Turn natural gas into gasoline for $1 per gallon

peakoil.com ^ | August 21, 2014

[Kozak]

The actual benefit is we would never need to import a barrel of oil.
100% energy independence. The economy would go Boom...

[vette6387]

“This does me no good unless they can do the same with diesel.Anywhere between $0.90 and $1.10 a gallon would be great.”

There is a move afoot to transform the over-the-road diesel truck to a natural gas engine. I do know that NG engines run forever because the fuel doesn’t contaminate the oil in the crankcase like in does in both gasoline and diesel fueled engines. And the pollution levels are very low. Go look at your local forklift operator.

[reed13k]

If that picture is the size of it - I could see a whole bunch of land owners with gas wells installing one in their garage with periodic deliveries of the enzymes to allow them to power their houses on gas generators and this baby for their vehicles. Talk about off the grid. Heck with sending the gas to the big boys - setup your own gas stand and be self sufficient. Course the regulators will kill another winner.

[Eaker]

Later.

[FroggyTheGremlim]

Any Chem E.'s here?

Natural gas is methane. Gas is mostly octane.

Briefly, what would be the process for combining 8 methanes into 1 octane?

Seems you'd have a few hydrogens left over...

[MMaschin]

Liberals will NEVER allow energy to become affordable.

Paul Ehrlich famously said - “Giving society cheap, abundant energy would be the equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun”.

This is also why Obama first Secretary of Energy, Steven Chu said - "“Somehow we have to figure out a way to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe”"

The radical environmentalists believe in a formula, that they believe shows mankinds impact on the environment - I(mpact)=P(opulation) x A(ffluence) x T(echnology) .

This is why liberals had DDT banned, and why abortion is always a good idea - lower the P when possible. The A and T variables are hard to quantify, so a proxy of energy consumption is used. Lower the amount of energy used, and A and T are lowered.

The left wants to see everyone (other than themselves), living in a small apartment, working 2 part time jobs, using public transportation, and too poor to raise children.

The left believes they do this to save the world!

[zeugma]

This is pretty promising. I wonder how small a batch you can do economically. It would be cool to be able to buy a “still” that could convert NG to petrol. Fedgov would hate that, as they tax gasoline a lot more than NG.

[wildbill]

Can’t cars be converted to run directly off gas? Why go this extra step to convert the gas to liquid fuel?

[Disambiguator]

Truly Organic Free Range Gasoline!

It also has to be GMO- and hormone-free.

[TexasGator]

“Uhmmmm....take off taxes and regular production doesn’t produce it for much more.”

At the present price of about $100 per barrel that is already $2.40 per gallon BEFORE refining.

[itsahoot]

There is a move afoot to transform the over-the-road diesel truck to a natural gas engine.

Sun Bus lines in Palm Springs, CA has been running on Natural Gas for years.

[TexasGator]

” Gas is mostly octane”

Gasoline is a mixture of C4 to C12 molecules. I haven’t found the percentage of iso-octane in gasoline.

[molson209]

Why not just leave Natural Gas as Natural Gas for free

[MeshugeMikey]

Truly Organic Free Range GLUTEN GMO- and hormone-FREE Gasoline!

[thackney]

Because liquid transportation fuel is more valuable.

[okie01]

“My view is, it’ll make some people some money, but it’s not much of a solution, because you’re still burning fuel and creating emissions,” said Daniel Kammen, director of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory at UC Berkeley. “It’s a good business deal.”

A helluva lot better business deal than anything you're working on, Mr. Kammen, sir.

[IronJack]

I didn’t see whether that includes the price of the reagents themselves (the natural gas and the catalysts). And how many cubic feet of natural gas does it take to make a gallon of say octane or heptane?

[DainBramage]

I’m not sure you can figure it like that. On average they get 19 gallons of fuel gas s from a 43 gallon barrel of crude. The rest goes to more expensive stuff like motor oil, jet fuel, distillates, and other things.
My point is that state taxes, federal taxes, sales taxes, EPA regulations and fees etc greatly expand the cost of what our fuel costs.
While this author says he can make it at 1 dollar per gallon, doesn’t mean it will be sold at that. There are still the same distribution costs, and other things that are involved.
I wonder how much a large refinery can actually make a gallon of gas for.

[TexasGator]

“I’m not sure you can figure it like that. “

Actually comes very close!

Latest figures:

Crude oil cost: $2.49 per gallon.
Refinery cost: $0.435 per gallon

[thackney]

Crude Oil - the monthly average of the composite refiner acquisition cost, which is the average price of crude oil purchased by refiners.

Refining Costs & Profits - the difference between the monthly average of the spot price of gasoline or diesel fuel (used as a proxy for the value of gasoline or diesel fuel as it exits the refinery) and the average price of crude oil purchased by refiners (the crude oil component).

Distribution & Marketing Costs & Profits - the difference between the average retail price of gasoline or diesel fuel as computed from EIA's weekly survey and the sum of the other 3 components.

Taxes - a monthly national average of federal and state taxes applied to gasoline or diesel fuel.