A General Overview of Synthetic Fuel

"lorem ipsum" (nothing123456789)
08/30/2015 at 16:55 • Filed to: Synthetic fuel, renewable, sustainable, environment, Audi, gasoline

Over the past couple of months, I’ve read the words “synthetic fuel” in a couple of different places, each article referring to a clean burning, clean-to-produce alternative to gasoline. In this day and age, something like that may prove the current engine downsizing we’re seeing in the automotive industry to be unnecessary. Not having found any article that has outlined what this stuff is, how it’s made, when we’ll see it, or any other relevant information, I’ve decided to try to provide a general overview of synthetic fuel myself.

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Starting off, let’s examine the production process of synthetic fuel. One of the major problems with gasoline is that its extraction is intensely damaging to our earth—and that’s before we even start refining and burning the stuff. Synthetic fuel may be somewhat redundant in the long run if environmentally sustainable production of it is impossible.

According to an article by John Sullivan, published for Princeton University News, making synthetic gas involves turning a feedstock (matter containing large amounts of carbon—this can be coal, biomass, natural gas, etc) into synthetic gasoline by way of, most commonly, the Fischer Tropsch conversion. There are a few other methods, including coal liquefaction, but those are for another day. The Fischer Tropsch conversion works by liquefying carbon monoxide and hydrogen into hydrocarbons. One of the interesting parts of this process is that the carbon monoxide could be captured from factory emissions, thus incentivizing environmentally-friendly practices. At any rate, using biomass for the feedstock portion of the production has the potential to make it one step better than a carbon-neutral process—it could become carbon-negative.

Of course, there has to be a catch—and there is. Biomass is considerably more expensive than coal, which would be the alternative feedstock, and the cost of mass producing synthetic fuel would require trillions of dollars in infrastructure. Focusing on that economic data would be short-sighted, though, because it ignores several other factors. At some point, gasoline is going to get really expensive, and then disappear altogether. Synthetic fuel, produced in a sustainable manner, will only get cheaper over time as the production process becomes more efficient—and it won’t go away. As for the high cost of the high cost of the initial investment, it’s understandably a tough pill to swallow, but we wouldn’t have an interstate system, GPS, or the ability to fly across the Atlantic in six hours without a large initial investment. None of this takes into account that synthetic fuel production could be done entirely domestically, creating a new industry, new jobs, and getting us away from spending billions of dollars overseas, all while enabling us to conduct guilt-free burnouts.

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It seems that the day when we can pull up to our local Citgo and fill up with synthetic fuel is decades away. I suspect the primary reason for this is a reluctance on the part of governments across the world to make any meaningful investment into the technology. This seems odd, given that there is worldwide concern about oil, but then again, the one thing people from all across the political spectrum can agree on is that politicians are useless. Audi, though, has been making progress—they’ve partnered with a few other companies to build a solar-powered plant in New Mexico that extracts C02 from the air, and feeds it to microorganisms that excrete synthetic fuel. By the way Audi’s PR people phrase it, you’d be forgiven for thinking they’ve put on a show opened by unicorns and fairies, with the second coming of Christ as the header act.

At any rate, it is promising, if not-quite-perfect technology. For me, the biggest draw – after its environmental sustainability—would be that it seems like a way around the restriction of engines, both in terms of size and aspiration. Ferrari could build V12s until the end of time, Mercedes could bring back the 6.2, Porsche won’t have to build a four-cylinder 911, and we could enjoy these incredible engines without worrying about killing our planet. I believe there is a part of every car-nut that worries about the state of performance cars twenty years down the line, but I think that synthetic fuel gives us the ability to breathe a little easier, both literally and figuratively.

Sources:

http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S35/39/49I49/index.xml?section=topstories

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DISCUSSION (2)

DipodomysDeserti > lorem ipsum
08/30/2015 at 17:27

Looks like Vodka.

Jordaneer, The Mountaineer Man > lorem ipsum
08/30/2015 at 18:16

nuclear fusion is where its at!!! fill up your car once with some distilled water, have a pretty much unlimited range.