Electrolysis takes this electricity to generate pure, green hydrogen from water, hydrogen that could be used to power a fuel cell car. However, to make it suitable for use in traditional internal combustion engines, it requires some additional work. Carbon is taken out of the air in the form of CO2 and combines with hydrogen in a process called synthesis.
The result is a burnable fuel that, as far as your car is concerned, is indistinguishable from the real thing. “The engine is stupid,” Marcos Marques, Porsche’s e-fuels project manager, himself a former ICE guy, designing things at Porsche and Audi before taking on his current role, tells me.
HIF factory e-fuel is chemically identical to 93 octane gasoline at the pump. Porsches, and any other car for that matter, will be able to run smoothly. But most importantly, when burned, e-fuels return only the carbon that had already been extracted from the air, releasing energy captured from wind power.
On the surface there is no environmental impact; is neutral in emissions. But surely this is too good to be true? I ask Marques about the local impact. He says there are only three by-products of the e-fuels refining process. The first is oxygen, which is currently ventilated but could be sold for industrial use. The second is water, which is sent directly to the local treatment plant. And finally, there is liquefied petroleum gas, or LPG, which is currently captured and sold, but could be used as a power source for the plant in the future.
There is still the question of distribution, however. Right now, that will involve loading those fuels into some kind of tanker, which likely burns fossil fuels, but apparently Porsche also has plans to make them emission-free, or at least neutral.
A drop in the ocean
With such a large potential global market, Porsche is naturally not the only player when it comes to e-fuels. This year, Norsk begins construction of its first e-fuel plant in Mosjøen, Norway, a 12-hour drive north of Oslo. Norsk says it will provide 12.5 million liters of renewable fuel each year by the end of 2024.
In 2026, the Mosjøen plant is expected to reach full capacity and double production volume to 25 million liters per year. In this phase, Norsk plans to build a plant with a production capacity of 100 million liters every year until 2029. The company says that each of these “full-size” plants would effectively reduce the flight emissions of the five you fly more often routes within Norway by 50 percent.
Photography: Tim Stevens
