Instead of canceling the gas engine, California should let innovators innovate

Several governments in the U.S. have made the decision that purchases of internal combustion cars will be significantly reduced or banned.  For example, California requires an increasing percentage of new car sales to be full or hybrid electric vehicles, or fuel cell vehicles beginning at 35 percent in 2026, ramping up to 100 percent of sales in 2035.  

These governments have completely missed that there are more technology options for no-emissions cars, including the prospect that current internal combustion cars can be reduced or zero emission through net-no emission gasoline.  As a consequence, these governments should rescind their internal combustion car bans, and focus on technology-neutral options.  

Turning your current internal combustion engine car into a zero-emission car is based on a new type of gasoline refining.  One of the standard paths is to start with non-emitting power, such as nuclear, wind, solar, hydroelectric, or possibly in the future, fusion. Through electrolysis or natural gas pyrolysis, the power is used to separate hydrogen from water or natural gas.  Then the hydrogen is combined with a carbon dioxide stream, possibly from atmospheric capture, in a bio-reactor, to create negative carbon synthetic gasoline, many times referred to as “e-fuel.”  Note, this same process can be used to create negative carbon synthetic natural gas, aviation fuel, or plastics. Several airlines are investing in this type of aviation fuel.  You can even create polyester and make negative carbon clothing, and several companies are already doing this today. From power to your next workout shirt, this has echoes of the replicator on Star Trek. 

When that negative carbon gasoline is used in your standard internal combustion car, the carbon emitted is equal to the carbon pulled from the atmosphere to make the fuel. So net, it is a zero change in the atmosphere.  Another advantage of e-fuels is that you can blend them into current gasoline, and start to reduce internal combustion car emissions today without requiring people to buy a new car.  

Several companies, including Porsche and LanzaTech, are commercializing this sort of fuel production. And it is particularly interesting that Porsche and Toyota have recently said that the death of the internal combustion car is not inevitable, in part because of innovations like this.  

The challenge is not the prospects of the chemistry steps, that have already been proven.  It’s developing efficiency improvements in the process to drive down the costs of each step.  Currently, some of the products made this way are about double the cost of oil-based fuels, but the costs have been dropping through chemical engineering innovation, and California should allow this alternative to see if it can economically compete.   

The point is not to advocate that zero-emission liquid fuel is definitely a better solution for no-emissions cars versus EVs or hydrogen. It is to highlight that politicians arbitrarily mandating a certain energy technology solution, in this case mandating car technologies, is poor policy.  And it is particularly strange that California, one of the most innovative places in the world, has closed off new technology options that have the prospects for achieving their goals. These options include internal combustion, which has certain performance metrics much better than EVs, including distance, heavy lift, ability to refuel and operations in cold environments.  Whether non-emitting energy is stored in an electrochemical, hydrogen, or liquid form for use in cars, it would be a better policy if governments were open to all of them.  

Rather than arbitrarily mandating a car or energy technology, it would be better to allow for the competition of innovation.  Retracting current internal combustion bans and replacing them with technology-neutral, innovation-open strategies would be a better policy. Including the prospect that you can keep purchasing internal combustion cars. 

Paul Dabbar is a distinguished visiting fellow at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University SIPA. He is also the CEO and co-founder of Bohr Quantum Technology. He was undersecretary for Science at the U.S. Department of Energy from 2017-2021.