Batteries are not the Solution, Synthetic Fuels maybe
Discussion
Lincsls1 said:
Totally agree, glad I'm not the only one that's noticed this silly, pointless trend.
If the goal is to get us all into small efficient EVs, then why aren't they making them? Surely smaller motors and smaller cars require less energy, meaning longer range and more affordability?
Range and performance go hand in hand with EVs. The most cursory of Google searches will tell you this.If the goal is to get us all into small efficient EVs, then why aren't they making them? Surely smaller motors and smaller cars require less energy, meaning longer range and more affordability?
There aren't lots of cheap EV's being made because they aren't (yet) profitable.
The days of internal combustion cars are very much numbered. That old article you posted may have niche applications for motorsport use once it becomes economically unviable to extract any more oil from the ground.
Battery technology is finally progressing rapidly now that it is having some investment at last. 1000 mile capable batteries are only a couple of years off. Rapid charging in under 5 minutes is about a decade off. Environmentally friendly batteries that don't rely on rare earth metals, and lightweight batteries a couple of decades off.
Battery technology is finally progressing rapidly now that it is having some investment at last. 1000 mile capable batteries are only a couple of years off. Rapid charging in under 5 minutes is about a decade off. Environmentally friendly batteries that don't rely on rare earth metals, and lightweight batteries a couple of decades off.
NDNDNDND said:
Lincsls1 said:
Totally agree, glad I'm not the only one that's noticed this silly, pointless trend.
If the goal is to get us all into small efficient EVs, then why aren't they making them? Surely smaller motors and smaller cars require less energy, meaning longer range and more affordability?
Range and performance go hand in hand with EVs. The most cursory of Google searches will tell you this.If the goal is to get us all into small efficient EVs, then why aren't they making them? Surely smaller motors and smaller cars require less energy, meaning longer range and more affordability?
There aren't lots of cheap EV's being made because they aren't (yet) profitable.
Wuling have one for sale there for £3400. yes, it wouldn't meet standards, but how hard would it be to do that?
politeperson said:
Thanks, very constructive.
I would have thought the energy to create the electricity would be through renewable, mainly solar.
So their is not enough solar power to drive the reaction to create enough chemical?
Plenty of electricity, in principle, but you’d need much less of it to charge an electric car to travel 50 miles than you would to make fuel for an internal combustion engine to travel 50 miles. The battery charging is the least efficient part of the process there, and its quite efficient. The motors in electric cars are about 90 % efficient. Compare to the ICE vehicle which is probably about 35 % tops. I would have thought the energy to create the electricity would be through renewable, mainly solar.
So their is not enough solar power to drive the reaction to create enough chemical?
Porsche ‘e-fuel’ turns CO2 into methanol using renewably generated hydrogen. First, you have to get the CO2 from air (or exhaust from e.g. a power station and purify it). And then you generature hydrogen electrolytically. And then you turn the CO2 + H2 into Methanol (CH3OH). And then you convert the methanol into petrol - that step is not so bad, about 90 % efficient.
But basically, for the battery the steps where you can lose energy as heat (i.e. ‘lost’ energy) are: electricity transmission, battery charging, electrical motor.
For the e-fuel the steps where you can lose that energy are: making the hydrogen by electrolysis (50-60%), making the methanol by electrolysis from CO2 and H2 (45-60%), making the petrol (90%), burning the petrol in the engine (30-35 tops %).
So you can see that its just much more wasteful to do this. You really can only justify it for applications where battery power is not a good alternative. I.e. racing cars and aeroplanes.
NDNDNDND said:
Carbon DIOXIDE. Which can either be captured from industry or energy generation to be reused to manufacture fuel, or else be drawn directly from the atmosphere to render the fuel close to carbon neutral.
Not sure where you got the bit about carbon monoxide from. It's just wrong. The main problem with efuel is that it requires a large amount of electricity, which can be produced renewably but would require a very substantial amount of infrastructure if it were to simply replace carbon fuels directly.
As such, it will only really be used where necessary - shipping and aviation, for instance - and hopefully a little bit will still be available to burn for fun.
At the moment NMNeil is pretty much correct that synthetic fuel is made from CO and H2 (via what’s called the Fischer Tropsch process). Processes that go from CO2 are much more modern. Loads of info here: https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/202...Not sure where you got the bit about carbon monoxide from. It's just wrong. The main problem with efuel is that it requires a large amount of electricity, which can be produced renewably but would require a very substantial amount of infrastructure if it were to simply replace carbon fuels directly.
As such, it will only really be used where necessary - shipping and aviation, for instance - and hopefully a little bit will still be available to burn for fun.
People don't seem to be aware of just how astonishingly and uniquely good crude oil is as a starting point for synthesising chemicals and making fuels. Trying to produce ethanol or oils from crops at any scale requires vast areas of land that would "traditionally" get heavily dosed with fertilisers manufactured from ... more crude oil. Trying to assemble hydrocarbons starting with CO2 and H2O requires spectacular amounts of energy.
According to the RAC the UK consumes about 50bn litres of petrol and diesel per annum. A litre of petrol releases 34MJ when it burns. 50 x 34 x 10^15 Joules per annum divided by 365 x 24 x 60 x 60 to convert it into Watts is ... 54GW. That's 54GW of power 24 hours a day, every day of the year.
Peak winter demand for electricity in the UK is about 60GW.
So even if you could magically break the laws of thermodynamics and make efuel with electricity with 100% efficiency, you'd need to increase green electricity production in the UK to the extent that it could churn out the equivalent of our peak winter production all the time. In reality I imagine you'd need something like ten times more electricity to do it.
When a vastly more energy efficient technology is already available, why would you try to go down this route?
According to the RAC the UK consumes about 50bn litres of petrol and diesel per annum. A litre of petrol releases 34MJ when it burns. 50 x 34 x 10^15 Joules per annum divided by 365 x 24 x 60 x 60 to convert it into Watts is ... 54GW. That's 54GW of power 24 hours a day, every day of the year.
Peak winter demand for electricity in the UK is about 60GW.
So even if you could magically break the laws of thermodynamics and make efuel with electricity with 100% efficiency, you'd need to increase green electricity production in the UK to the extent that it could churn out the equivalent of our peak winter production all the time. In reality I imagine you'd need something like ten times more electricity to do it.
When a vastly more energy efficient technology is already available, why would you try to go down this route?
NDNDNDND said:
Not sure where you got the bit about carbon monoxide from. It's just wrong.
I got the information from the people who make carbon monoxide on an industrial scale.https://www.linde-engineering.com/en/process-plant...
Where did you get your sweeping "It's just wrong" information from?
ATG said:
When a vastly more energy efficient technology is already available, why would you try to go down this route?
Because evey single one human being is lazy and selfish, we all want the best for the world as long as it doesn't effect our own lifestyle and choices.Just look at smoking, wanting synthetic fuels really doesn’t seem like that a crazy idea when a billion people enjoy smoking as a hobby.
I reckon certain sugary crops could be grown to ferment ethanol on a grand scale. I like to think it would be done without using too much pesticide and fertiliser but that would have to be controlled.
We already have oil refineries that could be converted for fermentation.
It would bring a lot of industry into the country and would be almost fully renewable instead of completely non renewable which crude oil pretty much is.
Lots of money being made and spent locally instead of abroad and possible a few farmers making a healthy living.
The Government would butt in and tax the life out of it of course…
We already have oil refineries that could be converted for fermentation.
It would bring a lot of industry into the country and would be almost fully renewable instead of completely non renewable which crude oil pretty much is.
Lots of money being made and spent locally instead of abroad and possible a few farmers making a healthy living.
The Government would butt in and tax the life out of it of course…
We’re already seeing massive deforestation to convert land to agriculture to feed people. We wouldn’t be able to feed the population with current technology if we tried to go the (agricultural) bio-fuel route. By the way, the overall efficiency of photosynthesis is about 6-7%, much lower than photovoltaic cells, which easily get to 30% (though of course there is no/little invested energy in a plant grown without fertiliser). So again, much less efficient to make the chemical fuel and then burn it than to just use electricity/
NMNeil said:
NDNDNDND said:
Not sure where you got the bit about carbon monoxide from. It's just wrong.
I got the information from the people who make carbon monoxide on an industrial scale.https://www.linde-engineering.com/en/process-plant...
Where did you get your sweeping "It's just wrong" information from?
Polite M135 driver said:
At the moment NMNeil is pretty much correct that synthetic fuel is made from CO and H2 (via what’s called the Fischer Tropsch process). Processes that go from CO2 are much more modern. Loads of info here: https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/202...
Ok, I'm clearly not in possession of absolutely all the facts, but you were clearly wrong to jump to the conclusion that we're talking about Carbon monoxide-derived fuels. We're obviously talking about carbon dioxide derived fuels that are currently being developed and are in the process of being scaled up - otherwise what's the point?Pollite M135i's link above is a good one - I'll have to set aside the time to browse through, and maybe even more time to understand it!
Polite M135 driver said:
We’re already seeing massive deforestation to convert land to agriculture to feed people. We wouldn’t be able to feed the population with current technology if we tried to go the (agricultural) bio-fuel route. By the way, the overall efficiency of photosynthesis is about 6-7%, much lower than photovoltaic cells, which easily get to 30% (though of course there is no/little invested energy in a plant grown without fertiliser). So again, much less efficient to make the chemical fuel and then burn it than to just use electricity/
I think if there were any sufficient uptake of ethanol powered vehicles it would be far too easy for joe bloggs to set up a still in his shed and ferment some of his own. Something the Government would dislike as they are hidden from fuel taxes. Centralised control from the Government, regarding tax take, is what they want really.
My next query is how the Government are going to tax electric vehicles ‘fuel’ to make up the shortfall from crude.
Just to add, crude oil and the ice is going to be around for a lot longer than people think. They have to power the military for a start.
Edited by Oilchange on Saturday 19th June 11:33
ATG said:
When a vastly more energy efficient technology is already available, why would you try to go down this route?
You're doing exactly what I said in my first post on this thread - you're being completely binary about it. E-fuels aren't simply going to replace oil directly, but they will be part of the solution.gangzoom said:
ATG said:
When a vastly more energy efficient technology is already available, why would you try to go down this route?
Because evey single one human being is lazy and selfish, we all want the best for the world as long as it doesn't effect our own lifestyle and choices.Just look at smoking, wanting synthetic fuels really doesn’t seem like that a crazy idea when a billion people enjoy smoking as a hobby.
I don’t think that the production and distribution of synthetic fuels and cars will have the economies of scale to be affordable. Add in the higher energy costs and very likely continuing exclusion from low emission zones and you’re going to have to really care about refuelling speed.
Ice_blue_tvr said:
TheRainMaker said:
Will be handy to keep classics on the road though.
And personally I think that's all it should be used for.I love ICE. But I don't care for it in a humdrum daily driver.
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