> So why not just do full manufacture of regular fuel?
Always fascinating when people use "just" in sentences where they propose something that hasn't been done before (at least not at any scale that would matter) and that is a huge challenge.
As for the reason, my understading is that producing fuels from electricity is just very inefficient. You still use hydrogen as the first step and then add other steps to produce hydrocarbons. Using hydrogen spares a few conversion steps and you'll need less electricity (but likely still a lot).
Always fascinating when people use "just" in sentences where they propose something that hasn't been done before (at least not at any scale that would matter) and that is a huge challenge.
As for the reason, my understading is that producing fuels from electricity is just very inefficient. You still use hydrogen as the first step and then add other steps to produce hydrocarbons. Using hydrogen spares a few conversion steps and you'll need less electricity (but likely still a lot).