Electricity consum p tion
Electricity consum p tion per capita
1000
1000
750
100
500
10
250
2020 0
2020 0
2024
2030
2024
2030
United States
China
Europe
Asia excl. China
Rest of world
Global average
Figure 3 Current and anticipated growth in energy demand from AI and data centres ( IEA, 2025 )
with current examples including the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Israeli/Gaza conflict, and civil wars in Sudan and Myanmar. Just one act of sabotage, the rupture of the Nord Stream pipelines in 2022, was estimated to have released 150 thousand tonnes of methane ( Wikipedia, 2024). Although the world’s leaders are most unlikely to agree to stop future armed conflicts, other actions should be considered to reduce the investment gap. A smart combination of decarbonised downstream, natural gas generation, and renewable sources can increase energy security resilience. The EU should set technology-agnostic targets for the decarbonisation of the European automotive and fuels industries. Synthetic fuels should be considered complementary to electrification, allowing a more rapid and affordable reduction in the carbon footprint of road transport while also reducing crude oil imports. The effective integration of synthetic fuels within an existing refinery represents a realistic, feasible, non-disruptive fuels strategy. This article describes how the integration of a synthetic fuels unit inside an existing fuels complex can be financially viable while allowing the reduction of carbon footprints, both during production (Scope 1 and 2 emissions) in the
fuels complex or refinery, as well as Scope 3 emissions from the use of fuels in road, air, and marine transport. The reconfiguration of the refineries for the integration with new synthetic fuels units and a carbon capture scheme is analysed considering the following cases: • Base case: operation of an existing modern, high-conversion refinery. • Hybrid case: Introduction of e-fuel production units. • Comparison of cases to explore the optimum balance, which maximises emissions reductions while meeting demand. A techno-economic analysis was used to explore the optimum reconfiguration; considerations included: • Conservation of most of the existing assets. • Introduction of some new units while avoiding mega investments. • Reducing the Scope 1 and 2 carbon emissions or carbon footprint of the refinery. • Reducing the crude oil intake so that it becomes a feedstock to improve financials. • Providing a combination of low-carbon and sustainable fuels that reduce the emissions from transport on a life cycle basis (Scope 3 emissions). • Meet future energy demand while also driving decarbonisation.
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