Germany’s net-zero plan for old vehicles

Source: The post is based on the article “Germany’s net-zero plans for old vehicles” published in Business Standard on 17^th June 2023.

Syllabus: GS 3 – Environment

Relevance: About Germany proposal of adopting carbon-neutral synthetic fuels

News: Germany put forward an interesting proposal when the EU was debating legislation to ensure only zero-emission vehicles would be on European roads by 2035.

What has Germany proposed?

Germany suggested a transition to carbon-neutral synthetic fuels for existing internal combustion vehicles rather than phasing out all internal combustion vehicles.

The proposal has been made due to the fact that even though electric vehicles and hydrogen fuel cells have zero-emission during usage, their manufacturing processes have significant environmental impacts.

Approximately 90% of the world’s vehicles are expected to be internal combustion by 2030, and replacing them entirely would not be a zero-carbon solution.

Some calculations suggest that manufacturing an electric vehicle may have slightly higher environmental impacts compared to an internal combustion vehicle.

Hence, Germany proposed the possibility of producing carbon-negative fuels for IC engines, which would result in a net carbon impact of zero or even negative during the fuel cycle.

This can be done by replacing fuels like petrol, diesel, kerosene, and compressed natural gas (CNG) by synthetic hydrocarbon fuels.

Germans have already manufactured synthetic petrol and diesel substitutes from coal in World War II.

How can synthetic hydrocarbon fuel be manufactured?

It can be done by capturing ambient carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. This would make the fuel production process carbon-negative.

Additionally, hydrogen can be generated by using green methods such as running an electric current through water.

Producing synthetic fuel could be carbon-negative if the carbon emissions from the fuel are less than the carbon captured during the production process.

Even if there is a net carbon release, it may still be lower than the carbon impact of manufacturing a large number of electric vehicles (EVs).

What are the challenges with manufacturing synthetic hydrocarbon fuel?

First, it may be expensive compared to petrol or diesel. However, production costs would reduce with scale and access to cheap, green electricity.

Second, there are also engineering challenges with capturing carbon. Currently, carbon capture is not an efficient process, and there is a lack of sufficient scale for green hydrogen electrolysis. Therefore, investment in R&D, as well as large-scale implementation, would be needed in addressing these challenges.