EP. 01
From Molecule to Market
DME is a fuel molecule that’s been sitting in refrigerators and aerosol cans for a century. This episode is about how it also became a diesel replacement.
Elliot Anise-Hicks
Co-Founder & Board Director, Oberon Fuels
~22 minutes
Video first
About this episode
Dimethyl ether, or DME, is a fuel molecule that’s been used for over a century as an aerosol propellant and refrigerant. It’s also a near drop-in replacement for diesel: it handles like propane, burns without producing particulate matter, and matches diesel’s cetane performance. This episode is about how Oberon Fuels turned that molecule into a commercial fuel, and how the same production line ended up supplying L’Oréal’s aerosol cans.
Elliot Anise-Hicks co-founded Oberon Fuels in 2010, after a career path that started with a solar-powered car he raced at MIT in 1994. Oberon produced North America’s first fuel-grade DME in 2013 and switched to 100% renewable DME production in 2021. In 2011, as diesel emissions rules tightened and engine costs climbed, the company made its founding bet: stop at DME instead of pushing on to gasoline, and sell it as a diesel replacement in its own right.
The core idea in this conversation: converting a diesel engine to run on DME means swapping a tank and a few hoses, not rebuilding the vehicle, because DME can move through the propane infrastructure that already exists. Anise-Hicks argues that’s the more realistic path to decarbonizing heavy transport than building new infrastructure from scratch, and the rest of the episode tests that idea against hydrogen, rail, and the beauty aisle.
Episode structure
The Molecule | 6 min
DME’s hundred-year run as a refrigerant and propellant, why Oberon chose to stop at DME instead of pushing through to gasoline in 2011, and the MIT solar car race that put Anise-Hicks on this path in the first place.
Built on what already exists | 8 min
Why switching a diesel engine to DME means swapping a tank and some hoses, not the vehicle. The comparison to hydrogen’s problem on the rail network, where 26,000 power units and no way to fuel them make a “replace everything” plan a nonstarter, and why Anise-Hicks bets on incremental change over a big bang.
Molecule to market | 8 min
How the same renewable DME plant built for diesel trucks now supplies L’Oréal’s aerosol cans, why Anise-Hicks calls the current energy market a snow globe that’s still being shaken, and what changed in his thinking after sixteen years as CTO and a recent move to the board.
Elliot Anise-Hicks | Guest
Co-Founder & Board Director, Oberon Fuels
Anise-Hicks co-founded Oberon Fuels in 2010 and spent sixteen years as its CTO, taking the company from North America’s first fuel-grade DME plant in 2013 to 100% renewable DME production in 2021. He recently moved from the CTO role to the company’s board. He holds a B.S. in mechanical engineering from MIT, where he raced on the school’s solar electric vehicle team in the 1994 Tour de Sol.
