Delprat-Jannaud: “it’s the energy transition: what volume of carbon-free electricity will we be able to produce in the future? The fewer there are, the more it will be necessary to prioritize its use. »