Importing Solar-Made Fuels? It Could Be a Gamechanger

Climate change depends on the rise in temperatures and, according to the Paris Agreement, we should ensure that the increase is “well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit it even further to 1.5°C." Achieving this goal depends on containing the accumulation of greenhouse gases (GHG) in the atmosphere, as it matters not only when the target (net zero) of emissions is reached (the EU is mandated to reach this target by 2050), but also the quantity of GHG accumulated in the atmosphere before reaching it. In this regard, the choices on where (in which sectors), how (with which solutions) and when (with which priorities) to direct decarbonization efforts are crucial for the effectiveness of the fight against climate change. In any case, net zero means that the target can be achieved not only by reducing emissions but also by capturing CO2, even directly from the atmosphere (Direct Air Capture). To do what? To produce synthetic fuels through the use of electricity (“electric fuels”) with which to obtain hydrogen (via electrolysis) and combine it with the captured CO2 (CCU-Carbon Capture and Utilization). In this case, when electricity is supplied by carbon-free renewable sources, the CO2 emitted in the use phase of the synthetic fuel is equal to that captured and the entire cycle will be carbon-neutral. This is a method with which almost all commercial fuels can be obtained (from methane to gasoline and diesel, from methanol to kerosene) and burned without additional net CO2 emissions in a very large market. In fact, the potential demand in Europe is estimated at 30-50% of consumption in the transport sector alone (but e-fuels can also penetrate other sectors, especially in hard-to-abate industrial uses).

All this is not without drawbacks. In particular, when the electricity to produce synthetic fuel derives from the centralized electricity grid still partly powered by fossil fuel plants, producing the fuel would lead to an increase in emissions in electricity generation and therefore would not be totally carbon-neutral. Carbon neutrality would instead be achieved if power plants were already completely (or nearly) decarbonized or if electricity production from renewables were entirely dedicated to the production of the fuel in question (without possibility of alternative allocation of renewables, which is unlikely in many advanced countries).

What to do then? One idea could be to import electric fuels from those countries where renewable resources are very abundant, cheap and without alternative allocation (fully dedicated renewables). For example, the countries of North Africa and the Middle East (MENA), but not only them. In the meantime, we should commit domestic renewables to the decarbonization of power generation plants (a sort of double environmental dividend). This would reduce the time to reach emission reduction targets and at the same time contain the accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere.

However, this come with at least two caveats. First, the technology is not yet fully mature (especially the one for direct capture of CO2 from the atmosphere) and abatement costs are still high. Second, there remains the geopolitical problem of energy imports from countries with potential political risk. The ethical question of subtracting of resources from developing countries, however, should be scaled down: since these are renewable resources, there would be no gradual exhaustion of their stocks in those countries.

On the other hand, the advantages would be clear. The environmental ones, previously highlighted, but also the economic ones to the extent that this supply chain would allow to maintain the transport, distribution and use of infrastructure already in place in both exporting and importing countries (think, in particular, of the import of electrical methane from MENA using the already existing natural gas pipeline infrastructure without the need to impose the phasing out of the technologies already in use). In conclusion, greater attention (also political) to this solution would perhaps allow to facilitate the energy transition (even if we should speak more of a revolution than a transition) and to make the ambitious objectives of containing global warming more realistic.