AUTONEWS

Why the German government wants to give up on e-fuels...

European countries that depend most on the automotive industry have pressured the European Union (EU) to accept carbon-neutral synthetic fuels – produced without the use of petroleum derivatives, but rather with carbon captured from the atmosphere and hydrogen produced from the electrolysis of water. – as clean fuels, equating them to battery or fuel cell electric vehicles. This pressure was due to Germany's weight in the EU, where it is the largest contributor, but it was also an abuse, since e-fuels are carbon neutral, but they pollute whenever they are burned, which means that contribute to deteriorating air quality in the center of large cities where the concentration of vehicles is greater.

The German Transport Minister, Volker Wissing, has been the most vocal in favor of e-fuels, arguing that these fuels – we are talking about gasoline or even synthetic diesel – help to reduce carbon, despite this being a falsehood, a since they just prevent it from increasing, which is different. What Wissing could assume is that e-fuels allow some brands to continue selling their current engines, without the need to invest more, increasing profits at the expense of health.

The Union gave in to the demands of builders in countries where they employ thousands of workers and their taxes make the fiscal machine turn, but there was still one detail missing that had to be overcome so that this gasoline without traces of petroleum could be economically competitive, since the Price of e-fuels depends on production volume. To put pressure on the EU, the Germans, who in turn were being pushed mainly by Porsche, fought for e-fuels to be equated with electric cars in environmental terms, but for laboratory-produced fuel to be viable, a brutal production, at least on a European scale, with all countries committing to this objective, which apparently was far from happening.

According to the European newspaper Politico, when the opportunity came to support e-fuels, only the Czech Republic, Japan and Morocco supported Germany, very little for what the leader of the European economy intended. The objective was to share the bill for the development of e-fuels among as many countries as possible, as well as the various facilities where they can be produced in the quantity necessary to power millions of vehicles. Failure at this level led Germany to withdraw the proposal and abandon plans to encourage the production of synthetic fuels.

Mundoquatrodas