Right now, hydrogen is not really a green fuel at all, it is the oil and gas industry trying to remain relevant in a rapidly changing world. The rest of it comes from various types of fossil fuel-based processes, which still produce emissions to a greater or lesser extent (grey or blue hydrogen). This is, of course, assuming the hydrogen is produced with renewable energy, and only 1% of current hydrogen is generated in this way. Synthetic fuels ("power-to-liquid") are even less efficient than hydrogen fuel cells for powering. It is also therefore entirely impossible that synthetic fuel will be cheaper than using electricity to charge batteries. If just 10% of the UK’s cars, vans and small trucks used e-fuels it would require three times as much renewable electricity as batteries.
In other words, powering the current car fleet with synthetic fuels instead of batteries will require four times as much electricity generation, which seems completely impractical. Synthetic fuels are less efficient still, with the estimate being about 4 times worse than batteries and very little improvement by 2050. According to Transport & Environment, hydrogen fuel cells are currently 2.3 times less energy efficient than batteries, with the deficit dropping to 2 times less efficient by 2050. In fact, the situation is even worse for synthetic fuel. Not only does this process involve lots of stages, each of which adds cost and consumes energy, the key element here is hydrogen, which leads to a similar set of questions about energy efficiency as hydrogen fuel cells. They are produced by combining CO2 with hydrogen, and this raw material is then used to manufacture the sub-type – gasoline/petrol or diesel. The elephant in the room comes from how synthetic fuels are made. That is quite a bit more than the current US average of $3.20 a gallon, and highly likely to result in car owners looking to ditch their internal combustion cars, or stick with regular gasoline if they are allowed. More realistic estimates put the cost at more like 3 or 4 Euros a liter ($3.54 to $4.72) by 2030, which equates to over $13 a US gallon. Bosch has gone even further, claiming synthetic fuel would be 1.20 Euros ($1.41 ) by 2030.
The claims for pricing are ridiculous too, with the eFuel Alliance expecting synthetic fuel to cost between 1.38 and 2.24 Euros by 2050 ($1.63 to $2.64). That is just too late to solve the current climate crisis. This would alleviate the slow initial supply, but the expectation is for just 4% admixture by 2025, 12% by 2030, and only 100% by 2050. The efuel Alliance sees gradually increasing synthetic admixture to conventional fossil fuels rather than an immediate swap. The transition to synthetic fuel is not expected to be overnight, though.
Even evangelists don't expent 100% synthetic fuels to be available until 2050.
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