{"id":146041,"date":"2024-06-18T07:23:00","date_gmt":"2024-06-18T05:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/?p=146041"},"modified":"2024-06-12T10:09:37","modified_gmt":"2024-06-12T08:09:37","slug":"eu-rules-on-e-fuels-threaten-to-create-co2-tourism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/eu-rules-on-e-fuels-threaten-to-create-co2-tourism\/","title":{"rendered":"EU rules on e-fuels threaten to create \u2018CO2 tourism\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n

German Transport Minister Volker Wissing (FDP\/Renew) warned EU rules risked creating \u201cCO2 tourism\u201d, where liquified CO2 from Europe would be unnecessarily shipped to other parts of the world, to produce e-fuels which are then re-imported into the EU market.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

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\"To
To fulfil EU rules for “renewable” synthetic fuels, producers might need to ship liquified CO2 from Europe to other parts of the world, similar to the pictured transport of liquified natural gas (LNG). \u00a9 GreenOak\/shutterstock<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

\u201cCO2 is being transported from one country to another in order to fulfil regulatory requirements,\u201d Wissing told journalists, after meeting with e-fuel experts and his counterparts from Lithuania and Morocco, at an international e-fuels conference earlier this week (4 June).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This practice would \u201ccontribute exactly nothing to climate protection,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hydrogen-based synthetic fuels, known as e-fuels play a crucial role in the EU\u2019s plans to decarbonise transport. In aviation and maritime transport, the EU has set minimum quotas for \u201crenewable fuels of non-biological origin\u201d (RFNBOs) as of 2030 and 2034, respectively, including hydrogen and e-fuels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

E-fuels are made with hydrogen and carbon dioxide from either the atmosphere or industrial plants, suitable for internal combustion or aircraft engines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While most e-fuels are expected to be produced outside of Europe, where renewable energy will be available at a larger scale, EU rules for the CO2 used in e-fuels could force producers to physically transport liquified CO2 from Europe, to production sites outside the EU.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moroccan e-fuel, but Spanish CO2<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

HIF EMEA, a producer of e-fuels, is currently planning production facilities in Morocco, for supply to the European market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

HIF EMEA chief executive officer, Thorsten Herdan told Euractiv, that for several planned projects in Morocco, \u201cwe are currently investigating where we can get the CO2 from,\u201d Herdan said, adding that \u201cone of the most promising options is indeed to capture it in Spain and then ship it to Morocco and put it into the hydrogen there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was due to the EU\u2019s RFNBOs rules, he explained, which only allow for the use of CO2 either captured from the atmosphere, from some biomass wastes, or \u2013 until 2041 \u2013 from industrial sites which are covered by a carbon pricing scheme, such as the EU\u2019s Emissions Trading System (ETS).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The use of CO2 captured from a Spanish cement factory \u2013 which is covered by the ETS \u2013 would thus allow for the e-fuel to be considered  as \u2018renewable\u2019 in the EU.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But \u201cif I now have exactly the same cement plant [\u2026] in Morocco \u2013 where there are many cement plants \u2013 then I am not allowed to do so because the cement plant is not subject to emissions trading,\u201d Herdan said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

EU rules for the sources of electricity and CO2 used to produce \u201crenewable\u201d e-fuels, such as synthetic kerosene, are set in two implementing rulebooks, known as delegated acts.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Commission argues<\/a> that only emissions subject to carbon pricing should be included, as the goal was \u201cto incentivise abating emissions from non-sustainable fuels in the first place\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Environmental NGOs, meanwhile, insist<\/a> that CO2 from industrial plants should not be used at all for e-fuels, as this would lead to more CO2 ending up in the atmosphere, undermining the aim of carbon neutrality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

European versus international rules<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

For the aviation sector, the EU has regulated<\/a> that 1.2% of all kerosene demand met with renewable e-kerosene by 2030, increasing to 35% by 2050.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition the Renewable Energy Directive requires EU countries to set a minimum quota for RFNBOs, of at least 1% of all fuels used across all transport modes, including road transport.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Investments into production sites for e-fuels, however, have not yet materialised at scale, and according to Wissing \u201cwe cannot expect blending quotas alone to solve the problem.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTo believe that the state can simply set a quota and then the e-fuels will be available is something that all representatives have told us will not work,\u201d Wissing said, pouring water on the EU ambitions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A January 2024 analysis<\/a> showed that of 25 planned industry-scale production sites for e-kerosene in Europe, none has yet reached a final investment decision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe European Union will not be able to meet its demand for e-fuels on its own. We need partners outside the EU and therefore standardised rules,\u201d said Wissing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While being concerned that setting up global rules could take a long time, Herdan said the EU could fix the issue of \u2018CO2 tourism\u2019 by creating a \u201cmolecule import law\u201d which would set different rules for imported e-fuels, than for those produced within the EU.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

German Transport Minister Volker Wissing (FDP\/Renew) warned EU rules risked creating \u201cCO2 tourism\u201d, where liquified CO2 from Europe would be unnecessarily shipped to other parts of the world, to produce e-fuels which are then re-imported into the EU market. \u201cCO2 is being transported from one country to another in order to fulfil regulatory requirements,\u201d Wissing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":146063,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","nova_meta_subtitle":"In aviation and maritime transport, the EU has set minimum quotas for \u201crenewable fuels of non-biological origin\u201d (RFNBOs) as of 2030 and 2034, respectively, including hydrogen and e-fuels","footnotes":""},"categories":[5571],"tags":[15075,10744,15905,23950,16038,10743],"supplier":[21349,2317,5585,20162],"class_list":["post-146041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-co2-based","tag-aviationfuels","tag-carboncapture","tag-efuels","tag-ekerosene","tag-powertoliquid","tag-useco2","supplier-bundesministerium-fur-digitales-und-verkehr-bmdv","supplier-european-commission","supplier-european-union","supplier-hif-global"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146041"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146041\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146041"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=146041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}