The competitiveness of low-carbon fuels depends on location

Paul Scherrer Institute

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Zipeng Liu analysed the production costs of twenty-one low-carbon fuel technologies. The results highlight the decisive role of location and financing conditions.

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Credit: © Paul Scherrer Institute PSI/Mahir Dzambegovic

Low-carbon fuels — such as biofuels derived from biomass or synthetic fuels produced using power-to-X technologies based on renewable electricity — generate significantly fewer greenhouse gas emissions than fossil alternatives.

These fuels are considered essential for reaching climate targets, particularly in so-called “hard-to-abate” sectors, including aviation, maritime shipping, and specific industrial processes. In these areas, direct electrification often reaches technical limits due to the high energy density required or the very high process temperatures involved.

Where and under which conditions these fuels can be produced most cost-effectively has remained unclear. Previous studies typically focused on individual technologies or regions, making global comparisons difficult. In a new study, Zipeng Liu and colleagues at the PSI Laboratory for Energy Systems Analysis have now addressed this question.

The team presents a comprehensive techno-economic assessment of twenty-one low-carbon fuel production technologies. Using a harmonised and globally consistent framework, they compare costs across countries and over time — from 2024 to 2050 — under multiple scenarios.

The analysis confirms that no single technology will dominate globally. Instead, costs vary significantly between regions, depending on local resources and financing conditions. The findings are published in the journal Energy and Environmental Science.

Geospatial factors and financing conditions impact costs

For their analysis, the researchers calculated the average production costs of the various fuels over their entire lifetime. “We accounted for capital expenditure for each technology, operation costs, country-specific labour costs, and the cost of capital,” explains Liu. “The cost of capital depends both on country risk — such as political and economic stability — and on the maturity of the technology.”

Liu continues, “Geospatial factors play a crucial role. For example, the availability of local energy sources, as well as the country-specific cost of capital, have a large impact on overall fuel production costs.”

One result of the study is a country ranking that shows which countries would be the best for producing fuels in certain ways, as well as which countries could serve as importers to Europe. For instance, blue hydrogen — produced from natural gas with carbon capture — and turquoise hydrogen, produced via methane pyrolysis, are currently most economically attractive in gas-rich regions such as the United States, the Middle East and Central Asia. In contrast, green hydrogen produced from renewable electricity becomes increasingly competitive by 2050 in renewable-rich countries such as Canada, Spain and Australia.

However, a higher degree of granularity is sometimes needed, Liu explains: “We used national-level resolution, but there could be sub-national level characteristics. For example, in big countries like China or the US, the sub-national resolution can be very different.”

New infrastructure could boost European production

The cost of transporting low-carbon fuels also contributes to their viability. For Europe, Liu first calculated a global transport by ship to Antwerp, followed by inland transport to Basel, Switzerland. Basel was chosen because it is in the centre of Europe and it can be used as an example for different transport pathways, such as rail, truck, or pipeline.

The analysis shows that having a European pipeline system would strongly contribute to the economic viability of European low-carbon fuels — for example in Spain, with its strong solar resources, or in the wind-rich North Sea region. Also regions like North Africa could connect via pipeline, undercutting faraway producers in Australia or Chile.

Location matters

“We found that there is no single technology winner globally,” says Liu. “Which solution makes economic sense depends strongly on regional resources and financing conditions.”

While green hydrogen benefits from falling renewable energy costs and is therefore likely to become cheaper in the long term, turquoise hydrogen may hold short-term advantages in regions with low-cost natural gas. Biofuels, too, are particularly competitive where sustainable biomass is abundant. “This is why policymakers need to consider local factors,” Liu adds.

The PSI study aims to assess the future technological and economic feasibility of low-carbon fuels. Right now, many of these technologies have relatively low technology-readiness levels. The analysis helps estimate when and for which production pathways these technologies could become economically feasible, providing guidance on where investment may be most effective. Market dynamics, tariffs, and detailed environmental impacts were not part of this assessment and remain subjects for further research.

The work was performed within the research project “SHELTERED”, funded by the Swiss Federal Office of Energy (SFOE), and the reFuel.ch consortium, which is sponsored by the Swiss SFOE ’s SWEET programme. The Laboratory for Energy Systems Analysis is part of both the PSI Center for Energy and Environmental Sciences and the Center for Nuclear Engineering and Sciences.

Text: Paul Scherrer Institute PSI/Carolyn Kerchof

 

About PSI

The Paul Scherrer Institute PSI develops, builds and operates large, complex research facilities and makes them available to the national and international research community. The institute's own key research priorities are in the fields of future technologies, energy and climate, health innovation and fundamentals of nature. PSI is committed to the training of future generations. Therefore about one quarter of our staff are post-docs, post-graduates or apprentices. Altogether PSI employs 2300 people, thus being the largest research institute in Switzerland. The annual budget amounts to approximately CHF 450 million. PSI is part of the ETH Domain, with the other members being the two Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology, ETH Zurich and EPFL Lausanne, as well as Eawag (Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology), Empa (Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology) and WSL (Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research).

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Journal

Energy & Environmental Science

DOI

10.1039/D5EE05591A 

Method of Research

Case study

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Global cost drivers and regional trade-offs for low-carbon fuels: a prospective techno-economic assessment

Article Publication Date

6-Mar-2026

 

How farming perennial plants can help us in times of climate change, food insecurity and social division

Book Announcement

University of California - Santa Barbara

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“Living Roots: The Promise of Perennial Foods” (Island Press, 2026) edited by Liz Carlise and Aubrey Streit Krug

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Credit: Island Press

Climate change is threatening modern life in ways we are still finding, from food security to the economy to everyday living. It has been labeled a “threat multiplier” for its potential to complicate geopolitical relationships. And our efforts to adapt as a global society face obstacles brought on by inequality.

“I’m really feeling the weight of so many crises,” said Liz Carlisle, a professor in the Environmental Studies Program at UC Santa Barbara. Between trying to slow down emissions and tackle future climate change while trying to handle the effects we’re already seeing and heal the deep divisions in our society, she said, coming together to solve a collective challenge like climate change is a herculean task.

But Carlisle, whose research focuses on food and farming, said there is a way to make inroads into the problem, and the solution could be right under our feet. In her book, “Living Roots: The Promise of Perennial Foods” (Island Press, 2026), Carlisle and co-editor Aubrey Streit Krug assert that relying more on perennial crops can help ease the many difficulties of adapting to a changing climate.

“I came to perennial foods because I see these foods and the movement building around them as this really promising solution that can help us to tackle these collective challenges,” she said.

Farming for resilience

Perennials are already a staple in most people’s diets. Consider that nuts and fruits come from trees and shrubs, which produce year after year without the tilling, uprooting and replanting required for annual crops like wheat, corn and soy. The key, said Carlisle and Streit Krug, director of the Perennial Cultures Lab at The Land Institute in Kansas, lies in their roots: Perennial plants invest more energy into developing their root systems than their annual counterparts, allowing them to regenerate and persist. Not only can they be an abundant source of food, the way they are grown minimizes climate-warming emissions. Globally, agriculture and industrial food systems currently produce about 16-17 billion metric tons of carbon each year; that’s about a quarter to a third of global carbon emissions.

Through a collection of more than 30 essays and poems, Carlisle, Streit Krug and their contributors build a picture of the perennial food movement in the United States and abroad. Some are farmers who plant perennial crops. Others are academics with specialties in ecology and climate adaptation. Several are Indigenous, with an intimate knowledge of the crops that have sustained their people for millennia. All are lovers of the land and assert that perennial farming is easier on the Earth, not only producing a diverse array of foods but also helping to keep conditions balanced and resilient, while contributing to culture and a common cause.

“I came to perennial foods because I see these foods and the movement building around them as this really promising solution that can help us to tackle these collective challenges.”

“I feel like I have this incredible privilege of getting to know these really inspiring people who are working from all these different and rich cultural traditions and have a rich set of motivations as well, around the future of their communities and their health and environmental concerns,” Carlisle said. From the plains of the United States to the pampas of Argentina, from the grasslands of Australia to the highlands of Turkey to the fields in Uganda, the tellers of these stories reflect on the relationships of their communities to the perennial plants of their regions. One of the goals, according to her, is to demonstrate that there’s a place in the perennial food movement for everyone, from farmers looking for a less intensive way to grow crops to consumers seeking to be more Earth-friendly with their choices.

Runoff containing fertilizer from upstream farms, as in this image of the Mississippi River Delta, creates toxic algae blooms off the coast which depletes oxygen in the water and kills marine life, impacting local seafood production and tourism

“I certainly don’t think we should eliminate annual plants as a food source, but when I look at the share of perennials in our managed ecosystems and our farms, you can see that the way many of us are farming — often with nothing but annuals — is not as resilient as what nature is doing,” Carlisle said.

In addition to producing food, the ecosystems in which perennial crops are grown confer resilience in other ways. Because perennials produce year after year, the labor, cost and energy that goes into tilling the soil is reduced, which maintains soil health and reduces erosion and the need for fertilization. Deep-rooted perennials also can help manage flooding and these same deep roots can store massive amounts of carbon underground. In their native environments, these plants are also able to withstand the droughts and heat stress that could take down shallower-rooted plants.

Easy strategies

It’s not difficult to join the perennial food movement, according to Carlisle. “A really easy first step is thinking about who locally is growing tree nuts and fruits in sustainable and regenerative ways.” These crops are widely available throughout the U.S. and most of the world, which could make for simple food decisions.

“If you eat meat, another step is to think about who’s producing meat locally from perennial pastures as opposed to from confined animal feeding operations,” Carlisle continued. “That’s a huge step toward perennial landscapes and it has a lot of co-benefits as well.

“As we move forward, what we need to do is develop a much wider array of crops that are better adapted to diverse environments under diverse circumstances,” she added. “We want to be food secure today, but we also want future generations to be food secure, and farm in a way that’s not undermining the very resources that make farming possible.”

Key protein SYFO2 enables 'self-fertilization’ of leguminous plants

University of Freiburg

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Most plants allow fungal microorganisms to enter their root cells and provide them with carbohydrates in exchange for a better supply of nutrients and water. Only leguminous plants like peas, beans, and clover enter into an additional, mutually beneficial symbiosis with nitrogen-fixing soil bacteria. The alliance with so-called rhizobia enables them to supply themselves with the nitrogen they need for their growth from the air.

Within the context of the Enabling Nutrient Symbiosis in Agriculture (ENSA) project, funded by the organization Gates Agricultural Innovations, a team of researchers led by Prof. Dr. Thomas Ott, professor for cell biology of the plant at the Faculty of Biology and a member of the Cluster of Excellence CIBSS – Centre for Integrative Biological Signalling Studies, succeeded in demonstrating for the first time that SYFO2, a poorly studied protein found in the roots of legumes and other plants, plays a key role in the ‘self-fertilization’ of legumes, because it enables rhizobia to enter the root cells. As soon as the bacteria have been entrapped by the root hairs of the plants, SYFO2 initiates the reorganization of the actin cytoskeleton – the key step for enabling bacteria to enter the root cells and infect them from within. As a result of the infection, tiny nodes form along the plant’s roots, where rhizobia fix nitrogen from the air and make it available to the plant.

The international team succeeded in demonstrating this process using a combination of imaging, molecular biological, and genetic methods. In addition, the scientists were able to activate the tomato’s own version of SYFO2 by introducing a regulatory factor of the root node symbiosis with nitrogen-fixing bacteria, the transcription factor NIN.

The study, titled ‘Nanodomain-localized formin gates symbiotic microbial entry in legume and solanaceous plants’, improves our understanding of how the tomato’s own symbiosis-related genes can be controlled. It lays the groundwork for future efforts to enhance beneficial plant–rhizobia interactions and to transfer nitrogen-fixing abilities to crop plants – with the long-term aim of reducing the need for fertilizer. The findings were published in the journal Science.

Foundation for key process identified

‘Most legumes have developed sophisticated mechanisms to allow cellular entry of symbiotic bacteria’, says Ott. ‘In this study, we identified the molecular foundation for a key process in which the plant switches from “catching the bacteria” to “opening the door” for them’. The study received additional support from CIBSS researcher Prof. Dr. Robert Grosse, director of the Institute of Experimental and Clinical Pharmacology and Toxicology at the Faculty of Medicine.

Furthermore, the researchers were able to show that SYFO2 is required in some plants that do not enter into symbioses with nitrogen-fixing bacteria for the initiation of the most common and evolutionarily older type of symbiosis: the mycorrhizal symbiosis between plants and fungi. Against this backdrop and in view of the successful activation of the protein in tomato plants, Ott summarizes: ‘This result is especially interesting, because it shows that genes normally involved in mycorrhizal symbiosis can be redirected to help engineer bacterial nitrogen-fixing symbiosis in plants.’

 

More information:

• Publication: Lijin Qiao et al. (2026). ‘Nanodomain-localized formin gates symbiotic microbial entry in legume and solanaceous plants.’ Science 391, 1036–1045. DOI:10.1126/science.adx8542
• Prof. Dr. Thomas Ott is professor for cell biology of the plant at the University of Freiburg’s Faculty of Biology and a member of the Cluster of Excellence CIBSS – Centre for Integrative Biological Signalling Studies.
• The study was realized within the context of the Enabling Nutrient Symbioses in Agriculture project, funded by the organization Gates Agricultural Innovations.
  Go to Gates Agricultural Innovations
  Go to the Nutrient Symbioses in Agriculture project

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DOI

10.1126/science.adx8542 

 

Moisture powered materials could make cleaning CO₂ from air more efficient

Arizona State University

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Over the past century, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased dramatically. This rise has contributed to global warming and led to many harmful effects, including shifting weather patterns and more frequent droughts. There is an urgent need to lower the amount of carbon dioxide in the air to protect ecosystems and reduce future damage to the planet.

Paul V. Galvin professor Petra Fromme in ASU’s  School of Molecular Sciences (SMS), and her team, have taken an important step toward improving technologies that pull carbon dioxide directly from the air—an approach considered essential for tackling climate change.  The team closely examined two promising materials that can capture CO₂ using changes in humidity, a low‑energy process known as “moisture‑swing” direct air capture (DAC). Fromme is also Director of the Biodesign Institute’s Center for Applied Structural Discovery,

The team includes Gayathri Yogaganeshan, Raimund Fromme and Michele Zacks from SMS, Rui Zhangfrom ASU’s Eyring Materials Center , Jennifer Wade and Golnaz Najaf Tomaraei from The Steve Sanghi College of Engineering, NAU, Sharang Sharang from Tescan USA Inc., Warrendale, Pennsylvania, Douglas Yates from the Singh Center for Nanotechnology, UPENN, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Marlene Velazco Medel from the Center for Negative Carbon Emissions, ASU, Martin Uher from the Tescan Group a.s., Brno, Czech Republic and Justin Flory from the Walton Center for Planetary Health, ASU.

“This work is so important as it shows for the first time the structural characterization of two direct air capture materials with a unique combination of techniques ranging from  X-ray diffraction to electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy which we combined with functional studies on the moisture swing mechanisms of carbon dioxide binding and release,” explains Fromme.

Gayathri Yogaganeshan, Fromme’s doctoral student, is first author on the paper just published in Materials Today Chemistry.

"Our research addresses the urgent challenge of removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by investigating materials for low-energy, moisture-driven direct air capture,” says Yogaganeshan .

Many carbon reduction methods focused on remediation have been explored. These include reforestation, agricultural and soil management, C-biomineralization, ocean fertilization, and bioenergy generation with carbon capture and storage (BECCS). Direct Air Capture, together with permanent storage, is a promising alternative method that captures carbon dioxide directly from the air.

This study looks at two commercially available polymers, Fumasep FAA-3 and IRA-900, to see how well they work for a low-energy carbon capture method called moisture-driven direct air capture (DAC). The goal was to understand how the structure of these materials affects how they adsorb and release carbon dioxide (CO₂).

Researchers used several imaging and X-ray techniques to examine the materials’ structures at different scales. They also ran experiments that measured how much CO₂ and water the materials adsorbed and released under different humidity levels.

The results showed that both materials behave similarly when adsorbing and releasing water, suggesting that water movement is controlled mainly by their molecular structure. However, their ability to capture CO₂ differed. The material with larger pores, IRA-900, captured more CO₂ and did so more quickly. Additional imaging revealed features like pores, clustering, and swelling that help explain these differences.

Overall, the study provides insight into how these materials work during CO₂ capture and highlights the important role of moisture. This knowledge could help researchers design more energy-efficient materials for carbon capture in the future.

“Using advanced structural characterization techniques including X-ray diffraction, SAXS/WAXS, atomic force microscopy, FIB-SEM, and TEM, combined with moisture-swing sorption experiments, we linked molecular-scale ordering, pore architecture, and hydration dynamics to CO₂ uptake and release,” explains Yogaganeshan.

“We found that hydration dynamics are controlled primarily by molecular structure, while CO₂ sorption kinetics and capacity are strongly influenced by macropore architecture and charge site density, with more open structures exhibiting enhanced uptake and faster initial kinetics. Surface analyses confirmed clustering, porosity, and swelling, revealing how subtle structural features govern performance. These insights provide a foundation for designing more energy-efficient materials for scalable carbon dioxide removal, with implications for advancing practical carbon capture technologies."

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Journal

Materials Today Chemistry

DOI

10.1016/j.mtchem.2026.103465 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Comprehensive structural characterization of charged polymers involved in moisture-driven direct air capture

Article Publication Date

6-Mar-2026