Letter on hydrogen: Synthesising a future for e-fuels
E-fuels remain too expensive for many buyers, but emerging policies in the maritime sector could boost their prospects in that key market
If you were to take all of the used cooking oil from all of the McDonald’s restaurants in the UK, you would still not have enough to fuel one ship, according to Lara Naqushbandi, CEO of ETFuels, an e-methanol producer. She used this example to highlight the feedstock challenge facing conventional biofuels, the use of which has been supported relentlessly by the EU over the last 20 years. “If you look at the supply growth of biofuels over the last 15–20 years, it has been less than 5% every year. And why is that? It is because, fundamentally, biofuels are feedstock constrained,” she told the IE Week conference in London. Naqushbandi makes a valid point, and the debate over the ethics of biofu
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25 February 2026
Low-carbon hydrogen and ammonia development is advancing much more slowly and unevenly than once expected, with high costs and policy uncertainty thinning investment. Meanwhile, surging energy demand is reinforcing the role of natural gas and LNG as the backbone of the global energy system, panellists at LNG2026 said
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Norwegian energy company has dropped a major hydrogen project and paused its CCS expansion plans as demand fails to materialise
4 February 2026
Europe’s largest electrolyser manufacturers are losing patience with policymakers as sluggish growth in the green hydrogen sector undermines their decision to expand production capacity
2 February 2026
As a fertiliser feedstock, it is indispensable, but ammonia’s potential as a carbon-free energy carrier is also making it central to global decarbonisation strategies
