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.
Europe is obsessed with the idea of green gas. This will take as much energy to make as it produces, and in the end, the same profile of combustion products.
Just burn ethanol.
Ethanol has too low of an energy density; it’s a bad fuel. The only reason countries dilute gasoline with it is because the inputs are so heavily subsidized.
Many countries run on pure ethanol. You’re just parroting gas and oil bots on Reddit.
https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1092181_a-brief-history-of-ethanol-in-brazil
The Indy 500 has run on alcohols since 1965. Entire dragster classes run on ethanol. Pretty good for a bad fuel.
Race car engines have teams of engineers who pull engines down after each race, and while the fuel allows you to push performance envelopes its about 30% less energy dense, its also hydroscopic so it absorbs atmospheric moisture and spoils much quicker. Its an alternative, but its very much a trade off in terms of drawbacks.
This isn’t parroting, ethanol just isnt as energy dense as petrol - thats a fact. Also, because some countries are using this fuel it doesn’t magically make it good.
Bio fuels don’t make sense. You need fossil fuels to produce fertilizer and to power all machines to seed, harvest and transport the corn or grain. Depending on who you ask, in the end you get between 0.8 to 1.2l of ethanol out of each liter of fossil fuel.
Asking gas and oil. These stupid comparisons pollute the internet, because they do all the math for every step of ethanol production, but assume gas comes from a gas pump. Never talk about how much energy is used to mine, refine petroleum. Of course, they gloss over two major points: Ethanol burns cleaner, cooler in motors, making them last much longer and growing crops for ethanol fixes carbon from the air. The leftover mash from corn alcohol is then used as a very rich livestock feed. But you can make ethanol from any plant.
Just an example: to make one barrel of “oil” from the tar sands in Alberta, takes 2 barrels of water and 13 cubic metres of “natural” gas. That’s to just get it out of the ground, then the sludge is shipped 3500km to Texas to be refined using more energy - 15% of all the electricity made in the USA. We would be better off just running cars on LPG.