Using hydrogen as a fuel presents substantial challenges, in particular around how to store and distribute such an annoyingly low energy density gas.

As a result, a substantial chunk of opinion reckons hydrogen may be best used as a chemical ingredient on which to build other, more user-friendly derivatives - such as synthetic fuels, or ‘e-fuels’.

Finland, for example, “hopes e-fuels can recreate the Nokia magic” (if you can remember far enough back, to when such a thing existed).

Specifically, “energy company Freija AS has announced plans to build a major e-methane production facility in the Finnish town of Nokia – the original home of the former phone giant”. Ironically, Freija is a Norwegian company, but has chosen it’s neighbour’s territory for the project because of “Finland’s ambitious environmental goals, highly skilled workforce, and strategic location”.

The economics will be helped by the fact that power prices in the country “have been consistently lower than those of other EU countries since the 2022 energy crisis”; and that with a clean power mix that “was 54% renewable” in that same year (via “hydro, solar, wind and bioenergy”).

If built, the e-methane plant will be “one of the largest in Europe”. It aims to “be operational in 2029”.

Also in Finland, Sweden’s Liquid Wind has partnered with Finnish power company Turun Seudun Energiantuotanto (TSE) to develop “an eFuel facility in Naantali”.

The facility will “be adjacent to TSE’s local power plant Naantali 4, which will deliver biogenic CO2 and steam for the production of eMethanol” (100,000 tonnes per year of the stuff). Energy efficiency and sustainability enthusiasts will be glad to hear that “the process and waste heat of Liquid Wind’s facility will be used for district heat, reducing the share of incineration-based district heat production by TSE”.

Like the previous example, this project hopes to “be operational in 2029”, on the back of a “final investment decision (FID) planned for 2026”. Liquid Wind has already “started the environmental impact assessment and permitting process”.

With aviation likely to be a key market for e-fuels, Norsk e-Fuel will no doubt be delighted to have attracted investment from Boeing “to support the development of its debut site, touted as one of Europe’s first industrial-scale Power-to-Liquids facilities”.