With climate neutrality to be achieved by 2050 at the latest, a new level of requirements is being anchored at the European level, imposing significant transformation requirements on sectors that
were not the focus of the less stringent reduction paths pursued so far. In addition to the energy-intensive raw materials industry (the chemical and mineral oil industries), this is above all transport:
air transport, international shipping and the non-electrified parts of freight transport must now also become climate-neutral.
Against this background, climate-neutral electricity-based synthetic fuels - so-called reFuels - are becoming a decisive building block in the future energy system. Baden-Württemberg stands to benefit considerably from a market ramp-up of reFuels if the import of synthetic, climate-neutral crude oil substitutes or similar primary products and raw materials is secured via energy partnerships to ensure the continued existence of the established industrial and energy infrastructures during the transformation towards climate neutrality. At the same time, new sales opportunities can be created for the industrial and mechanical systems engineering sector through the export of production technologies and their components.
This has been demonstrated by extensive accompanying studies carried out for the "reFuels - rethinking fuels" project on behalf of the Baden-Württemberg Ministry of Transport. A reFuels roadmap was devised for Baden-Württemberg in order to consistently initiate the next steps (see fig. above). It presents the necessary activities in terms of legal framework, demonstration projects, technology scaling and energy partnerships, including a time scale, and it outlines the measures to be taken. The goal is to realise value creation potential in Baden-Württemberg while simultaneously achieving the 2030 climate protection target.