Fuel cell, Hyland program germany

Electricity more efficient and safer than hydrogen or synthetic fuels? This is what a new study claims.

If electrical technology is a solution of the future, it is not the only one. Many players and manufacturers are also interested in hydrogen or synthetic fuels. However, they would not be as efficient, as a recent study claims.

According to Falko Ueckerdt, the researcher who led the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research survey relayed on Nature.com, the energy needed to make the fuels for these solutions will always be greater than that needed to power electric cars. According to him, this balance could lead to a decline, with a dependence on fossil fuels still marked.

Falko Ueckerdt to specify: “Hydrogen-based fuels can be great clean energy carriers, but their costs and associated risks are also significant. If we stick to combustion technologies and hope to fuel them with hydrogen-based fuels, and these prove to be too expensive and too scarce, we will end up burning more oil and gas ”.

Hydrogen-based fuels can be excellent clean energy carriers, but their costs and associated risks are also significant

Same observation with synthetic fuels which, according to the study report, require five times more electricity than electric cars. However, the German research firm is not so alarmist: according to it, sensible climate policy must continue to support the deployment of synthetic fuels and hydrogen. So that a “Order of merit of end uses” should be taken into account and give priority to these new alternatives to sectors inaccessible to direct electrification, such as aeronautics for example.