The sixth episode of our podcast series is a conversation with Ralf Diemer, Managing Director of the E-fuel Alliance, a cross-sectoral coalition created in 2020 to promote the industrialised production of e-fuels on a global scale.
The alliance has members based in 17 different countries and from 4 continents. The member companies are active in various sectors: oil and gas, on-road transport, aviation and maritime transport, and off-road machinery, among others.
Ralf Diemer outlined the benefits of using e-fuels for reaching the European Union (EU) decarbonisation goals.
He explained that all combustion technologies can run on e-fuels and directly reduce CO2 emissions. Their advantage is the direct usability without the need for massive investments in infrastructure, and without having to change existing fleets.
The discussion covered EU regulations over the last 5 years and regulatory frameworks in other countries, such as Japan.
According to Ralf Diemer, the Green Deal and it’s Fit for 55 package have helped a lot trigger investments in e-fuels. Before these measures, there were no incentives at all. However, he regretted the “ideological debate” that is unfolding in the EU on which sector should be using e-fuels and which sector should be fully electrified.
He argued that we are at the stage where we still have to kick-start mass production of e-fuels, so restricting the sectors where e-fuels can be used from the beginning doesn’t foster the right kind of investments. He hopes to see more players in this sector in the future, wherever they are based.
The conversation went on about the synergies between e-fuels and biofuels production as well as carbon capture utilization and storage (CCUS) and the projected e-fuels prices in 2030/2032, taking into account that e-fuels will mostly go from small scale to large scale production so the prices should go down.
Ralf Diemer emphasized that 100% e-fuel at the fuel station will not happen on the 2030 horizon, most likely the available solution will be using drop-in fuels, biofuels and e-fuel blends combined, otherwise the price will indeed remain too expensive.