Large-scale Electro-fuel Production Set to Become Major Global Industry Translated and adapted from an article by Morten Valestrand in Tidningen Energi. View the article in Swedish at energi.se
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Swedish Press | Dec 2020/Jan 2021 12
The interest in climate change, sustainability and innovation is growing rapidly on both sides of the Atlantic. The technology to generate and store intermittent energy from renewable sources (mainly solar and wind) and to produce fossil-free (“green”) fuels is also evolving at an accelerating rate. The production of green fuels such as renewable methanol and hydrogen requires vast amounts of electricity; hence the fundamental link between the generation of renewable energy and the growing opportunity for production of green fuel.
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itigating climate change by de-fossilizing the road, marine and air transport sectors is not going to be an easy task. The European Commission has recognized the need for an aggressive policy promoting new solutions to substitute fossil fuels. This presents a strong need and opportunity for producers of carbon neutral fuels. Electro-fuels (also known as Power-to-Liquid or eFuels) are an emerging class of carbon-neutral and fossil-free fuels that are made by using renewable electricity and electrolysis to produce liquid or gaseous fuels. By utilizing carbon capture to take CO2 from the atmosphere or from industrial greenhouse gas emissions, carbon neutral liquid fuels such as methanol, gasoline and aviation fuel
can be produced. Electro-fuels offer a viable alternative to fossil fuels. However, producing electro-fuels requires a vast amount of electric power. To supply the country with electricity, Sweden is pursuing six carbon-neutral alternatives to coal, oil and natural gas. These alternatives are wind power (using wind turbines); wave power (employing various methods of converting ocean wave energy to electric energy); hydroelectric power (routing water in water falls through turbines); solar power (using solar cells); nuclear power (using radioactive heating to turn water into steam which is fed through turbines); and biofuels (fuels derived from organic materials such as crops and forestry by-products). Hydro-electric and nuclear currently dominate, but hydro is already exploited to the full and nuclear raises ecological issues. Wind is therefore seen as the most promising supplement in the future. The journey towards “liquid wind power” began a few years ago when the energy company Svensk Naturenergi was looking for storage options for its wind power. This resulted in a feasibility study of electro-fuels together with, among others, Göteborg Energi and Uddevalla Energi. In 2017, the Swedish company Liquid Wind was started by Claes Fredriksson, who has vast experience with renewable energy and cleantech, and who is the CEO of the company (see also page 10). Renewable hydrogen from wind power combined with carbon dioxide – these are the raw materials which Liquid Wind will draw upon to produce renewable fuel on a large scale for use by ships. The fuel is known as electro-
