eFuels, by Land and Sea, Get Their Grips on the Ships, Road Trips

by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) For more than a decade we have been covering the emergence of e-Fuels — renewable fuels made from (usually waste) CO2 and green hydrogen, the latter conventionally obtained by splitting water using spare, intermittent renewable power.

It’s been a story of a fuel defeated by policy. Simply put, most early-day carbon thresholds were so low, that high-risk, high-reward fuels like eFuels sat on the sidelines. You could about the same amount of money by fermenting corn to make ethanol — so, why bother?

Times changed with the low-carbon fuels standard era, and even the old corn ethanol industry is a hotbed of transformative decarbonization activity. And eFuels are coming into their own.

EFuels at Sea

The most spectacular news of the week on the eFuels front, though not the largest in capacity, comes from practically out of the Digest’s editorial windows — from the the Miami cruise port and London comes news that Virgin Voyages is working to make its cruise ships more sustainable, through partnerships with independent sustainability experts the Roundtable on Sustainable Biomaterials, and three leading waste-based sustainable fuel providers.

Following months of research, Virgin Voyages has taken an important step towards a low-carbon future by establishing these key partnerships and is working with multiple partners on sustainable marine fuel supply.

Because there’s no one-size-fits-all low-carbon fuel solution, Virgin Voyages will work with three partners through long-term partnerships to develop the best solutions. And the lucky three are:

Twelve – the carbon transformation company with revolutionary technology using air (not oil) to produce materials and fuel sources
Argent Energy – The European waste-based biodiesel producer with a vision to help decarbonize transport worldwide
Good Fuels – Global market leader of accelerating the transition from harmful emissions into sustainable marine fuel by implementing waste-based technology

Adopting sustainable fuels, such as those made from waste, or direct air capture of CO2, is essential for reaching net zero by 2050. Virgin Voyages estimates that by switching to sustainable marine fuels, the line will reduce its life-cycle carbon emissions from fuel by 75% or more.

EFuels on Land

If you find yourself looking for transformative capacity building on land, worry not. It’s lacking the pizzazz that Sir Richard Branson brings, but the news that HIF Global is partnering with Topsoe for an eFuels facility in Texas is even bigger news from a capacity point of view, and comes attached to that very important word, “now”.

Topsoe will deliver the basic engineering and license for methanol synthesis and TIGAS gasoline synthesis technologies. Later in the project, Topsoe’s scope will be extended to supply methanol reactors and catalysts. The gasoline synthesis from methanol has been commercially proven in a 15000-bpd plant in Turkmenistan since 2019.