CLUBS SEEK CLARITY ON SYNTHETIC FUEL
Porsche’s new petrol prompts concerns about cost, availability and risk
Clubs have called on Porsche to share its findings of running old engines on e-fuel, after it announced a ¤20m investment in Siemens Energy’s ‘Haru Oni’ synthetic fuel project on 12 February, which will eventually see 130,000 litres of carbon neutral petrol, produced in Chile, powering its heritage fleet.
Annual production of 55 million litres of synthetic fuel, otherwise known as e-fuel, is planned by 2024 with Porsche initially using the fuel for its motor sport operations and, later, for its heritage cars and sports car fleet. Porsche Research and Development executive board member, Michael Steiner, said: ‘Our cars are driven for a very, very long time. If you want to operate the existing fleet in a sustainable manner, e-fuels are a fundamental component.’
Classic Car Weekly’s own research shows that when the impact of transporting Porsche’s e-fuel is taken into account, a classic running on it would produce an identical amount of CO2 as a classic converted to electric power being charged in southern Scotland, one of the cleanest energy areas in the UK. However, the extremely high energy consumption of electrolysis, means that the CO2 impact would rise drastically – worse than running the same car on fossil fuel – were e-fuel to be created in the UK, even in the same clean energy area.
Detractors of e-fuels have pointed to the high amounts of ‘input CO2’ needed to produce it; the process still means using large amounts of clean energy that could otherwise be powering homes and industries even when made with entirely renewable energy – merely shifting the CO2 production elsewhere.
Porsche and Siemens argue that the fuel provides a means of transferring renewable energy to parts of the world that don’t have the natural conditions to produce it themselves.
Siemens Energy CEO, Christian Burch, told Classic Car Weekly: ‘Renewable energy will no longer be produced only where it’s needed, but where natural resources like wind and sun are available on a massive scale.’
Porsche has also admitted that the current cost of the fuel is around ¤10 per litre, but hopes that this would drop to less than ¤2 per litre within ten years.
All-Party Parliamentary Historic Vehicles Group chair, Sir Greg Knight MP, said: ‘There has been no suggestion that there are any plans to stop the sale of petrol or diesel and many new petrol vehicles purchased [as late as] 2029 could be on the road for at least a decade.
‘I welcome research and development of e-fuels but I also say to owners of historic vehicles that there is no need to panic yet about not being able to fill the tank of your pride and joy.’
Many clubs contacted by Classic Car Weekly were unaware of the recent developments in e-fuels; some confused it with bioethanol fuel (E5 and E10) while others were concerned by the costs involved and what additional and costly additives – if any – were needed to run it without damaging older engines.