AFTER OIL: The Complete Guide to Synthetic Fuels, Green Hydrogen, Carbon Capture, and the E-Fuel Revolution

The Fuel Revolution That Will Power the World After Oil

A battery cannot fly a Boeing 777 from London to Singapore. A lithium-ion pack cannot propel a 400-metre container ship across the Pacific. And the 1.3 billion internal combustion engines already on the world's roads will not be replaced by electric vehicles before the climate deadline arrives.

Synthetic fuels — manufactured from renewable electricity, captured carbon, and green hydrogen — are the answer the energy transition has been waiting for. They flow through existing pipelines. They fill existing tanks. They power existing engines. And when produced from renewable sources, they emit no net carbon.

In Synthetic Fuels: The Science, Economics, and Future of E-Fuels, T Vijayan Babu delivers the first comprehensive, accessible reference on this transformative technology — covering everything from the chemistry of the Fischer-Tropsch process to the geopolitics of who will dominate e-fuel production in 2050.

What You Will Learn

• The Science: How green hydrogen is produced, how CO2 is captured from the air and from industrial exhausts, and how these ingredients are combined — via Fischer-Tropsch synthesis, methanol-to-jet conversion, and Power-to-X pathways — to produce synthetic kerosene, diesel, methanol, ammonia, and natural gas.
• The Sectors: How synthetic fuels decarbonize aviation (SAF mandates, 100% synthetic kerosene flights), shipping (green methanol, ammonia, synthetic LNG), road transport (the legacy fleet problem), agriculture, rail, military applications, and gas heating.
• The Economics: Why e-fuels are expensive today (the cost stack broken down), why they will not remain so (renewable electricity cost trajectories, electrolyser learning curves), and when and where cost parity with fossil fuels will be reached.
• The Policy: How EU ReFuelEU mandates, the US Inflation Reduction Act, CORSIA, the IMO carbon mechanism, and carbon trading schemes are reshaping fuel markets — and what gaps remain.
• The Geopolitics: Who wins and who loses as synthetic fuels redraw the energy map — from Morocco and Chile to Saudi Arabia and Australia — and how the Middle East is pivoting from oil exporters to e-fuel exporters.
• The Controversies: An honest assessment of e-fuels vs. battery EVs (the efficiency debate), lifecycle emissions (the renewable electricity assumption), and resource competition (land, water, and energy).

For Whom This Book Is Written

This book is written for energy professionals, investors, policymakers, sustainability managers, students of energy economics, and any intelligent reader who needs to understand one of the most consequential industrial transitions of the twenty-first century. It assumes no chemistry background — every technical concept is explained from first principles — while providing the depth that specialists require.

The Bottom Line

The science of synthetic fuels is sound. The technology works. The cost trajectory is favourable. The regulatory architecture is being built. What has been missing — until now — is a single, authoritative, readable guide to the complete landscape.

Synthetic Fuels fills that gap.