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 ...
In the US, the regulations are going to make the economics harder. But they have a business partnership with a Kuwait company trying to sell the license internationally. I still would bet on real economic cost as the reason.
That was a US average for the industry. Individual plants can be designed to move that around a lot, but 5~10% growth is about all you get unless you ignore economics and keep cracking until it is all methane.
Did you factor in all of the EPA permits they had to obtain just to build the test plant?
I admire the scientists and engineers that solve these problems, however the only problem they have yet to solve is how to get Uncle Sam out of their way and back pockets so their solutions can become reality for the rest of us...
This is why we will never see any of these refineries constructed. To paraphrase Obama, they can have them but it will just be so expensive that they cannot afford to build them.
So basically about 20 gallons of that crude is able to produce regular gasoline ? and to top that off to make it more costly they add in there some kind of blends therefore use up more crude ?
They are trying to sell internationally as well. They are not limited by the EPA outside the US. A Kuwait company has a business relationship with them, although they have not planned to build one themselves. Kuwait already has GTL commercial operations with other technology.
What a pity.
Yes, but the rest isn't waste. The other products have value as well.
and to top that off to make it more costly they add in there some kind of blends therefore use up more crude ?
Don't think of it as first making gasoline then using more energy to change that. It is more a case of making a variety of gasoline blending components to start with, then mixing the ingredients in the proportions to match different requirements.
I believe there has been more growth in petrochem related to increased natural gas production than in the increased oil production.
The increase in natural gas has lead to an increase in natural gas liquids like ethane, propane and the like. Several new chemical plants are being built to take advantage of the new supply.
U.S. Gas Plant Production of Natural Gas Liquids and Liquid Refinery Gases
http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=MNGFPUS2&f=M
While the oil production growth has plenty of new jobs related to that production, I do not see growth downstream of that. We are basically just replacing imported oil with domestic oil. We are not see much new growth in refining.
U.S. Refinery Net Input of Crude Oil
http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=M_EPC0_YIY_NUS_2&f=M
I know that the output of a refinery can be optimized to favor gasoline over diesel or diesel over gasoline.
“I am not claiming it is a hoax, but I don’t believe they have a reliable economic solution.”
Sounds like the TDP process years ago. It seems to work, it is just not ecomomically viable.
http://www.mindfully.org/Energy/2004/Changing-World-Technologies4apr04.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Changing_World_Technologies
Supposedly the cost to make a barrel of gasoline was $25 for the Texas process. That would not include the cost of the natural gas, but in some oil producing fields, the “natural gas” is discarded as it is not feasible to build pipelines.
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You can see pictures from space of the huge flare off of natural gas being done in Eagle Ford and the Baaken formation.
I saw where they are going to build a half billion dollar water pipeline up from the Ohio River to supply fracking if the govt will allow it.
Yes but that optimization is building equipment, not changing set points.
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