Even though news of Porsche teaming up with several “international companies”—namely Siemens Energy—to produce a “synthetic climate-neutral fuel” known as eFuel dropped earlier last week, we haven’t heard as much chatter as we thought it might garner.
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I heard about this awhile back before Porsche was involved. I believe at the time they said in mass production the cast would be down around $2-3 per gallon. I'm all for it. I still stand by my statement that I don't believe electric cars are the answer to replace the ICE. They do have their place but I think hydrogen or a fuel alternative are more likely.
I kind of wish they would go butanol, as it's a lot closer to gasoline. But the idea is good. And this would work well in Arizona, where rivers pass by, so you have a source of sun (power) and water (H2 source) for combining with CO2. The other thought is to at least blend the alcohols, so that there can be a wider range of evaporation- helping engine cold starts.
I read about an idea like this a few years ago, and thought it was a great idea for energy storage. This is just a liquid battery.
If one is truly worried about carbon emissions then using nuclear power to turn water + air into gasoline/diesel means you can reuse all of the existing fueling infrastructure (tankers, pipelines, gas stations, etc) instead of needing a massive upgrade on the electrical grid. It also means that you can take existing cars and trucks and make them carbon-neutral instead of requiring that they be junked and replaced with expensive EVs. Makes a ton more sense than hydrogen fuel cells.
In reply to Colin Wood :
Talk about old news!!!! It's called flex fuel. America has been using it forever. Moonshine is ethanol and back in Model T Ford days a mechanic went in and drilled out jets.
In the 1980's Iowa became the first state in the nation to vote on presidential primaries in order to mandate the use of Ethanol.
Methanol is some nasty stuff. So switching to ethanol was a no brainer.
Now-days we have flex fuel option where we can use up to 85% ethanol just by putting it in our gas tank. If the price of E85 is to high the next time we can use regular unleaded. Nothing else to do. It's a cheap option. Costs $99 for a new Ford Chevy is about the same Ive seen it on Dodge and others.
In reply to frenchyd :
Did you read the notes? It's not distilled liquor. It's methanol made from H2 and atmospheric CO2- that's what makes it different.
Zie Germans were making gasoline from coal in the mid-1930s.
Seems like a logical step.
In reply to Patientzero :
What is your favorite economically feasible way of generating commercial quantities of hydrogen that doesn't involve natural gas or crude oil? I used to work for an oil company and am typically very critical of anything that isn't using only water as a source.
I seem to recall something called "seafuel" that was an experiment in the 70's. Seawater and algae were distilled into something akin to bio-diesel. A quick internet search for it reveled nothing today. I learned of it when doing a college paper in the early 90's.
In reply to alfadriver (Forum Supporter) :
No, he never does.
15f80 said:In reply to Patientzero :
What is your favorite economically feasible way of generating commercial quantities of hydrogen that doesn't involve natural gas or crude oil? I used to work for an oil company and am typically very critical of anything that isn't using only water as a source.
"hydrogen or a fuel alternative are more likely."
No idea man, I'm not a chemical engineer. I'm just a guy on the internet giving my opinion. It just makes more sense in my little brain to use all the infrastructure that is already in place to keep the millions of vehicles we already have on the road.
Patientzero said:15f80 said:In reply to Patientzero :
What is your favorite economically feasible way of generating commercial quantities of hydrogen that doesn't involve natural gas or crude oil? I used to work for an oil company and am typically very critical of anything that isn't using only water as a source.
"hydrogen or a fuel alternative are more likely."
No idea man, I'm not a chemical engineer. I'm just a guy on the internet giving my opinion. It just makes more sense in my little brain to use all the infrastructure that is already in place to keep the millions of vehicles we already have on the road.
Alternate fuels are fine, especially if they remove CO2 from the atmosphere. I am not a chemical engineer either, but that infrastructure is largely responsible for climate change. Lots of jobs and money to dismantle it to build up a new paradigm. 120 years ago most people owned horses. Except for police and parades, I haven't seen anybody riding a horse in an urban city in 50 years.
alfadriver (Forum Supporter) said:In reply to frenchyd :
Did you read the notes? It's not distilled liquor. It's methanol made from H2 and atmospheric CO2- that's what makes it different.
Haven't you read what I've posted countless times? Methanol is nasty stuff. It's commercially made from coal and produces some nasty by products.
Drink a glass and die.
Ethanol on the other hand, Drink a glass and get happy. It's growth produces oxygen while its growing and bio degrades back into nutrients for the soil. It doesn't have to be corn. Many natural products can produce ethanol.
Airplanes are going to be running on chemical fuel for the future unless batteries get more energy density by multiple orders of magnitude. Powering them off fuel generated from existing atmospheric carbon seems like a step in the right direction vs. pumping it out of the ground. Methanol wouldn't quite get us there as the energy density is too low, but again, step in the right direction.
Obviously this is a win for ICE cars as well.
I still see a path for ICEs to not get pushed out by BEVs if humans can figure out an economical way to pull carbon from the atmosphere.
In reply to 15f80 :
I'm talking mainly about gas stations, fuel distribution, etc. It's going to take awhile before there are battery charging stations on every street corner and the cars are not yet designed in a way to make swapping batteries at pit stop feasible. The electric grid in most major cities is already barely sufficient. If everyone in Los Angeles went home and started charging an electric car tonight it would probably implode.
What makes the most sense to me for EV's would be in-city delivery trucks. They get parked and charged every night, cut down on pollution and noise in the city, and weight isn't really an issue.
As for horses. You clearly don't live around Amish or have ever been to Houston, lol.
15f80 said:What is your favorite economically feasible way of generating commercial quantities of hydrogen that doesn't involve natural gas or crude oil? I used to work for an oil company and am typically very critical of anything that isn't using only water as a source.
Electrolysis is the obvious one.
And yes, it takes more energy to liberate that hydrogen than you'll get by burning it. Don't think of this as a fuel -- the fuel is uranium (or solar if you want to be pie-in-the-sky environmentalist). The hydrogen is just a means to run an internal combustion engine using the power released by those nuclear reactors.
The Navy has been looking at this as a way to run the jet fighters on an aircraft carrier off that carrier's reactor without needing to ship (or even worse, FLY) fuel out to it.
I think it's really interesting that some companies are doubling down on the bet that electric is the future while others are looking for fuel alternatives.
If I was a betting man I would bet on fuel alternatives.
I stayed home today because my company didn't have power. Edison shuts off the grid when it gets a little windy because of the disaster they were involved with the other year in NorCal. How on earth will we add millions of cars to the already struggling grid? I don't see it.
Anyway, good for Porsche. I like how they think
frenchyd said:alfadriver (Forum Supporter) said:In reply to frenchyd :
Did you read the notes? It's not distilled liquor. It's methanol made from H2 and atmospheric CO2- that's what makes it different.
Haven't you read what I've posted countless times? Methanol is nasty stuff. It's commercially made from coal and produces some nasty by products.
Drink a glass and die.
Ethanol on the other hand, Drink a glass and get happy. It's growth produces oxygen while its growing and bio degrades back into nutrients for the soil. It doesn't have to be corn. Many natural products can produce ethanol.
Sorry, but gasoline and diesel are also not on my regular diet, so having methanol not be good for me isn't a big deal.
Also, you still didn't read the news- this is methanol made from H2 (probably from electrolysis) and atmospheric CO2. Not coal, not wood, not any other source to fabricate methanol. H2 and CO2. Pretty interesting. So when you have an area of lots of excess energy, you can make H2 from H2O, harvest CO2 from the air, and then turn that into methanol. Solving multiple things at the same time- energy storage, liquid energy for vehicles, and reduction in atmospheric CO2.
In reply to Patientzero :
The fuel distribution issue is where I would hope for butanol- as I understand that can run in the already established gasoline pipeline network. Not sure about that, but that's what I have heard in the past.
Apparently there is also a second step to process the methanol into something more gasoline-like, although they don't say exactly what (butanol would be a reasonable bet). Methanol would require a lot of retrofit work to adapt to existing fuel systems. I wonder if they'll have options for Diesel and kerosene / jet fuel as well.
RichardSIA said:The process worked, the economics did not, as it was assumed that the feed-stocks would be free or subsidized. This one should have gone further if only to lessen our use of land-fill's and recycle the piles of coal tar sitting around the country.
Eventually, through a carbon economy and increased efficiencies, it will be cheaper to get carbon from a supply of recycled goods, the air, etc. than it will be to remove it from the ground.
MadScientistMatt said:Apparently there is also a second step to process the methanol into something more gasoline-like, although they don't say exactly what (butanol would be a reasonable bet). Methanol would require a lot of retrofit work to adapt to existing fuel systems. I wonder if they'll have options for Diesel and kerosene / jet fuel as well.
True, but tweaking designs of existing ICEs to produce new ones that run on methanol would be trivial compared to a fundamental change in locomotion.
Sounds crazy, but hey, synthetic rubber was developed to offset shortages and monopolies in natural rubber supplies. Synthetic fuel could do the same.
ProDarwin said:MadScientistMatt said:Apparently there is also a second step to process the methanol into something more gasoline-like, although they don't say exactly what (butanol would be a reasonable bet). Methanol would require a lot of retrofit work to adapt to existing fuel systems. I wonder if they'll have options for Diesel and kerosene / jet fuel as well.
True, but tweaking designs of existing ICEs to produce new ones that run on methanol would be trivial compared to a fundamental change in locomotion.
Using alcohol isn't a big deal. Having a fuel that is robust to everyone, from Arizona to Fairbanks, is the important thing, to me. Brazil has E100 for consumption, but the cars also have a small gas tank for cold starts. I would hope that we could have a better fuel to start engines than that.
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