Written evidence submitted by Zero Petroleum Ltd (FTF0039)

 

Zero Petroleum

 

Zero Petroleum Limited was founded in January 2020 by Paddy Lowe and Professor Nilay Shah, OBE. Paddy Lowe is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, Honorary Fellow of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge and graduate in Engineering from Cambridge University. He spent the majority of his career in Formula 1 as technical director of significant teams including Mercedes, McLaren and Williams, winning multiple World Championships under his leadership. Nilay Shah is Professor in Chemical Engineering at Imperial College and also a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering. He was awarded an OBE in 2020 for services to the decarbonisation of the UK economy.

 

Zero Petroleum is the only company operating commercially in the UK to design and manufacture synthetic hydrocarbon fuels (“SHCFs” – see background notes). With the support of its client the Royal Air Force, Zero Petroleum executed a project in just 5 months to build from scratch and operate an SHCF plant to manufacture synthetic aviation gasoline culminating in a manned flight on 2nd November 2021. This flight earned the Guinness World Records® title of First Aircraft Powered by Synthetic Fuel. The whole-blend fuel demonstrated absolute “drop-in” qualities, delivering identical power without any modification whatsoever to engine or aircraft. This achievement was only made possible by proprietary synthesis technology (“Direct FT™”) which is unique in terms of yield and quality without upgrading in a refinery.

 

Our own assessments supported by a wide range of unsolicited client enquiries demonstrate that SHCFs will be required for a far more extensive range of applications than aviation. Clients fall into two categories: those who cannot electrify whatsoever, for performance reasons resulting from battery weight and volume (including aviation, defence, agriculture, high-end automotive) and those who cannot electrify quickly for economic or practical engineering reasons (some rail sectors, industrial plant such as mining). The additional cost of synthetic fuels themselves must be considered against asset conversion costs, which in the case of drop-in SHCFs are zero. We believe that the call for raised ambition at COP26 (more, faster) will expand the market for SHCFs.

 

Our record-breaking flight was covered in major national media. We also recorded a huge volume of public and corporate interest from our website. All of this strengthens our belief that the development of an SHCF capability and industry at scale is critical to the UK meeting its emissions targets. Moreover it presents a colossal opportunity for UK innovation and global leadership in the associated technology and the consequent export trade in the medium and long term. Other players (notably Germany, Scandinavia) are presently taking the lead in this sector.

 

The world map of SHCF projects in active construction is still sparse. Zero Petroleum’s immediate ambition is to build the first commercial SHCF plant in the UK at a scale of ~£100m capital, which would be meaningful in that context.

 

The pace of our development would be enormously accelerated by any degree of support that we could generate from the Committee.

 

Summary points of evidence

 

  1. Not all transport, industrial or agricultural applications can be electrified, due to the very high weight and volume penalties of energy storage using batteries compared to petroleum fuels (x50 in weight, x15 in volume, like-for-like). These penalties impose significant performance detriment affecting range, payload and consequent commercial margin. Battery technology will not close this gap due to fundamental limitations in electro-chemistry.
  2. Hydrogen fuel is superior to a battery for energy storage but remains in the order of x5 worse than petroleum fuels.
  3. The range of applications for which neither batteries nor hydrogen are attractive or even viable energy storage options is very wide indeed and characterised by performance and consequent commercial mandates. These applications will require synthetic petroleum fuels.
  4. Private transportation is one of the few sectors for which such mandates are relatively weak; hence the strong case for electrification in that sector.
  5. Notwithstanding (3) there are a wide range of vehicles which could be electrified under a performance consideration but for which the economic case is much stronger to use synthetic petroleum fuels.
  6. Notwithstanding (3) and (5) there are very considerable legacy assets in the transport, industrial and agricultural sectors which should be electrified on a performance and clean-sheet economic basis but can be better deployed to full life by the use of drop-in synthetic petroleum fuels.

 

 

Background notes

 

SHCFs are variously called efuels, electrofuels, power-to-liquids (PtL) or, by Zero Petroleum’s preference (for ease of public comprehension), synthetic fuels. SHCFs are fully industrial, taking renewable energy (from wind, solar PV etc.) to convert air (for carbon dioxide via Direct Air Capture) and water (for green hydrogen) by synthesis into “drop-in” petroleum fuels. Drop-in fuels are an exact replacement for the existing fossil-based portfolio of petroleum fuels within petrol, kerosene (jet fuel) and diesel grades. In other respects SHCFs are and will be increasingly superior to their fossil-based equivalents as they do not contain sulphur and their composition can be engineered to improve combustion and octane for (a) greater efficiency, (b) reduced particulates, carbon monoxide and nitric oxides emissions and (c) reduced or eliminated contrails in aviation.

 

SHCFs are classified as “development fuels” within the Road Transport Fuel Obligation (RTFO). SHCFs are not to be confused with either biofuels or fuels manufactured from waste products. The primary strategic distinction is that SHCFs have the realistic potential to scale to meet all ongoing liquid (dense energy) demands as principally required in the transport sector. Ricardo produced an excellent report on the scaling issue (Renewable energy requirements to decarbonise transport in Europe; ED 13966, 4th December 2020). Amongst other conclusions this report found that (a) enough renewable power can indeed be constructed to supply all of Europe’s total energy and (b) commercial aviation will continue to use kerosene as primary energy supply of which 84% to 100% (according to scenario) will be manufactured as e-kerosene (an SHCF) by 2050.

 

 

January 2021