EU floats draft proposal in synthetic fuel tussle
Any new combustion engines sold after 2035 should not be able to run on conventional fossil fuels, EU pitches
There’s an update to the story on the 2035 EU ban on ICE engines, which was due to sweep away forever the idea of burning fuel inside a car to make it move. To bring you up to speed if you’ve not been glued to news reports, the vote on banning all new vehicles with a combustion engine being sold within the EU was a whisker away from happening before a last-minute intervention by Germany's caped crusader, Volker Wissing. This caught the EU Commission by surprise, on the basis that parliament had agreed the law last year and it was seen as a dead cert.
The German proposal, which has apparently earned the backing of Italy, the Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, Hungary and Slovakia, was to underline a firm commitment to permitting ICE cars to be sold if they run on synthetic e-fuels after 2035. There had been a tacit acknowledgement of the technology previously, but no definitive agreement. Now, in the run-up to the latest EU summit, Reuters claims to have seen a draft proposal that would allow for the creation of a new type of vehicle category in the European Union for cars that can only run on carbon-neutral fuels. How do you do that?
What the Commission is proposing is that to qualify for this new, post-2035 definition, the engine must be able to distinguish CO2-neutral fuels from fossil fuels, which would mean that anyone popping into their nearest petrol station for a quick splash and dash would discover a warning message along the lines of ‘up with this I will not put’ and nothing much else. Needless to say, this isn’t going down well in Germany. As the Reuter’s story suggests, ‘it would largely force automakers to develop new engines’ - on the basis that synthetic fuel and the stuff made from dinosaurs are, by design, pretty similar.
In a bid to keep the conversation constructive and moving in the right direction, Wissing hasn’t rejected the proposal; he’s merely suggested it needs some tweaks. The parties on both sides are aiming to secure an agreement before things get spectacularly messy, although one EU official told Reuters earlier in the week that ‘any proposal on registering e-fuel cars would only be made after the combustion engine phaseout law was finally adopted.’ Which suggests that there's only so much ground they're willing to give. The European car industry will be looking on with bated breath. So will we.
Special nozzles can probably be circumvented quite easily, so it seems something inherent in the engine or fuel system design would be required.
It seems like a lot of hot-air for a handful of post-2035 ICE owners that could actually afford the fuel.
There are no reports anywhere that suggest there will be enough e-fuel for anything more than a tiny % of cars.
I thought I had read that modern Porsche engines can run on both synthetic e-fuels and pump fuel? Surely then the car just needs a sensor in the tank that can distinguish between the two?
ph
I thought I had read that modern Porsche engines can run on both synthetic e-fuels and pump fuel? Surely then the car just needs a sensor in the tank that can distinguish between the two?
ph
And how easy would it be to defeat it.
Probably the work of a moment for someone with a laptop.
A bit like EV's then, only much more expensive to run.
It sounds like Porsche and other makers just wanting to continue selling petrol/ hybrid GT3 RS's etc beyond 2035. I wonder if the EU will impose a strict fuel economy limit (over a longer range than the hybrid range) as well for new synthetic only vehicles. That would make the whole idea even more ridiculous than it already is.
There is absolutely a time and a place for EV's, and they make sense for probably around 95% of driving requirements. But out on a track day or up the mountains on an early Sunday morning...... the sound........ THE SOUND!!!!! To forever lose the wail/scream/roar of a Ferrari V12, Lambo V10, Hellcat V8, Porker F6, Audi 5C, Kawasaki Supercharged 4, Triumph triple, Harley twin or a CCM single would be like The Godfather without the music of Nino Rota, Star Wars without John Williams or anything from Sergio Leone without Ennio Morricone........ when you take away the soul - you take away everything.
And so here endeth my sermon for today......... Amen.
E-fuel is produced from combining hydrogen with CO2 and some subsequent synthesis.
The cheapest way to produce hydrogen and CO2 would be to split natural gas using steam.
The more cynical reader might therefore suggest that the feedstock for producing large amounts of e-fuel will therefore come from fossil fuel, but be dressed up to look like something else.
If it truly does come from renewable electricity, then the conundrum is that you could use the same amount of electricity to power 5 or more EVs instead of 1 e-fuelled car, due to the vastly different energy efficiencies of the two approaches.
Which means that carbon-neutral e-fuel offers nothing of real benefit to existing ICEs, as the many decades timeline to get to the point where there is enough renewable electricity to produce it in mainstream quantity will render the existing fleet of cars to the scrap heap.
There is also the laughably improbably exercise of trying to capture that much CO2 directly from the atmosphere.
Both the clandestine pathway and the truly renewable pathway would in my opinion possibly force an increase in the cost of petrol.
As usual, it's therefore us, the consumer, who will end up paying for someone else in a far off land to get rich off their latest circus act, and we get zero benefit from it.
the most logical use of synthetic fuels would be not to enable ICE vehicles to continue to be sold beyond 2035, but to make the carbon footprint of the legacy ICE fleet lower by mandating increasing blends of synthetic fuels into pump fuel. So little synthetic fuel is likely to be made that it would be more rational to prioritise its use by existing rather than new ICE vehicles.
All that will do is increase the price of petrol for those unwilling (or more likely unable) to switch to EV's
E-fuel is produced from combining hydrogen with CO2 and some subsequent synthesis.
The cheapest way to produce hydrogen and CO2 would be to split natural gas using steam.
The more cynical reader might therefore suggest that the feedstock for producing large amounts of e-fuel will therefore come from fossil fuel, but be dressed up to look like something else.
If it truly does come from renewable electricity, then the conundrum is that you could use the same amount of electricity to power 5 or more EVs instead of 1 e-fuelled car, due to the vastly different energy efficiencies of the two approaches.
Which means that carbon-neutral e-fuel offers nothing of real benefit to existing ICEs, as the many decades timeline to get to the point where there is enough renewable electricity to produce it in mainstream quantity will render the existing fleet of cars to the scrap heap.
There is also the laughably improbably exercise of trying to capture that much CO2 directly from the atmosphere.
Both the clandestine pathway and the truly renewable pathway would in my opinion possibly force an increase in the cost of petrol.
As usual, it's therefore us, the consumer, who will end up paying for someone else in a far off land to get rich off their latest circus act, and we get zero benefit from it.
And how easy would it be to defeat it.
Probably the work of a moment for someone with a laptop.
If your car is newer than 2035, then no dye allowed when dipped.
If you are running an older car, then, firstly you won't get tested anyway, but if you were tested, dye would be allowed to be present.
Special nozzles can probably be circumvented quite easily, so it seems something inherent in the engine or fuel system design would be required.
If your car is newer than 2035, then no dye allowed when dipped.
If you are running an older car, then, firstly you won't get tested anyway, but if you were tested, dye would be allowed to be present.
There's a relative prevalence of E85 in the US, so there is infrastructure available and conversion kits could be manufacturer approved (injectors, flex sensor, fuel pumps, lines and a remap) to bring older cars into line - that way it wouldn't be a whole new ICE platform needing to be developed, just a reworking of the current kit.
There's probably myriad answers as to why not, but using it as a stop-gap measure before going into full fossil-free synthetic fuels surely would help the transition into a post-fossil fuel world?
Edited to clarify my point being the removal of fossil rather than all HC based fuels.
- The cars won’t sound good, Euro 7 and the 2DB every five years reduction will see to that.
- if you can’t afford a new BEV, you can’t afford this - IF this passes it will be for the wealthy only
- There is no change in the CO2 budget associated with vehicles so this would have to be equivalent well to wheel of a BEV which means the fuel will be even more expensive than people think
You might think it’s for you, it’s not
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