Don’t hold your breath waiting for synthetic fuels

Illustration of a synthetic fuels factory created by AI

In my latest column for BI Foresight I tackle one of the most persistent myths in the transport world: that battery electric vehicles (BEVs) are a stopgap technology, and that something else will be along to replace them soon.

Read the column to find out where batteries make sense, and why there are so many barriers to the alternative technologies - in terms of simple science, engineering, and economics.

Note that some of the comments on this column on places like LinkedIn have been exactly what I would expect. Climate change deniers, and people with very warped understandings of the physics. I’m staggered how big the lobby is for green hydrogen as a technology for transportation. And how powerful the opposition is to battery vehicles as a functional, efficient and (relatively) clean alternative to fossil fuels.

Wrongheaded ideas about battery electric vehicles are incredibly pervasive, spread as they are by popular TV personalities, large parts of the media, and politicians. But you only need to do some basic back-of-envelope maths to realise the truth.