Potential and risks of hydrogen-based e-fuels in climate change mitigation

• Published in: Nature climate change Vol. 11; no. 5; pp. 384 - 393
• Main Authors: Ueckerdt, Falko, Bauer, Christian, Dirnaichner, Alois, Everall, Jordan, Sacchi, Romain, Luderer, Gunnar
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 01.05.2021; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: 704/106/694/682; 704/844/4066/4080; 704/844/843; 706/4066/4076; 706/689/2789; Availability; Climate Change; Climate change mitigation; Climate Change/Climate Change Impacts; Climate policy; Costs; Deployment; Earth and Environmental Science; Electricity consumption; Electrification; Environment; Environmental Law/Policy/Ecojustice; Environmental policy; Fossil fuels; Fuels; Green hydrogen; Hedging; Hydrocarbon fuels; Hydrocarbons; Hydrogen; Mitigation; Mitigation costs; Perspective; Risk
• ISSN: 1758-678X; 1758-6798
• DOI: 10.1038/s41558-021-01032-7

E-fuels promise to replace fossil fuels with renewable electricity without the demand-side transformations required for a direct electrification. However, e-fuels’ versatility is counterbalanced by their fragile climate effectiveness, high costs and uncertain availability. E-fuel mitigation costs are €800–1,200 per tCO 2 . Large-scale deployment could reduce costs to €20–270 per tCO 2 until 2050, yet it is unlikely that e-fuels will become cheap and abundant early enough. Neglecting demand-side transformations threatens to lock in a fossil-fuel dependency if e-fuels fall short of expectations. Sensible climate policy supports e-fuel deployment while hedging against the risk of their unavailability at large scale. Policies should be guided by a ‘merit order of end uses’ that prioritizes hydrogen and e-fuels for sectors that are inaccessible to direct electrification. E-fuels—hydrocarbon fuels synthesized from green hydrogen—can replace fossil fuels. This Perspective highlights the opportunities and risks of e-fuels, and concludes that hydrogen and e-fuels should be prioritized for sectors inaccessible to direct electrification.