An Overview of Promising Alternative Fuels for Road, Rail, Air, and Inland Waterway Transport in Germany

Abstract

To solve the challenge of decarbonizing the transport sector, a broad variety of alternative fuels based on different concepts, including Power-to-Gas and Power-to-Liquid, and propulsion systems, have been developed. The current research landscape is investigating either a selection of fuel options or a selection of criteria, a comprehensive overview is missing so far. This study aims to close this gap by providing a holistic analysis of existing fuel and drivetrain options, spanning production to utilization. For this purpose, a case study for Germany is performed considering different vehicle classes in road, rail, inland waterway, and air transport. The evaluated criteria on the production side include technical maturity, costs, as well as environmental impacts, whereas, on the utilization side, possible blending with existing fossil fuels and the satisfaction of the required mission ranges are evaluated. Overall, the fuels and propulsion systems, Methanol-to-Gasoline, Fischer–Tropsch diesel and kerosene, hydrogen, battery-electric propulsion, HVO, DME, and natural gas are identified as promising future options. All of these promising fuels could reach near-zero greenhouse gas emissions bounded to some mandatory preconditions. However, the current research landscape is characterized by high insecurity with regard to fuel costs, depending on the predicted range and length of value chains.

Liquefied Natural Gas Logistics Management Through Optimal Road-Rail Intermodal Logistics Planning Considering Community Safety

“…Hart and Morrison (2015), Buyanova and Mudrova (2019), Palestini andSassu (2021), andSongbandid (2016) explored intermodal transportation (i.e., transportation by two or more different specific modes by different carriers). Lastly, Breuer et al (2022), Hariraj and Ramanath (2016), Paulauskas et al (2022), Rayed et al (2023), Utku andSoyöz (2020), andVasilevich et al (2016) researched multimodal transportation (i.e., transportation by two or more different specific modes by only one carrier).…”

Environmental Viability Analysis of Connected European Inland–Marine Waterways and Their Services in View of Climate Change

“…Although the use of ecological fuels and electric propulsion is growing, this trend is more pronounced for smaller vessels than large cargo barges. However, alternative fuels and propulsion systems such as biogas, methanol-to-gasoline, biodiesel, hydrogen, and battery-electric propulsion (for smaller vessels) can be regarded as promising future options [25]. Instead of pure electric propulsion systems for large cargo barges on rivers hybrid diesel (Diesel-Battery-Electric-Propeller) can be recommended [26].…”

Review of freight high speed railway (HSR)

“…Rail transport has by far the smallest share in GHG emissions in the EU, accounting for 0.4% [12], although it accounts for 8% of passenger and 19% of freight transport in Europe [42]. Despite the lowest share of harmful compounds emission among all means of transport, intensive works are being made in the railway sector to use more efficient propulsion systems [41,44] and alternative fuels [8,48], including hydrogen [18,19,24,40] to reduce exhaust emissions [38].…”