Classic cars, future fuels

by Malcolm McKay

Biofuels are the topic of the moment with the rollout of E10 petrol in the UK and its implications for the Historic vehicle industry. The short answer on E10 is that most classics will run on it without noticeable problems, but all require careful monitoring of its longer-term effects and some will need urgent modification to avoid serious problems. Better to stick with E5 higher octane fuels such as Tesco’s Momentum 99, Esso Synergy Supreme +99 and Shell V-Power as examples to ensure E5 continues to be available for as long as possible – the more we use it, the more likely it is to be there for the long term.

Biofuels reduce CO2 emissions but have negatives in the environmental impacts of production as well as increased fuel consumption – the Government’s E10 fuel explainer document says to expect an increase of ‘around 1%’.

Great potential lies in eFuels: synthetic, chemically-constructed fuels made by extracting hydrogen from water and combining it with CO2 captured from the atmosphere or from industrial processes. Electricity is required to extract the hydrogen but if naturally generated, eFuels can make any vehicle effectively carbon neutral as they only put back in the atmosphere CO2 that has already been taken from it.

Volume production of eFuels could be the dream solution for world CO2 control, as it can be formulated to suit all vehicles from ships to cars to aircraft and used in existing vehicles worldwide, with no need to build billions of new vehicles (electric or otherwise).

Article courtesy of HCVA (Historic & Classic Vehicles Alliance)