Imperial College London
Alternate

Professor Nilay Shah OBE FREng

Faculty of Engineering, Department of Chemical Engineering

Professor of Process Systems Engineering
 
 
 
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Contact

 

+44 (0)20 7594 6621n.shah

 
 
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Assistant

 

Miss Jessica Baldock +44 (0)20 7594 5699

 
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Location

 

ACEX 522ACE ExtensionSouth Kensington Campus

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Summary

 

Publications

Citation

BibTex format

@article{Freire:2021:10.1016/j.apenergy.2021.116488,
author = {Freire, Ordonez D and Shah, N and Guillen-Gosalbez, G},
doi = {10.1016/j.apenergy.2021.116488},
journal = {Applied Energy},
pages = {1--21},
title = {Economic and full environmental assessment of electrofuels via electrolysis and co-electrolysis considering externalities},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2021.116488},
volume = {286},
year = {2021}
}
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RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - JOUR
AB  - Electrofuels from CO2 and H2O have recently emerged as a promising alternative to reduce the carbon footprint of fossil fuels, yet their full economic and environmental performance remains unclear. Here, the production of renewable petrol from electrolysis and co-electrolysis-based processes is critically assessed, combining a palette of tools encompassing process simulation, costing evaluation, life-cycle assessment, and uncertainty analysis. Our results show that electrofuels are currently very expensive (10.4-fold higher cost compared to petrol), even when considering externalities (indirect cost of environmental impacts). Electrofuels could become cheaper than the fossil analogue, yet this would require relying on low-cost renewable electricity, which may find alternative uses. From an environmental perspective, we found that despite reducing the carbon footprint of the fossil counterpart, electrofuels could exacerbate impacts on human health due to burden-shifting. Overall, our work highlights the need to embrace impacts beyond climate change to ensure a comprehensive assessment of alternative fuels, and to monetise them to underpin a fair comparison with the fossil analogue.
AU  - Freire,Ordonez D
AU  - Shah,N
AU  - Guillen-Gosalbez,G
DO  - 10.1016/j.apenergy.2021.116488
EP  - 21
PY  - 2021///
SN  - 0306-2619
SP  - 1
TI  - Economic and full environmental assessment of electrofuels via electrolysis and co-electrolysis considering externalities
T2  - Applied Energy
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2021.116488
UR  - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261921000519
UR  - http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/106425
VL  - 286
ER  -
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