From Eric Peters at ericpetersautos.com:
Internal combustion engines aren’t going away. They are merely in the process of being taken away – from you and I and most everyone else who won’t be able to afford paying $20-plus for a gallon [about 4-litres[ of fuel.
That is the projected cost, give or take, of a gallon of “carbon neutral” gasoline, also styled “e-fuel.” It will enable the very rich who can afford to buy it to continue driving their non-electric cars while make-pretending that they “care” for the “environment.”In fact, of course, what they care about is being able to continue driving something that isn’t tethered to a cord.
That’s for the rest of us. But what is “carbon neutral” fuel? It is fuel that, when burned, causes no more “carbon” to be “emitted” than was first removed from the air. This entails a very complex – very expensive – process of sequestering, condensing and converting air (the constituent chemical elements) into liquid fuel. It takes a tremendous amount of electricity to power this process – and for it to be “carbon neutral,” it must all be sourced “cleanly,” as from windmills and solar arrays.
As if carbon dioxide were “dirty.”
As if it caused pollution or fouled the environment. It does neither – in the least. But it takes a lot of energy to make “clean” fuels. According to a Reuters news story, quoting the Nature Climate Journal, “Using e-fuel in a gasoline or diesel car requires about five times more renewable electricity than running a battery-electric vehicle.”
Report on more fuel efficient cars to be manufactured – 70 to 80 miles to the gallon and manufactured in Britain plus 19,000 jobs: