Audi making diesel from water, CO2, and electricity.

clean water is becoming a dwindling resource. using it for fuel makes no sense.

 

You wrote plug-ins have a disadvantage in refueling time but you really meant BEVs, you state 11 miles while you probably know (being so active in this site) that it is probably winter range with probably 15 miles or more in the summer.
Are you not manipulating a bit your terms and facts to suit better your arguments?

 

OK I admit you found one...

This statement does not worth more than mine saying EPA testing yields low result for PIP, especially for the European version of it with max EV speed of 85 km/hr and EV city mode which, to my experience extends a bit the EV range in real world driving (do not have solid numbers though).

 

This synthetic method audi is investing in can solve that problem.
Audi Says Synthetic 'E-Fuel' From Microorganisms Is Better Than Gas Or Diesel - Forbes
At the facility, genetically engineered photosynthetic microorganisms are kept in water (which could be brackish, salt or wastewater). They metabolize carbon dioxide after being exposed to sunlight and produce fuel as a byproduct.

 

Interesting where are they making this product? Imported or making here in USA?
In Europe first and I believe now in Singapore they are plants which convert palm oil similarly.
This should be great diesel quality as stated, but hard to believe it makes too much economic sense in USA sceanrio. It makes some sense in EU as they are mandating biodeisel and have gone about as far as they can go, so this product is more like regular diesel, so it allows going over the B5 limit or whatever is in force.

NESTE - OK yes this seems to be imported NextBTL product. Well no mention of Palm Oil use in the blurb. It's possble to use non-palm-oil source, but I was thinking that was main ingredient last I heard.

 

I believe it is imported from Singapore. Neste is the supplier as I understand it. Over 60% of Neste's renewable diesel is produced from waste oils (Green Car Congress: Neste Oil now the world’s largest producer of renewable fuels from waste and residues).

There is another supplier (U.S.) that has received CARB approval under the Low Carbon Fuel Standard for renewable diesel from camelina oil (Green Car Congress: California ARB issues feedstock-only pathway for camelina-based fuels under LCFS; zero ILUC emissions results in very low CI fuels). Renewable diesel produced in the U.S. would reduce the carbon intensity of the fuel even more.

 

Well, it sounds mostly palm oil based feed to me, with some of the palm oil classified as waste either from palm oil manufacture by product or once-used in cooking, and of course they claim they are down to 38% fresh palm oil feed now. Better than all fresh I suppose. Palm oil tends make a waxey (less desirable) conventional biodiesel so it is probably good feed for the Neste process.

 

Audi's e-gas (renewable electricity produced methane) is produced in germany, where sometimes night and weekend electricity prices go negative (coal producers pay to put electricity on the grid which is cheaper than stopping and restarting), wind is curtailed to let the coal on the grid In germany audi does make cng vehicles. They are talking about scaling up and producing e-diesel from the e-gas.

They are also partnered with joule in new mexico using gmo organisms to produce the synthetic fuels using sun-light, similar to research on algea. Joule/audi claims they can do it much cheaper than algea, making synthetic but cleaner diesel for around $50/barrel once they get the process down. I assume that if they get costs down they would produce renewable ethanol and diesel near sunny refineries in texas and california and blend the fuel there. If it was done at gulf coast refineries some of this renewable diesel could be easily shipped and used in europe where prices may be higher because of renewable mandates.

These methods are much more environmentally sensitive than canola, soybean, or palm, because they use much less land. The question is whether they can get the costs down.

 

I looked into this a little more, turning CO2 into fuels is a long shot idea that most scientists don't think makes practical sense. But nonetheless, a certain amount of R&D is going on in unversities and some venture capital start-ups. My recommendaton: short em.

Interesting NASA space uses however.
NASA is apparently using the Sabatier reaction in the space station to generate drinking water from exhaled CO2:
CO2 + 4H2 ----> 2H2O + CH4 (methane is discarded in space; hydrogen from water hydrolysis)

Mars has 95% CO2 atmosphere so NASA are thinking about using Sabatier and "reverse" water gas shift up there:
CO2 + H2 <----> CO + H2O

I think the idea is to use the methane up there on Mars. In any case lab scale chemistry is well known to capture CO2 from air and convert to fuels and water.

 

It makes perfect sense since oxygen is x16 times heavier and as a result x16 times more expensive to deliver.

The use of Sabatier process is interesting as it is exothermic and can be used to produce energy.

 

The science is completely sound, it is a question of economics and politics.

The root of the question is does it politically make sense to make hydrogen fuel from electricity for ghg purposes. If it does, then economically it makes more sense to combine it with CO2 and manufacture methane, methanol, ethanol, or diesel and use them in less costly infrastructure.

In germany the politics is such that ghg reduction is heavily supported, and reduction of imports of oil and natural gas are also heavily supported. There it at least makes economic sense for audi to use small amounts of surplus (cheap or free) electricity to make methane or diesel, and use them in diesel and cng vehicles. The amount of surplus electricity is much too small to support fcv, but can economically be used in conventional vehicles at a small scale. Financial incentives for Green fuel may make it economic to overbuild wind, and use the extra for these fuels. Those government subsidies would likely cost tax payers much less in europe for ghg than fcv subsidies. Audi is also looking at biofuels, including gmo organisms that can produce them from brackish and saltwater on very little land. Audi is part of vw group that hates the idea of huge government welfare for fuel cells, supports plug-ins and loves selling diesel vehicles

 

This process requires high temperature hydrolysis. Then, further on, a reaction to get hydrocarbons (e-crude) and refining to get diesel, and finally, converting to motion in a ICEV (low efficiency TTW).
It is even more energy intensive process than the FCV! And it can only capture CO2 during the "fuel phase"...reflorestation would be more effective, wouldn't it?....

 

biggest draw backs of FCEV and EVs are the energy density of hydrogen storage and EV batteries. Diesel fuel has density x20-25 times higher than batteries, and about x6.5 higher than compressed H2. Even FC being x2 times more efficient than ICE you still need x3 more tank storage per traveled mile in FCEV.

Add the cost of building infrastructure and things start looking even better for diesel.

 

Energy and carbon not to be accounted?
And tailpipe emissions of the ICE? Particulates and NOx...

 

If you don't know where to with excess electricity then this is an option, otherwise a complete no go.

Lets say 1 L of e-diesel contains 10 kWh, at 70% efficiency making it we used 14 kWh of electricity, this is not just any energy this is electricity, where normally you spend 3 times more primary energy to get it ...

Even if modern fuel efficient diesel car consumes 5 l/100 km (47 MPG), this means that it's burning 71 kWh/100 km of ELECTRICITY, similar sized EV or PHEV will be in 18 kWh/100 km region.

 

issue with grid is the dirtiest plants (coal) cannot be put offline, they still need to maintain 30-40% threshold. So in many cases it is renewables (wind, etc) who make the cut. If it is what is used then year it is a "free" energy.

2nd they say that the energy needed is about the same which takes to produce diesel out of crude, correct? so there are no additional losses.

And the last but not least EV and PHEV batteries are not there yet; they need to increase energy density by x5-10 times to make them comparable to liquid fuels.

 

I'm sure it doesn't mean anything bad . . . . . . but . . . . . .

Health Effects Institute - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


.

 

OK, there is potential to use renewables but I question if you can put this "high temperature electrolysis" on hold for the time you don't have excess renewable energy. This may be something similar to aluminum production, where they can hold for certain amount of time (1 hour?) if it's necesery but definitly not half a day.