Most global transport and heavy industry still rely on fossil fuels; for these hard-to-abate sectors, decarbonisation hinges on the development of low-carbon alternatives.

Green hydrogen, ethanol and synthetic fuels are seeing some limited adoption, but cost-competitiveness and scalability remain challenging. Across the solar, wind and tidal sectors, researchers are working to push the needle towards commercial viability.

Discussing the work that could shape the future of low-carbon fuel alternatives are four researchers and experts: Maren Cordts, co-founder of photreon; Motiar Rahaman, assistant professor at the University of Liège; Catrin Garrett, energy systems engineer at EMEC and Alessandro Giampieri, research associate at Durham Energy Institute.

For more on low-carbon fuels, check out last week’s episode from Gastech.

Eve Thomas, associate editor of GlobalData’s energy titles, is the host and producer of this episode.

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(00:00) Intro

(01:01) photreon’s photoreactor panels

(01:59) Tackling scalability

(02:58) Artificial leaves

(04:03) Targeting ethanol

(04:49) The speed of progress

(06:20) Trends in tidal for fuel production

(07:44) Challenges in tidal power

(08:34) Vanadium batteries in tidal

(10:07) Tidal for SAF

(11:10) Offshore wind for onshore electrolysis

(11:45) Producing hydrogen onsite offshore

(12:49) Transporting offshore hydrogen to shote

(15:05) The curtailment opportunity

(16:27) Outro