Excerpt from the article:
Millions of combustion engines – powering machines, vehicles and aircraft – will remain in use for decades to come. Instead of replacing them, a Swiss chemical engineer is developing a greener alternative: a synthetic, “drop‑in” fuel that works with existing engines and infrastructure.
Inside her labyrinthine lab at the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (Empa) in Dübendorf, a network of pipes and custom-built modules hums away as Alessia Cesarini shows off the prototype e-fuel unit she took two years building.
She aims to turn it into a business offering a viable alternative to conventional fossil fuels.
“There are lots of systems with combustion engines still running, and the idea is to provide a locally produced and less-polluting solution,” she explains.
Transport accounts for 47% of Switzerland’s energy-related CO2 emissions, versus 25% globally. A Swiss study estimates that around two million combustion-driven vehicles will remain on the country’s roads by 2040. Globally, Bloomberg estimates that 55% of cars will still run on combustion engines by that time. Also, for hard‑to‑abate sectors such as aviation, long‑term decarbonisation will depend heavily on the adoption of renewable fuels.
Cesarini’s approach is simple: “The goal is a solution that works with existing vehicles and infrastructure – sustainable both environmentally and economically,” she says.
Replacing fossil fuels with synthetic fuels is entirely infeasible. Building out the infrastructure at the gigantic scale required would take decades in the best case scenario. This stuff has always been a pipe dream and a diversion tactic. The real solution is renewable energy. The transition is currently happening and pretty much unstoppable at this point. The fossil shaggers are just trying to squeeze as much profit out of their obsolete technology as they can and they’ll literally rather burn the planet than give up a single cent.
Germany scaled the process up to nearly all their fuel needs in WWII.
No they didn’t. They created liquid fuels from coal. And it was ludicrously inefficient and unsustainable.
It was ludicrously inefficient and unsustainable. However it worked and scaled up. The process is still used today to make synthetic oil from natural gas. Any source of carbon can be used, coal is what Germany had.
That’s not correct.
I agree with you, but I was trying to frame it optimistically for our current fascist hellscape