20/12/2022
Porsche and international partners working with the Chilean operating company Highly Innovative Fuels (HIF) have started the industrial production of synthetic fuels.
https://newsroom.porsche.com/en/2022/company/porsche-highly-innovative-fuels-hif-opening-efuels-pilot-plant-haru-oni-chile-synthetic-fuels-30732.html
About one order of magnitude more expensive than the fossil kind.
Yes, of course. But climate change is also costly you know …
The issue is more that we’re currently running out of extractable fossils (net energy peak for oil liquids is projected to peak as early as 2025 and the decline into nonextractability is rapid) so it’s a question of having liquid fuels and synthetic stock, at all.
What kind of life style we can expect where hydrocarbons and energy in general is expensive is an interesting question. See e.g. https://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpress.com/ for analysis of that.
Yes I agree. I told you a few days ago here.
what I wrote was :
… about this :
https://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpress.com/2023/07/18/259-the-way-we-live-next/Most interesting indeed.
So the cost of energy is a complex topic and this guy has studied many aspects of that.Amongst other things he wrote :
Morgan, Tim (2013).Life After Growth. Petersfield, UK: Harriman House. ISBN 9780857193391He discusses the energy cost of energy or : Energy return on investment
He gives an estimate of $130 trillion usd for the global cost of energy transition with a link to the source … I don’t understand how this estimate is made though.
Sorry, I haven’t started memorizing Fediverse handles yet. Tim Morgan measures ECoE in percent, and real GDP is GDP minus debt, or x units of debt produce a fraction of that in GDP. Plus ECoE accounting. His model is proprietary, so nobody exactly knows how it’s computed but he himself.
That IRENA model seems to link some large spreadsheets and notes on that page. No idea how complete that is.
As to investments necessary, some two decades ago I estimated we’d need some 3 TUSD/year, inflation-adjusted, for the next 40 years to transition. As a rough estimate that’s as good as any other guess, not facturing in extraction of progressively depleting resources.
That IRENA model seems to link …
Links please 😌 …those links are hidden for me. (Maybe because I’m on mobile.)
(also don’t be sory it was 11 days ago)https://irena.sharepoint.com/:x:/s/statistics-public/ETFxMIRtj1ZHurmR1zvx4OUBVqwpSwSJ3H9BCzCbbiHLGg?e=fUmvDr and the other popup under the ‘i’ icon on that page with references.
Wow, they really dont talk about the fuel do they. What system have they found to convert atmospheric carbon into a liquid form with just electricity? Im more interested in the sequestering potential than immediately returning it to the atmosphere.
The tech has been known for decades. It just needs clean hydrogen. You can either go the hydrogen fuel cell route, or combine it with CO2 to make liquid fuel, but the source of hydrogen is the crux of the problem.
Yes and … ( @blazera Process’s - - one of many) useful link : Synthetic fuel
okay so I’ve got my renewable electricity, and my hydrogen…now what? Im asking about a process here
Im bigger on the fan producing enough fuel for the mining and construction of it and the facility and maintenance and upkeep. This has been a re-occuring point of can we create wind and solar panels just from wind and solar panels without digging up oil. As for sequestration. What is the point if we are still digging up oil and refining it into the same fuel??? I could see it being something if we were otherwise not digging up hydrocarbons but I fail to see how sequestration is better than replacement while we are doing that.
I dont know what your first two sentences are about. As for sequestration, just imagine it as an independent effort to reduce greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere.
yes but what I mean is if we are putting in co2 from fuels then usually it will reduce more to just use the fuel and not pull out additional oil over sequestration. simply due to overhead. the fuel from oil produces co2 and the refining produces co2 and the extraction produces co2.
I dont know what you mean by pulling out additional oil over sequestration. sequestering is just taking carbon out of the atmosphere, to be kept away from the atmosphere in some kind of solid form. Plants are the easiest example.
yes. yes. I understand that. but fuel is a fungible commodity and if fuel is created in this process (it is) utilizing it will keep more carbon out of the atmosphere if we are still getting it from oil. If we have completely stopped using oil for fuel then yeah sequestration makes sense, but if its making fuel and we are using fuel (from dug up fossil fuels) the sequestration will result in more overall co2 than using it.
There is biochar which can be scaled by providing cheap pyrolysis retorts and training how to bioactivate it. Incentive is increased agriculture productivity long-term. Capture should be done directly from flue gas since not needing enrichment. There are also carbon-negative concretes which have good potential for capture.
Synfuels from 100% renewable are at least carbon neutral, which is as good as it gets.
that’s not taking carbon from the atmosphere, that’s just carbon left behind from burning organic materials. That’s emitting CO2.
The synfuel production itself does not. It piggybacks on another process, like brewing or cement production, that does.
Could be useful for aviation. Otherwise, better alternatives already exist for most uses of petroleum.
Don’t forget lubricants, polymers and chemical feedstock in general.
True, I forgot about the chemical industry. That could be a big one as well.
Agreed, aviation and special vehicles like firetrucks for those kinds of vehicles eFuels MIGHT be suitable, but it for sure should not be used in the day-to-day car used by everybody.
In Berlin there is a hybrid firetruck currently in use and the firefighter are really happy with it, only using the battery for about 90% of operations. Here is an English article about it (German ones are much more in depth):
https://www.electrive.com/2022/12/21/berlin-fire-brigade-goes-hybrid/
It is not mentioned in that article, but the firefighters really like the silence of the firetrucks. They didn’t need to yell as much and could therefore communicate much more efficiently.
Dimethylether is easily made from synmethanol and is an almost drop-in replacement for diesel. Existing trucks and tractors can be retrofitted.
For smaller EVs we need practical sodium batteries everywhere. Not nearly enough lithium available.
Electrofuel : great potential here I believe.
In September 2022, Finnish company Q Power sold P2X Solutions a synthetic methane production unit to be delivered in 2024 in Harjavalta, Finland, next to its 20 MW green hydrogen production plant.
More here : https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrofuel
The more interesting approach is synmethanol, particularly via electrosynthesis. Only half of energy density of gasoline, and suitable for fuel cells, including DMFCs.
Direct methanol fuel cells (DMFCs) still have low power densities … so maybe we should look at molten carbonate fuel cells or simple heat engines ? Anyway, synmethanol looks great !
