Porsche takes its synthetic E-Fuel gas racing to test performance and efficiency

https://www.cnet.com/ ^ | March 30, 2021 | Sean Szymkowski

[RomanSoldier19]

Porsche thinks its synthetic gasoline, which it calls E-Fuel, could be as clean as an electric vehicle. First, it needs to prove that theory, and that starts this year. In fact, it starts today. The German company on Tuesday said drivers and their vehicles participating in the Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup race series will be topped off with the renewable E-Fuel. The series kicks off today in Zandvoort, Netherlands, and the fuel will power the race cars through the whole season to test its performance and efficiency.

Porsche expects this first iteration of the E-Fuel to burn with 85% fewer emissions than regular ol' gasoline, and on top of that, the synthetic gas filling up race cars today is blended to current market standards for passenger vehicles. To be clear, the fuel isn't E-Fuel in its final form, which promises greener days for the internal combustion engine. Sourced from Porsche and partner ExxonMobil's plant in Chile, the companies plan to produce over 34,000 gallons of the fuel through 2022 to continue testing. The plant splits water into hydrogen and oxygen, and CO2 is filtered out of the air and processed with the hydrogen to create synthetic methanol. From there, a secretive ExxonMobil methanol-to-gasoline operation takes place to create renewable gasoline.

[RomanSoldier19]

Porsche thinks its synthetic gasoline, which it calls E-Fuel, could be as clean as an electric vehicle.

[traderrob6]

Cost to produce???

[ProtectOurFreedom]

The plant splits water into hydrogen and oxygen, and CO2 is filtered out of the air and processed with the hydrogen to create synthetic methanol. From there, a secretive ExxonMobil methanol-to-gasoline operation takes place to create renewable gasoline.

LOL. It may be "renewable," but those are very energy-intensive processes. Where does the energy come from to "split water into H2 and O2"? Where does the energy come from to "filter CO2 out of the air"? Why in the world would you choose AIR as your feedstock for CO2 production? That's the silliest thing I've heard. At least go to a power plant where the flue gas has 14% CO2.

[DaxtonBrown]

My guess is it needs a coal powered plant to provide the energy to crack the water, filter the CO2, and recombine them all. And expensive as $^&*$*

[refermech]

I’ve wondered if we could blend alcohol with a small amount of biodiesel. Internal combustion engines are not going away any time soon.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Here are a couple of paper abstracts on the ExxonMobile Methanol-To-Gasoline process:

Methanol-to-Gasoline Process.

ExxonMobil MTG Process
The ExxonMobil MTG process was introduced in 1975 as a means to convert methanol to gasoline. The initially published US patent (US 4,404,414) in 1983 has been followed by at least 30 more, largely assigned to Mobil Oil prior to its merger with Exxon Corp. The methanol is obtained by steam reforming natural gas to synthesis gas. In the process, methanol is first converted to dimethyl ether by being passed over a fixed bed gamma-alumina at pressures of 15–175 psig. The conversion is very exothermic with 750 BTUs of heat produced per pound of methanol. The methyl ether is then passed over a fixed bed shape selective ZSM-5 zeolite to produce liquid fuels in 75% selectivity at 100% conversion. Accordingly, 90% of the carbon in methanol is converted to gasoline.

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Most methanol is made from natural gas, but there has been a lot of effort in recent decades put into making methanol from CO2.

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The methanol synthesis by carbon dioxide hydrogenation is feasible in the new efficient process proposed here. A key feature of this novel process is the use of a stripping unit where the wet hydrogen (saturated with water) flows in counter current with the condensed mixture methanol–water resulting from the flash separation after reaction. This operation has a double positive effect, as it removes COx from the methanol–water mixture, thus allowing a complete recycle of CO2, while also removing the water from the wet hydrogen (initially saturated with water), thus avoiding the negative impact on the reaction equilibrium conversion. As a result, the consumption figures indicate a limited use of utilities (550 kWh/ton methanol and 0.48–1.16 ton steam per ton methanol), while the use of the raw materials is minimal, as both reactants are recovered and recycled, hence completely converted in the overall process, being limited by the stoichiometry only.

[RomanSoldier19]

like this better:

Green diesel’ from natural gas? It’s coming

www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna7815172https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna7815172

The tiny kingdom of Qatar and oil giants have teamed up to build a huge plant that converts natural gas into the cleanest diesel available, a commodity in demand in cities fighting pollution.

[FreeReign]

It may be "renewable," but those are very energy-intensive processes.

Compared to what?

Where does the energy come from to "split water into H2 and O2"? Where does the energy come from to "filter CO2 out of the air"?

The same place the energy comes from to charge your Tesla?

[Secret Agent Man]

The secret method:

The methanol is trucked away in one tanker

And the gas gets trucked in by another tanker

Voila!

[beancounter13]

Think broader. The best, most ecologically friendly form of electricity available is nuclear.

This sounds promising to me.

Build more Nuclear!

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Natural gas is an amazing feedstock. In 1976-1977, I worked in three plants in China that converted natural gas to ammonia then to urea for fertilizer. The libs don’t know what they are killing with their shutdown of fracking.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

That’s my point. They push Teslas as “zero emissions” which may be true at the car, but not at the power plant putting juice into the grid.

It’s the same with this process to make “green gasoline.” They are pushing the emissions back to the power plant to make the electricity to split the water into H2 and O2.

[Antioch]

In the 1940s, the Nazis were able to produce 125,000 barrels a day of synthetic gasoline using the Fischer–Tropsch process that converted a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen into liquid hydrocarbons. They were dozens of city block sized plants doing this to fuel their war machine.

[Gene Eric]

Giving that rocket fuel another spin with a new name.

[FreeReign]

That’s my point. They push Teslas as “zero emissions” which may be true at the car, but not at the power plant putting juice into the grid. It’s the same with this process to make “green gasoline.” They are pushing the emissions back to the power plant to make the electricity to split the water into H2 and O2.

Then we agree.

Although I would add that it's the EV people who first started with the "zero emissionss" nonsense. The E-Fuel people are just giving it back to them.

[cpdiii]

"The conversion is very exothermic with 750 BTUs of heat produced per pound of methanol."

"Houston, we have a problem." Entropy and Enthalpy always rules as does Gibbs Free Energy.

For the layman, we put much energy into a process to obtain a fuel that has less energy than its original constituents. That is idiocy but will do well with billions of dollars of subsidy.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Yep. “Free lunch” courtesy of Congress and us rubes paying the taxes.

Just like ethanol is nothing but a payoff to corn farmers and small engine companies (gazillions of replacement carburetors and rubber fuel lines).

[nicollo]

Internal combustion engines are not going away any time soon.

Exactly.

(Or did Porsche engineers finally figure out that there is no peak torque point for electric engines?)

[Reeses]

The plant splits water into hydrogen and oxygen, and CO2 is filtered out of the air and processed with the hydrogen to create synthetic methanol.

The word "plant" is apt because they just described photosynthesis, which powers life on Earth. The 17% carbon content of humans is all recently extracted from of the atmospheric trace gas CO2. Carbon is the electron sociable building block of life. And compressed carbon is a girl's best friend.

[Getready]

The germans were getting nitrogen for their explosives from the atmosphere....back in ww2....
The greenies are so stupid about things....ptetty soon they’ll be complaing cause there will be less co2 in the atmosphere and with the earth moving away from the sun...we’ll freeeeze to death.