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Featured Porsche building an e-fuel plant...

Discussion in 'Prius, Hybrid, EV and Alt-Fuel News' started by Trollbait, Dec 7, 2020.

  1. Trollbait

    Trollbait It's a D&D thing

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    ...with Siemens in Chile.

    "Wind energy will power the electrolyzers to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. CO2 will then be filtered out of the air and processed with the aforementioned hydrogen to create synthetic methanol. A proprietary methanol-to-gasoline process provided under license by Exxon Mobil results in e-gas. Porsche says the liquid fuel will be safe without modification for all of its cars, including classic models."
    How Porsche's new e-fuel plant could pave the way for guilt-free classic-car motoring - Roadshow

    Chile was chosen for its wind supply. The first phase could be making 34k gallons by 2022. This will go to what Porsche called beacon projects; their race race program and other promotional projects. They plan a fast ramp up though; 14.5 million gallons by 2024 and 145 billion by 2026.

    This isn't competition to EVs. There is going to be plenty of cars on the road still burning gasoline as plug in share grows. Plus applications and places were batteries alone won't work.
     
  2. bwilson4web

    bwilson4web BMW i3 and Model 3

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    Nonsense is not resolved by volume. Still, even predictable results deserve a chance at a Nobel prize.

    Bob Wilson
     
  3. Trollbait

    Trollbait It's a D&D thing

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    Batteries don't work for everything, and e-fuels, no matter the type, are far easier to ship around than hydrogen.
     
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  4. orenji

    orenji Senior Member

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    This is what I am taking about - a future that caters to vintage vehicles, Hydrogen vehicles, BEV vehicles as well as Hybrids. Not one choice, multiply choices for what works best for the individual. What a great concept .
     
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  5. austingreen

    austingreen Senior Member

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    I don't think there is any magic here, but it does do away with hydrogen myth. Methanol made from electricity, water, and co2 is well understood. Exxon probably improved the process of turning that to gasoline. The problem is cost of renewable methanol for flex fuel is much less expensive than renewable synthetic gas. And renewable synthetic gasoline is more expensive than gasoline made from oil, but less expensive than renewable hydrogen (even when fuel cell efficiency is considered.

    Put the renewable methanol or renewable synthetic gasoline in a phev and cost of the fuel is not that important. If a classic car only does a couple of thousand miles a year or less, it really doesn't matter that synthetic renewable gas costs $6/gallon.
     
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  6. Trollbait

    Trollbait It's a D&D thing

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    Resurrecting for new news. This plant in Chile has started up, but I'm here for this piece.
    Porsche's Plan to Produce Carbon-Neutral Gasoline in Texas

    Construction is planned to start in the beginning of 2024, "HIF says the Texas plant will produce its first e-fuel in 2027, initially 14,000 barrels per day, or 200 million gallons annually. It plans to make synthetic e-methanol, e-gasoline and e-liquified petroleum gas.
    ...
    The second U.S. HIF plant, with a location as-yet unannounced, will be designed to produce e-jet fuel. “We will know our cost better after we complete engineering,” the company said. Ultimately, HIF wants to build 12 e-fuel plants in the U.S."

    There is potential loophole that could allow e-gasoline to compete with ethanol for blending, "Searle also said that the Environmental Protection Agency is taking comment on the possibility of expanding the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) to include e-fuels produced from electricity such as wind and solar if the CO2 used is captured from biomass combustion. By law, the RFS can only include biomass-based fuels."
     
  7. hill

    hill High Fiber Member

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    iirc - the cost for synth / e-fuel is expensive compared to running that same energy necessary to put energy in a battery. Perhaps it might work as ICE Airplane Fuel in a pinch. Batteries certainly can't do everything but if there's a cheaper alternative?
    .
     
  8. Trollbait

    Trollbait It's a D&D thing

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    The article may have covered that. It is like hydrogen in that regard. Unlike hydrogen, there is already extensive infrastructure to get it to cars and other vehicles, and those already on the road can use it without modification.

    Porsche's main interest is in having a carbon neutral fuel for people with 'toy' cars, ones that aren't daily drivers, so they can still enjoy their vehicle in the future. Then ICE cars have long lives. One bought in 2034 California can easily still be on the road in 2044. This fuel can be used to reduce the carbon emissions of the ICE fleet as it ages out.

    I think it will be a great fuel for range extenders. The majority don't need 250+ plus miles of EV range for daily driving. Conserve the battery supply with 100 EV mile PHEVs or RExes. As a future product, we could choose to use e-methanol in them, which will be more efficient to make.

    There are already pilot plants making e-methanol for ships. Even if EV versions of them or aircraft work out, these craft have longer service lives than cars.
     
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  9. austingreen

    austingreen Senior Member

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    The texas plant seems to be at the proper scale and location to most economically produce e-methanol the start of the process to make jet A or gasoline. It is going to be located at a place that can opt in to buy cheap wind electricity, and probably can over build the hydrogen production and storage tanks to take the wind when the grid least needs it, stabilizing the grid and lowering costs. I doubt there is enough volume to make conversion of the methanol to gasoline economic, but maybe this gets e-gasoline to around $8/gallon. People may be willing to pay that for a small percentage, and as a bonus maybe we can get rid of the ethanol mandate. If gasoline in $3/gallon and this is $8/gallon and you replace 10% with the green stuff it would only make it $3.50/gallon not much more than E10 but a car would go 3% further and it would be all gasoline.
     
  10. Leadfoot J. McCoalroller

    Leadfoot J. McCoalroller Senior Member

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    I wonder what they'll do for distribution?
     
  11. Trollbait

    Trollbait It's a D&D thing

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    Technically, it can all go into the existing distribution for the fuels they are making. The issue would be in paper work for the green credits.
     
  12. Leadfoot J. McCoalroller

    Leadfoot J. McCoalroller Senior Member

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    I guess I didn't know about them making other fuels.

    I mean I know they have international distribution for hazardous fluids; every automaker does for their dealer support network.

    But fuel is a significantly larger quantity than most of the others.

    Also there's a massive marketing opportunity here, lots of old Porsche-owning codgers would love to make "jerry-can" jokes.
     
  13. Trollbait

    Trollbait It's a D&D thing

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    The process starts with making methane. From there, you can make nearly any hydrocarbon. Methane to methanol is a well known process. Some other projects are doing that for ships. Porsche is using an Exxon process to convert the methanol to gasoline. Audi had a pilot plant taking the methane to a light weight syncrude.

    When the gasoline does go on sale to the general public, my guess it will start with 5gal jugs and 55gal drums like racing fuel. With higher production volumes, it could just go into current gasoline distribution. Tracking it for zero carbon regulations is going to be the more difficult part.
     
  14. bwilson4web

    bwilson4web BMW i3 and Model 3

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    Good thing Porsche is not wasting their engineering and capital on making desirable electric vehicles.

    "Quand l'ennemi fait un faux mouvement , il faut se garder de l'interrompre" - Napoleon
    I remember walking across the parking lot early in the morning, the sun had just risen behind the building, when I thought, "Gosh, I hope we don't win that logistic contract." I stopped and realized my career with them had just come to an end.

    Less than a year earlier, the Research and Development funding had been spent (wasted!) on two, huge screen, unix workstations kept in a limited access room for "logistics." Our expertise in automated test equipment (ATE) was being frittered away down a fantasy rabbit hole. The engineers who led our successful ATE efforts had been leaving the company. No doubt, Porsche is suffering the same 'brain drain.'

    The corporate manager had come down from headquarters AFTER we won the big ATE contract. A large, middle aged executive, he drove a Porsche 911 that he had to squat and squeeze into. His personal decision matched his business decision.

    Bob Wilson
     
    #14 bwilson4web, Feb 27, 2023
    Last edited: Feb 27, 2023
  15. Trollbait

    Trollbait It's a D&D thing

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    When will Tesla make a plane?
     
  16. austingreen

    austingreen Senior Member

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    initially from chile it will be tanker ships to trucks. Very limited distribution. In Texas my guess is some will go on trucks, some may get blended and sent down the pipeline or loaded onto ships for europe.
    Porsche is a small volume producer but has invested heavily in plug-in vehicles. This is partially as phevs have an inerrant advantage for high powered sports cars and sport crossovers. The taycan is there first bev, and they are developing bevs of their higher volume vehicles the macan, Cayanne, and 718 (boxster and cayman currently gasoline only).
    We Check Out Porsche's New PPE Platform And Upcoming Macan BEV


     
  17. Trollbait

    Trollbait It's a D&D thing

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  18. bwilson4web

    bwilson4web BMW i3 and Model 3

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    I am all for their effort ... it accelerates the ICE ban by getting them out of the car business. No need for them to waste engineering talent (if any) learning how to compete with EVs and suck the money out of their customers.

    Bob Wilson
     
  19. austingreen

    austingreen Senior Member

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    IMHO the total ban in 2035 will not stop ice vehicles from running in the EU-27 it will simply mean that the old ice cars will be kept longer. A percentage is a better number. The way to get those off the road are larger and larger fuel taxes which I believe EU is doing. People don't want to completely give up their engines. Those 7 countries that want a e-fuel waiver produce most of the light vehicles in Europe. If the goal is no carbon emissions on new vehicles in 2035 then e-fuels does fit that, and in many ways better than hydrogen. A requirement that twice as much e fuels must be sold as new cars use could reduce ghg from the fleet of older cars. I don't see why a sports car can't have a 100 mile battery and a 3L engine and be sold in europe, which older higher consumption non plhevs are still running on the roads.

    VW group has said that they will no longer produce ice cars in europe in 2033. They likely want to produce them in another country and import them back into europe.
     
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  20. Trollbait

    Trollbait It's a D&D thing

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    VW just announced an ID2 for 25k Euros. This isn't an either or proposition. If Tesla stuck to the original plan of also making PHEVs, they wouldn't be rushing to abandon ICEs either.

    With an average age of over a decade, it is going to take time to phase out the older ICE fleet. There is also all the trucks, trains, planes, and ships to address.

    Mmm, maybe instead of attack subs, the US should start making nuclear commercial ships.