Meeting Place for the Engine Community

26.02. and 27.02.2019 - Baden-Baden, Germany

Autor: Patrick Schäfer

Report of the 6th international Engine Congress 2019

26.2. und 27.2.2019 in Baden-Baden, Germany

Combustion engines will continue to be used in the future. The extent to which synthetic fuels can contribute to zero-emission engines was discussed at the 6th International Engine Congress in Baden-Baden, Germany. 

Four hundred and fifty engineers from research and development met to discuss the energy revolution of transportation and the role of combustion engines at the 6th International Engine Congress in Baden-Baden. According to the scientific director of the congress, Dr. Johannes Liebl, the focus was to provide a bigger picture, showing combustion engines and fuels functioning together as a system. In his opening speech, he shared his belief that innovative synthetic fuels have the potential to make the operation of petrol and diesel engines CO₂-neutral.

The topic of synthetic fuels was mentioned immediately in the first keynote. Dr. Wolfgang Warnecke's (Shell Global Solutions Germany) speech focused on "Energy options and their impact on the powertrain". The Chief Scientist Mobility considered the real potential synthetic fuels offer to help reduce CO₂ emissions from transportation. Even though parallel developments are being made, he doesn't see any synthetic fuels available on the market for the next five years. Compared to the pure battery electric vehicle, these fuels are said to be clearly at a disadvantage in terms of efficiency and costs. At the same time, however, there are strong restrictions on purely battery electric vehicles in terms of fleets and means of transportation. This means that fixating on electric cars will not solve all our problems. "Combustion will remain an essential part of mobility". "There's no straightforward answer; the future looks rather complex for all of us," said Warnecke. The fact that there is still no alternative to combustion engines in the commercial vehicle, shipping and aircraft sectors underlines this. Sustainable mobility for the future will require life-cycle analysis for an integrated, joint solution. 

Decarbonising the transportation sector

Later on, Dr. Ulrich Kramer, technical specialist for fuels of the future at Ford, presented the FVV study, "Possible solutions for decarbonising the transportation sector". Using various scenarios, the main objective here was to present cost-benefit calculations for various drive types in a hypothetical electricity-based energy world in the year 2050. The battery electric vehicle (BEV) is very efficient compared to fuel cell vehicles and synthetically-fuelled vehicles with combustion engines. However, there is also a downside to it: On the one hand a very expensive infrastructure, which is needed to buffer the energy, and on the other hand very high vehicle costs. "The cost risk for BEVs and fuel cells is extremely high," Kramer said. Even though they are not ready for market yet due to their long lead time of five to ten years, synthetic fuels do not pose a more capital-intensive CO₂ reduction measure than BEVs.

The third keynote was also related to the costs and market acceptance of sustainable vehicle powertrains. In his economic analysis of driving, Professor Dr. Ulrich van Suntum promoted an emission price system that couples the costs directly to the consumer. CO₂ reductions, which are then made by the consumer in their own interest in the form of incentives, would make more sense than the current "planned economy" approach of wanting to reduce emissions by issuing corresponding laws. After all, "driving is very important to people," as van Suntum reminds us. He considers the "signal and incentive function of prices" in relation to emission rights trading to be a decisive mechanism.

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