Appears CO2 is the only byproduct/product except gasoline.
Posted on 08/27/2013 10:30:44 AM PDT by topher
A Texas company says that it has developed a cheaper and cleaner way to convert natural gas into gasoline and other liquid fuels, making it economical to tap natural-gas reserves that in the past have been too small or remote to develop.
The company behind the technology, Dallas-based Synfuels International, says that the process uses fewer steps and is far more efficient than more established techniques based on the Fischer-Tropsch process. This process converts natural gas into syngas, a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide; a catalyst then causes the carbon and hydrogen to reconnect in new compounds, such as alcohols and fuels. Nazi Germany used the Fischer-Tropsch process to convert coal and coal-bed methane into diesel during World War II.
A Synfuels gas-to-liquids (GTL) refinery goes through several steps to convert natural gas into gasoline but claims to do so with better overall efficiency. First, natural gas is broken down, or “cracked,” under high temperatures into acetylene, a simpler hydrocarbon. A separate liquid-phase step involving a proprietary catalyst then converts 98 percent of the acetylene into ethylene, a more complex hydrocarbon. This ethylene can then easily be converted into a number of fuel products, including high-octane gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel. And the end product is free of sulfur.
“We’re able to produce a barrel of gasoline for much cheaper than Fischer-Tropsch can,” says Kenneth Hall, coinventor of the process and former head of Texas A&M University’s department of chemical engineering. Hall says that a Fischer-Tropsch plant is lucky to produce a barrel of gasoline for $35 but that a much smaller Synfuels refinery could produce the same barrel for $25. Under current fuel prices, such a plant could pay for itself in as little as four years, the company says.
(Excerpt) Read more at technologyreview.com ...
I had not heard about this process. Thanks for posting, topher.
Do you happen to know how many mcf (1,000 cubic feet) of natural gas it would take to make a barrel of oil involving this new process?
While Gas-to-Liquid is not a hoax, it is a tough economic hurdle in the US. In a country like Qatar, where there is far more gas supply than consumption, keeping the local price low, they compete with LNG rather “normal” natural gas.
LNG is a relative expensive process (compared to the local price of Natural Gas). In that market, it is more economic to spend similar or even significantly more money to convert to a much higher dollar product for delivery to Europe for transportation fuel.
Because the process isn’t cheap.
In this case, the barrel is just a unit of volume. A barrel of crude may contain more than one barrel of refined gasoline because it is more dense.
Thanks.
Got it.
I posted a link to their web site.
Under the facilities, they only list the original pilot plant, no commercial facilities.
Under the licensing section, the list many companies that have reviewed their process, but none who have purchased it.
In their newsroom section, they list the seminars where they have made presentations. No contracts, licensing or facilities listed.
I am not claiming it is a hoax, but I don’t believe they have a reliable economic solution.
The EPA might have a problem with a process that gives off CO2... Otherwise, I wonder why myself...
Appears CO2 is the only byproduct/product except gasoline.
While the total volume of all the different products will be more than a single barrel from a barrel of crude, It is economically impossible to get much more than half a barrel of any one product out of a barrel of crude.
A 42-U.S. gallon barrel of crude oil yields about 45 gallons of petroleum products.
This is supposedly a different "new" GTL process. I don't think the $25-barrel gasoline claim sounds like an economic hurdle.
According to my thumbnail calculations, that's a wholesale price of 59 cents.
Because that hopeful statement didn't turn out to be true. They are not the first to produce a working small-scale plant that didn't match their economic hopes when trying to scale up to commercial size.
What they did manage to do is sell the company to AREF Energy, see the logo in the lower left of their home page.
Now see who is AREF.
http://www.arefenergy.com/about-aref.html?1
ping
I don't think their cost estimations from the small scale pilot project turned out to be correct when enlarged to commercial production sizes.
Do you honestly believe that is a true number and five years later, no company in the entire world has bought the license and started building a plant? Really?
Good probability.
Thanks for the AREF link.
Sorry, make that 11 years.
http://www.newtechmagazine.com/index.php/daily-news/archived-news/2129-synfuels-international-texas-a-m-develop-portable-gtl-process
Published on 2002-09-26
Kuwait wants this to be real. They have a huge amount of gas to sell. Kuwait was the second location for Shell’s GTL plant. Kuwait has far more natural gas than oil.
Thanks! That was the graphic I was looking for.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.