Synthetic fuel

[Franco Cozzo]

I thought this is an interesting concept:

Chile’s Haru Oni pilot project in the country’s Magallanes province takes advantage of the excellent wind conditions in southern Chile to produce climate-neutral fuel with the aid of green wind power.

The process involves electrolysis that splits water into its two components – oxygen and hydrogen – and then combining the hydrogen with air (after filtering out CO2) to form synthetic methanol. The methanol can be converted into climate-friendly fuel using an MTG (methanol to gasoline) technology to be licensed and supported by ExxonMobil.

First, how is it made? To create synthetic fuel, water is separated into its two core elements – hydrogen and oxygen – using renewably sourced electricity (traditionally solar or wind). Carbon dioxide is then sourced from the air, and filtered through the hydrogen, creating a methanol, which can then be turned into fuel that is chemically similar to what is pumped into every car at a service station. In short, synthetic fuel takes the lengthy natural process of creating hydrocarbons, and replicates it with a rapid man-made procedure. The end result is nearly identical in its make-up to traditional fuels, but created in a renewable process.

Unlike hydrogen, synthetic fuel can be transported in the same way as regular petrol or diesel, and distributed in the same manner. This means there is no need to build new infrastructure, with existing service stations only requiring a simple retrofit similar to the change from leaded to unleaded petrol. Aiding the transition from regular to synthetic fuel is the fact that any car on the road today could use it without serious modifications. Every car, truck, plane, or boat that currently runs on petrol or diesel could transition to a synthetic alternative almost overnight. Considering the global passenger car fleet currently tallies around the 1 billion mark, that’s potentially a huge reduction in CO2 emissions.

https://premium.goauto.com.au/porsch...as-good-as-ev/

https://www.bosch.com/stories/synthetic-fuels/

https://www.whichcar.com.au/features...synthetic-fuel

Looks like a good stop gap between battery technology making a generational leap into something better than the junk we have today.

Makes me wonder if we should look into fuels like E85 as the interim as well, more environmentally friendly out the tail pipe and supports local farmers, easily retrofittable to existing infrastructure and vehicle on road.

Whats your thoughts?