Electrofuels from CO₂ and H₂O have recently emerged as a promising alternative to reduce the carbon footprint of fossil fuels, yet their full economic and environmental performance remains unclear. Here, the production of renewable petrol from electrolysis and co-electrolysis-based processes is critically assessed, combining a palette of tools encompassing process simulation, costing evaluation, life-cycle assessment, and uncertainty analysis. Our results show that electrofuels are currently very expensive (10.4-fold higher cost compared to petrol), even when considering externalities (indirect cost of environmental impacts). Electrofuels could become cheaper than the fossil analogue, yet this would require relying on low-cost renewable electricity, which may find alternative uses. From an environmental perspective, we found that despite reducing the carbon footprint of the fossil counterpart, electrofuels could exacerbate impacts on human health due to burden-shifting. Overall, our work highlights the need to embrace impacts beyond climate change to ensure a comprehensive assessment of alternative fuels, and to monetise them to underpin a fair comparison with the fossil analogue.

来自CO ₂和H _2的电燃料O最近成为减少化石燃料碳足迹的有前途的替代品，但其完整的经济和环境绩效仍不清楚。在这里，对通过电解和基于共电解的过程生产可再生汽油的方法进行了严格评估，结合了一系列工具，包括过程模拟，成本估算，生命周期评估和不确定性分析。我们的结果表明，即使考虑外部因素（环境影响的间接成本），电燃料目前也非常昂贵（比汽油高10.4倍）。电燃料可能会比化石类似物便宜，但这将需要依靠低成本的可再生电力，这可能会找到替代用途。从环境的角度来看，我们发现，尽管减少了化石对应物的碳足迹，但由于负担转移，电子燃料可能加剧对人类健康的影响。总体而言，我们的工作突出了需要涵盖气候变化以外的影响，以确保对替代燃料进行全面评估，并将其货币化，以与化石类似物进行公平的比较。