OEM & Lieferant - Ausgabe 1/2021

68 autoregion e. V. The Boston Consulting Group and Prognos have carried out a study on behalf of the Fed- eration of German Industry, which measures can be used to achieve this ambitious goal with the same mobility requirements by 2030. The key message of the study is that reaching the 40 percent target requires the use of all con- ceivable technical levers. The study expressly includes, among other things, the significant increase in the quantities of CO2-neutral and thus synthetic fuels used and the promotion of industrial scaling of Power-to-X technologies. If you take a critical look at the current climate policy discussion on the transport sector, you have to realize that these technological as- pects are moving more and more into the background. While the Federal Government emphasized in its cornerstones for the Climate Protection Program 2030 that it wanted to create the necessary framework conditions for the development of electricity-based fu- els, such activities seem to be taking place in a rather modest framework. In January 2020 the Federal Government re- sponded to the question of which measures were planned to make the production of re- newable energies and specifically e-fuels more marketable with the statement: We are examining various instruments to accelerate the market ramp-up of to support synthetic fuels and raw materials based on renewable energies (PtX). That doesn‘t sound like pow- erful action. It should not be concealed that the Federal Environment Ministry already presented an action program for electricity-based fuels in July 2019, within a PtX demonstration plant is to be set up in the Lausitz energy region. Concrete results are still pending. The significant increase in the number of reg- istrations for battery-electric vehicles and, in particular, hybrid vehicles in the last six months, driven by high government incentives and tax relief, seems to feed the illusion that this is the only ideal way to achieve the ambi- tious climate targets. Other technologies – and above all the use of synthetic fuels – threaten to get out of the focus of political and indus- trial decision-makers. In fact, it is an all too tempting scenario, which seems conceivable with the widespread use of synthetic fuels. The mere idea of being able to continue to operate old combustion engines with synthetic fuels without a great deal of technical conversion effort puts a smile on the face of all owners of powerful, high-powered cars. The ADAC also thinks in this direction when its technology president explains: “Mil- lions of combustion engines are on German roads and have a long service life ahead of them. If the climate protection goals in trans- port are to be achieved, a solution is needed for this inventory. “As a result, the ADAC relies on e-fuels and hydrogen from renewable sources in the long term. But how realistic is this idea of a renaissance of the combustion engine – now with CO2-neu- tral fuel and what is the discussion actually about? Synthetic fuels – so-called e-fuels – are not obtained from fossil fuels like gasoline or diesel, but from renewable electricity and CO2. To put it simply, in a first step hydrogen is generated from water by means of elec- trolysis, which is then enriched with carbon dioxide in a further process step. The elec- tricity required for electrolysis is ideally sur- plus quantities from renewable sources that cannot be fed into the grid. The structure of the end product corresponds to conventional petrol or diesel made from crude oil and when it burns it releases only as much CO2 as was previously withdrawn from the atmosphere during its production. On a cursory level, the result is striking. If it were possible to produce synthetic fuels that could completely replace fossil fuels in a suf- ficiently economically viable and climate-neu- tral manner, the further intensive expansion of battery-electric mobility measures could the- oretically be dispensed or at least be severely restricted. The problem of the extremely heavy loading of vehicles by batteries, espe- cially in heavy commercial vehicles or aircraft, would also be solved. But the hurdles to bring this technology to market are high as well as the number of critics. The main argument against the promotion of synthetic fuels is their low level of efficiency in relation to electric drives. There is no doubt that the electric drive beats all of its compet- itors, be it combustion engines or fuel cells, by far when it comes to efficiency. An effi- ciency of up to 80 percent for electric drives contrasts with values of only 10 to 15 per- cent for synthetic fuels. The high production costs for synthetic fuels are also criticized. Why first elaborately generate hydrogen and then enrich it with CO2 instead of burning it as a fuel? In 2012, BMW had equipped a model of the 7 series under the designation Hydrogen 7 with a hydrogen combustion en- gine. However, only 100 copies of this model were made. Regarding efficiency, it should be noted that research on synthetic fuels is still at a relatively early stage in terms of efficiency and economy. The Institute of Technology in Karlsruhe is currently investigating ways of increasing the efficiency of synthetic fuels and in this context announced in September 2020 that an efficiency of up to 60 percent is possible. E-fuels – the neglected alternative By Armin Gehl, managing director of autoregion e.V., Saarbrücken Germany has set itself the goal of reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 80 to 95 percent by 2050 compared to 1990 levels. The transport sector will be affected with savings of 40 percent by 2030. To achieve this, we have to pull out all available technological stops – including the option of developing synthetic fuels. S H A R E Image: © autoregion e.V. Armin Gehl, Managing Director of the association autoregion e.V.