“Synthetic fuel shall save the combustion engine”

Chemist Robert Schlögl, from Germany’s Max-Planck-Research-Institute, wants to save combustion engine technology and its infrastructure from being gradually replaced with electric vehicles by developing synthetic fuel from hydrogen and carbon dioxide (CO₂), Andreas Mihm writes in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. “The methodology is well-known, the technology can be bought off the shelf, the patents are registered – we just have to get started,” Schlögl told the newspaper. The professor for chemistry says a decisive emissions reduction in the transport sector cannot be done only by building e-cars – and neglecting one billion existing combustion engines around the world and their infrastructure, Mihm writes. Schlögl adds that using CO₂ to produce synthetic fuel gives the greenhouse gas a second lease on life and turns the otherwise unwanted by-product into a usable resource.

For background on German manufacturers' struggle to shift to decarbonised mobility, see the CLEW dossier The Energiewende and German carmakers.