Synthetic E fuel

[peakbagger]

This one is coming out from left field. Keep the IC engine and gas turbines, just make the fuel green

Porsche investing $24 million in 'e-fuels' for traditional sports cars (cnbc.com)

Lot to be said for reworking refinery's and the liquid fuel infrastructure instead of walking away from it. Stick offshore windfarms to feed the power to refinery's and then convert it to a power dense liquid fuel for applications that dont fit well into the electric vehicle market.

 

[begreen]

Refining and then tanking/shipping this to exclusive locations from Chile sounds like it will be a very pricy fuel. I suppose if you have a $250K car that $20/gallon is just overhead, but all that transport will add to the carbon cost.

In other news, KLM just flew its first regular passenger flight on synthetic fuel. All went well.

World first in the Netherlands by KLM, Shell and Dutch ministry for Infrastructure and Water Management: first passenger flight performed with sustainable synthetic kerosene

For the first time worldwide, a passenger flight partly flown on sustainably produced synthetic kerosene, was carried out in The Netherlands. This was announced today during the international conference on Synthetic Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAF) in The Hague. Shell, producer of the...

news.klm.com

 

[semipro]

I'm skeptical. There seems like there's so much more about ICEs beyond fuel that makes them environmentally unsustainable. Assessment and comparison of life-cycle costs will help sort things out though.
In general, aviation seems like a good potential application for bio- and syn-fuels.

 

[peakbagger]

I agree, electric will do a lot of the short range travel but aviation and long haul trucking both need energy dense fast refuel options.

 

[SpaceBus]

I like the idea of a clean synthetic fuel for legacy vehicles. A lot of the carbon emissions associated with ICE vehicles are production related if the fuel is clean. My tractor and truck were expensive and I would like to keep using them for the rest of my useful life, an expensive fuel would be tolerable to me if the emissions are clean.

 

[peakbagger]

The Germans long ago developed the Fisher Tropsch process for syn fuel pre WW2. Once there is cloud of energetic molecules, they can be reformed into just about any fuel. The reason is its not used is that its heck of lot easier and cheaper to drill holes in the ground to tap fossil that was formed over millions of years. The Germans did not have liquid fuel so I think they burned a lot to lignite coal to get the constituents for the process and then ended up with liquid fuel. My guess is this is an easier process starting with hydrogen and carbon but it will not be cheap.

 

[semipro]

I agree, electric will do a lot of the short range travel but aviation and long haul trucking both need energy dense fast refuel options.

Agreed, but I (probably naively) have high hopes for some sort of in-motion charging technology for heavy EVs.

 

[CaptSpiff]

The Germans long ago developed the Fisher Tropsch process for syn fuel pre WW2. Once there is cloud of energetic molecules, they can be reformed into just about any fuel. The reason is its not used is that its heck of lot easier and cheaper to drill holes in the ground to tap fossil that was formed over millions of years. The Germans did not have liquid fuel so I think they burned a lot to lignite coal to get the constituents for the process and then ended up with liquid fuel. My guess is this is an easier process starting with hydrogen and carbon but it will not be cheap.

I'm no expert on fuel processing but I don't like the whole concept. We have several EPA Superfund sites here on Long Island where the former Natural Gas Company did coal to natural gas conversion, and left behind a mess.

 

[begreen]

I agree, electric will do a lot of the short range travel but aviation and long haul trucking both need energy dense fast refuel options.

Work on EV longhaul trucking appears to be moving forward. Volvo, Tesla, Nikola, Daimler (Freightliner) have trucks in the works with Daimler expected to have the first truck in production this year. The short hauler picture looks even better.

8 electric truck and van companies to watch in 2020 | GreenBiz

Get ready for all-electric heavy-duty big rigs, semi-trucks, box trucks, delivery vans and more.

www.greenbiz.com

 

[SpaceBus]

I think electric has a huge place in LTL trucking shipments that rarely travel more than 100 miles in a day anyway.