Birds are dying on a beach in Peru – something went wrong while unloading an oil tanker, forests and swamps in western Siberia shimmer with oil towards final destruction, crude oil spurts from a defective pipeline in the rainforest of Ecuador, and an oil well recently exploded off the coast of Nigeria Lagerschiff: According to the environmental organization Greenpeace, there have been several oil spills since the beginning of the year, and more will follow in the course of the year.

The global demand for oil is gigantic - more than 4.5 billion tons of oil are consumed every year, the CO₂ emissions are enormous.

The transport sector alone accounts for more than a quarter of the total final energy consumption in Germany, mineral oil products such as kerosene, diesel or petrol account for more than 90 percent,

the proportion of biofuels is only 6 percent.

If the climate goals are to be achieved, a move away from fossil fuels is unavoidable.

By 2030, according to the amended Climate Protection Act, greenhouse gas emissions should be reduced by 65 percent compared to 1990.

The consistent expansion of renewable energies, energy-efficient construction, the switch to electrically powered vehicles, but also alternative fuels are strategies for a future without fossil fuels such as oil, coal and gas - and for the drastic reduction in CO₂ emissions.

So what are the fuels of the future?

Are e-fuels and biofuels an alternative for a transitional period until combustion engines are banned from our cars from 2035, or will they become a climate-neutral energy source alongside electric drives for the mobility engines of the future?

E-fuels from green electricity, biofuels from plants, fungi, algae, wood or biomass from agriculture and even plastic waste could be the raw materials for new fuels.

We took a look at some interesting processes and projects.

In the production of e-fuels, i.e. fuels from green electricity, Porsche wants to be at the forefront.

All model series are to be electric – only the 911 will continue to have a combustion engine.

The sports car manufacturer, together with other international project developers, has been investing 70 million dollars in a pilot project in southern Chile since last year.

The climate-neutral fuel of the future is to be produced on a windy, barren plain north of Punta Arenas.

Powered by wind turbines from the Siemens Energy subsidiary Gamesa and with subsidies from the Federal Ministry of Economics, water is to be split into hydrogen and oxygen in an electrolyzer and then converted into green methanol.

Carbon dioxide (CO₂) is extracted from the supplied air using the direct air capture method (DAC),

then the electrolysis process begins.

The basis is the so-called Fischer-Tropsch process (FT synthesis), which is more than 100 years old.

The end product is a kind of carbon-free, green gasoline that is delivered by ship to the pumps of sports car owners - later this year, around 130,000 liters of fuel are expected to be produced in the Chilean steppe - and when burned carbon-neutrally releases only the amount of CO₂ that previously removed from the atmosphere.

Ineratec, a start-up that was created at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, also wants to decarbonize industry and transport.

In chemical reactors, which are housed in shipping containers, fuel can be produced in the gas-to-liquid process from harmful industrial emissions, biogas or the gases produced in sewage treatment plants.

And also in the power-to-liquid process, similar to the Porsche project in Chile, synthetic fuels are produced from regenerative electricity sources.

A pilot plant went into operation in Hamburg at the end of March;

when the production processes are established on a larger scale, CO₂-neutral e-kerosene should replace fossil jet fuel.