The car industry is trying to save the combustion engine. Their best bet: synthetic fuels. They're hailed as being carbon neutral and the quickest way to get old cars off fossil fuels. Sounds great? Well, if you look closer, synthetic fuels are the worst way to decarbonize individual transport.

Reporter: Kai Steinecke
Video Editor: Nils Reinecke
Supervising Editor: Malte Rohwer-Kahlmann

We're destroying our environment at an alarming rate. But it doesn't need to be this way. Our channel explores the shift towards an eco-friendly world — and challenges our ideas about what dealing with climate change means. We look at the big and the small: What we can do and how the system needs to change. Every Friday we'll take a truly global look at how to get us out of this mess.

#PlanetA #eFuel #ClimateChange

Read More:
Overall assessment of eFuels: https://www.agora-energiewende.de/fil...

Efficiency of eFuels: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science...

Potential risks of hydrogen-based e-fuels in climate change mititgation https://www.nature.com/articles/s4155...

Costs of eFuels: https://theicct.org/sites/default/fil...

The energy density advantage: https://royalsociety.org/-/media/poli...

Special Thanks to Severin Hänggi and Roland Dittmeyer for their valuable insight to eFuel production and efficiency.

Chapters:
0:00 The Promise
0:39 Producing eFuels
1:59 Cost Problem
2:55 Competition for Renewable Energy
4:43 eFuel’s Inefficiency
6:42 Little Availability
7:17 Application Areas
8:48 Conclusion