Porsche synthetic gasoline, 85% less CO2 emissions than traditional gasoline

[Milaca]

Porsche synthetic E-Fuel gas is just as clean as an EV, exec says - Roadshow (cnet.com)

[skyway]

Title sounds like shades of WW2?

[Milaca]

[PackardV8]

Yes, No, Maybe So. Making one thing out of another thing can be much more expensive and energy intensive than just using the thing itself in the natural state. We'll wait for much more detailed information.

Think about hydrogen as a fuel. It burns completely clean. Problem is, today making hydrogen is expensive, complex, uses a lot more energy than it gives back. For an assumed import price of $3/kg of hydrogen, power produced from hydrogen turbines could cost about $140/MWh. In comparison, unsubsidized natural gas combined cycle generation today costs approximately $50/MWh.

Thus far, politicians do not yet believe voters are willing to pay three times as much for their electricity to have cleaner air and slow climate change. It may happen, just not as quickly as it needs to.

jack vines

[Dick Steinkamp]

Yes, No, Maybe So. Making one thing out of another thing can be much more expensive and energy intensive than just using the thing itself in the natural state. We'll wait for much more detailed information.

Think about hydrogen as a fuel. It burns completely clean. Problem is, today making hydrogen is expensive, complex, uses a lot more energy than it gives back. For an assumed import price of $3/kg of hydrogen, power produced from hydrogen turbines could cost about $140/MWh. In comparison, unsubsidized natural gas combined cycle generation today costs approximately $50/MWh.

Thus far, politicians do not yet believe voters are willing to pay three times as much for their electricity to have cleaner air and slow climate change. It may happen, just not as quickly as it needs to.

jack vines

One idea I've heard of is using excess solar array electricity to produce hydrogen, then using the hydrogen to produce electricity during peak (or night) times.

[skyway]

Thanks for the pic Milaca!

[studegary]

Title sounds like shades of WW2?

During WWII, my father worked on non-petroleum based fuels at the Texaco Research Center. At that time it was due to the shortage of petroleum fuels in the USA.

[rockne10]

Thus far, politicians do not yet believe voters are willing to pay three times as much for their electricity to have cleaner air and slow climate change. It may happen, just not as quickly as it needs to.

jack vines

Fortunately, that 3x figure is no longer accurate. The cost of electricity from renewable sources has dropped precipitately; even below traditional sources in some markets.

[345 DeSoto]

I've always believed what my Grand Father told me..."There ain't no free lunch"...

[jclary]

Great! Once they work out all the fine points, perhaps they can team up with Dollar General Stores for distribution points. That way, they can have a fuel station for about every street corner in the nation!

As in the spirit of, “there’s no such thing as a Free Lunch,” for every sincere person seeking honest progress...there are probably 10 con men seeking to exploit. Let’s pray and hope true solutions to clean fuel are developed so that the Fun Police don’t make us all equally miserable.

[PackardV8]

Fortunately, that 3x figure is no longer accurate. The cost of electricity from renewable sources has dropped precipitately; even below traditional sources in some markets.

My 3X figure was only to do with using hydrogen to power electrical generators instead of natural gas.

Hydropower has always been an inexpensive source of electrical generation; but here in the northwest, there are those who want to remove some dams to restore wild salmon runs.

Wind energy is 7% of total U.S. electricity generation. Without subsidies and requiring utilities to take all the power generated, even when it means forcing other sources off line, it wouldn't be as cost-competitive. Some studies follow a wind turbine from the polluting Chinese factory onto a fossil fuel train onto a fossil fuel ship onto a fossil fuel truck to a site graded by a fossil fuel dozer and a pad poured by a fossil fuel cement truck and erected by a crew driving fossil fuel vehicles. By those measurements, many wind turbines never pay back their carbon debt. And that there are millions of migrating birds lying dead at the base of those wind turbines is a cost not accounted for, just as the loss of salmon was not accounted for in low-cost hydropower.

Biomass was the source of about 1% of total U.S. electricity generation in 2019. Biomass is burned directly in steam-electric power plants, or it can be converted to a gas that can be burned in steam generators, gas turbines, or internal combustion engine generators.

Solar energy provided about 2% of total U.S. electricity in 2019.

Geothermal power plants produced about 0.5% of total U.S. electricity generation in 2019.

So today, renewables other than hydro produce only 10.5% of US electricity.

Coal, oil and natural gas have long term costs which in the past were never accounted for in the cost of the electricity they produce. But until these long term fossil fuel costs are added back in through higher rates, renewables are not as cost-competitive electrical generation as they could be.

jack vines