Synfuels vs EVs bitchfest

[Chrisgb]

2 hours ago, DeluxeStang said:

Valid point, the evos is already on sale in other markets. So they're either testing a new powertrain, or an existing powertrain with substantial changes. Or testing it to make sure it meets US emissions standards if they plan to sell it here. ?

Reaching way out, It could be testing a synthetic ICE, or ammonia fuel ICE or FCEV motor. 

 

Or just driving around, teasing all of us speculators. ?

[silvrsvt]

On 2/10/2023 at 5:15 PM, pffan1990 said:

 

That actually looks nice.

 

-----

 

I seen something interesting earlier today about synthetic fuel that Ford is looking into. With its alliance with Red Bull, the synthetic fuel is carbon-neutral where it puts out as much carbon as it was used to produce the fuel. No modification would be needed for any production gasoline engines to run the synthetic fuel. Prices are already dropping on the one that Porsche uses for their 911 in their Mobil 1 Supercup racing series. Farley is quoted as saying that he wants loyal customers of F-Series, Bronco, and Mustang to continue to have experience with them. He said that electric tech is not yet capable for those who use trucks to tow. So the synthetic fuel is a good way to go for the next few decades with these work trucks and those 'Icons' like Bronco, Mustang, etc. It's a good idea that Ford has Blue, Model E, and Pro. Perhaps the S650 isn't the last ICE Mustang after all? This will be interesting to see what the future holds.

 

https://www.foxnews.com/auto/ford-save-v8-mustang-electric-synthetic-fuel

 

Thr problem with synthetic fuel is that it would cost 2-3x what gasoline does today. It would be fine for limited use for say classic cars or even racing competitions like auto cross, but I don’t think it would viable for everyday use. 

[tbone]

1 hour ago, silvrsvt said:

 

Thr problem with synthetic fuel is that it would cost 2-3x what gasoline does today. It would be fine for limited use for say classic cars or even racing competitions like auto cross, but I don’t think it would viable for everyday use. 

It will be interesting to see how synthetic fuel plays out.  Perhaps cost could be driven down to an acceptable level if production could be scaled up.  Technology may be able to make this happen.  

[pffan1990]

1 hour ago, silvrsvt said:

Thr problem with synthetic fuel is that it would cost 2-3x what gasoline does today. It would be fine for limited use for say classic cars or even racing competitions like auto cross, but I don’t think it would viable for everyday use. 

 

Surely prices would go down over the next few years as the article mentioned. The same idea with costs of EV batteries going down over the next few years. Interesting points you made about limited use for classic cars and auto racing. That may be the direction it goes in the future; perhaps decades from now after full EV transition is complete. Similar to how some classic steam and coal-fired trains are still used today, but in low numbers, as 'moving museums'. But synthetic fuel would be good during the transition for at least the next 15-20 years until full EV transition has completed.

[silvrsvt]

15 hours ago, pffan1990 said:

 

Surely prices would go down over the next few years as the article mentioned.

 

The issue is that it will most likely never scale up to the point to be able to replace gasoline production from petrochemicals. If this was a viable replacement (the Germans used it in WW2 for crying out loud) why wouldn't it be the focus or the path forward? 

 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesmorris/2021/03/27/synthetic-fuels-wont-save-the-planet-so-dont-say-they-could/?sh=29e5b57169a4

 

The elephant in the room comes from how synthetic fuels are made. They are produced by combining CO2 with hydrogen, and this raw material is then used to manufacture the sub-type – gasoline/petrol or diesel. Not only does this process involve lots of stages, each of which adds cost and consumes energy, the key element here is hydrogen, which leads to a similar set of questions about energy efficiency as hydrogen fuel cells. In fact, the situation is even worse for synthetic fuel. According to Transport & Environment, hydrogen fuel cells are currently 2.3 times less energy efficient than batteries, with the deficit dropping to 2 times less efficient by 2050. Synthetic fuels are less efficient still, with the estimate being about 4 times worse than batteries and very little improvement by 2050. In other words, powering the current car fleet with synthetic fuels instead of batteries will require four times as much electricity generation, which seems completely impractical. If just 10% of the UK’s cars, vans and small trucks used e-fuels it would require three times as much renewable electricity as batteries. It is also therefore entirely impossible that synthetic fuel will be cheaper than using electricity to charge batteries.

[tbone]

4 hours ago, rperez817 said:

 

That's correct, but the underlying chemistry and physics of synfuels and their production processes will not. 

 

bzcat mentioned in another thread regarding hydrogen for FCEV "You can't make Hydrogen without consuming more energy than the resulting output. It's a fools errant. Hydrogen will have limited application but it will never be widely deployed for vehicle transportation. Anyone that thinks otherwise needs to retake 10th grade physics and chemistry classes." 

 

Same issue applies to synfuels.

I’m  guessing they said the same thing about nuclear fusion, but here we are.  

[akirby]

18 hours ago, rperez817 said:

 

That's correct, but the underlying chemistry and physics of synfuels and their production processes will not. 

 

bzcat mentioned in another thread regarding hydrogen for FCEV "You can't make Hydrogen without consuming more energy than the resulting output. It's a fools errant. Hydrogen will have limited application but it will never be widely deployed for vehicle transportation. Anyone that thinks otherwise needs to retake 10th grade physics and chemistry classes." 

 

Same issue applies to synfuels.

There are many options some of which haven’t been expired or discovered yet.  And nobody is saying it’s a total replacement.

[Chrisgb]

19 hours ago, rperez817 said:

 

That's correct, but the underlying chemistry and physics of synfuels and their production processes will not. 

 

bzcat mentioned in another thread regarding hydrogen for FCEV "You can't make Hydrogen without consuming more energy than the resulting output. It's a fools errant. Hydrogen will have limited application but it will never be widely deployed for vehicle transportation. Anyone that thinks otherwise needs to retake 10th grade physics and chemistry classes." 

 

Same issue applies to synfuels.

Agreed, but the endgame is to reduce carbon output. If the synfuel or hydrogen is produced with renewable energy sources, it is still a win. Might need more solar panels or wind farms to produce the equivalent btu's, but there would be net zero or even zero carbon from processing to end user.

[rperez817]

15 hours ago, tbone said:

I’m  guessing they said the same thing about nuclear fusion, but here we are.  

 

Physics of nuclear fusion is completely different from that of fuel cells or of synfuels. As described by IAEA, energy obtained from fusion and fission reactions is based on differences in the nuclear binding energy. The mass of the products of a fusion reaction is smaller than the mass of its reactants. The difference or "missing mass" is converted into energy in accordance with Einstein’s equation E=mc². Because c is very large, a small amount of missing mass turns into a large amount of energy.

[tbone]

41 minutes ago, rperez817 said:

 

Physics of nuclear fusion is completely different from that of fuel cells or of synfuels. As described by IAEA, energy obtained from fusion and fission reactions is based on differences in the nuclear binding energy. The mass of the products of a fusion reaction is smaller than the mass of its reactants. The difference or "missing mass" is converted into energy in accordance with Einstein’s equation E=mc². Because c is very large, a small amount of missing mass turns into a large amount of energy.

I understand the differences, but I think you missed my point.  With time, technology, and commitment, you don’t know what can be achieved with synfuel.  How much effort has actually been devoted to developing synfuel up to this point? I don’t know the answer to that, but I’m certainly not going to write it off because it has been around for a long time and there haven’t been major developments with it.  What was the incentive when there is plenty of oil available currently.  Clearly there are companies interested in looking into it now for environmental reasons so who really knows what will happen at this point. 

[rperez817]

51 minutes ago, tbone said:

With time, technology, and commitment, you don’t know what can be achieved with synfuel. 

 

I agree with that tbone. What I was getting at earlier in the thread (and I think bzcat indicated as well in other threads) is that what can be achieved with any energy related technology will ultimately be governed by the laws of chemistry and physics.

[silvrsvt]

55 minutes ago, tbone said:

I understand the differences, but I think you missed my point.  With time, technology, and commitment, you don’t know what can be achieved with synfuel.  How much effort has actually been devoted to developing synfuel up to this point? I don’t know the answer to that, but I’m certainly not going to write it off because it has been around for a long time and there haven’t been major developments with it.  What was the incentive when there is plenty of oil available currently.  Clearly there are companies interested in looking into it now for environmental reasons so who really knows what will happen at this point. 

 

Exxon Gives Up on Much-Hyped Algae Biofuels

 

But there are some significant, long-term challenges that algae presents in bringing it to scale as an energy solution, and as renewable energy like wind and solar have gotten cheaper and cheaper, the prospect of algae as fuel has become less attractive to energy companies hoping for a quick return on investment. Both Shell and BP had abandoned their efforts by 2012, and Chevron admitted on its website in 2018 that its work “to produce second-generation biofuels that are economical at scale without subsidies has not been successful.”

[silvrsvt]

2 hours ago, akirby said:

There are many options some of which haven’t been expired or discovered yet.  And nobody is saying it’s a total replacement.

 

Why dump a ton of money into something that isn't going to pay its way? If your looking at servicing a smaller part of the market with synfuel, which have been in active development since WW2, I don't think we'll see a huge or marked improvement over what we have developed now vs new battery or charging developments during the same time. 

[akirby]

2 hours ago, silvrsvt said:

 

Why dump a ton of money into something that isn't going to pay its way? If your looking at servicing a smaller part of the market with synfuel, which have been in active development since WW2, I don't think we'll see a huge or marked improvement over what we have developed now vs new battery or charging developments during the same time. 

An alternative to gas or diesel where batteries don’t work.  Keeping classic vehicles on the road.  Letting people keep older cheaper vehicles..  
 

Saying it will never work is silly.   Technology changes daily.

[silvrsvt]

27 minutes ago, akirby said:

Saying it will never work is silly.   Technology changes daily.

 

I don't disagree with what you said about your use cases, but in the grand scheme of things (lets say the 80% solution) won't be using synfuels to do it. 

 

That is the point I'm making...is that its a limited use item that would never be able to fully replace current fuel sources or using electric instead. 

[fuzzymoomoo]

1 hour ago, silvrsvt said:

 

I don't disagree with what you said about your use cases, but in the grand scheme of things (lets say the 80% solution) won't be using synfuels to do it. 

 

That is the point I'm making...is that its a limited use item that would never be able to fully replace current fuel sources or using electric instead. 

I can see it taking off in the classic car world 

[akirby]

1 hour ago, silvrsvt said:

 

I don't disagree with what you said about your use cases, but in the grand scheme of things (lets say the 80% solution) won't be using synfuels to do it. 

 

That is the point I'm making...is that its a limited use item that would never be able to fully replace current fuel sources or using electric instead. 

I don’t believe anybody said anything about it replacing BEVs or gasoline.  Just that it’s an alternative clean fuel source that may have uses now and could potentially become more prevalent as the technology advances.

 

Some of you need to stop jumping to anti-BEV conclusions just because somebody else mentions alternatives.  We will be using gasoline, diesel, natural gas, hydrogen, synthetic fuel and batteries together for many years.

[bzcat]

Syn fuel is just like hydrogen (in fact, hydrogen is a syn fuel, a spectacularly inefficient one). It's a niche solution for some specific application. It's not a feasible scalable solution for our transportation need. 

 

Even if you can make it from renewable energy, it still makes more sense to use those renewable energy to charge the battery. Batteries has MUCH better efficiency than any syn fuel. 

 

Fusion is the holy grail. We are now able to breakeven on energy extraction but still a long ways to commercially viable means of production. 

 

On the subject of Lincoln... I'm still skeptical that Ford will import anything from China. The 25% tariff makes the whole thing unprofitable which is why Geely stopped importing from China and GM scaled back Buick significantly. I think Ford did have plans to import Evos (as Fusion Active), Edge, and Nautilus from China but those plans must have gone sideways once it was clear that Biden is not going to lift the Trump tariff.

 

 

 

[akirby]

1 hour ago, bzcat said:

Syn fuel is just like hydrogen (in fact, hydrogen is a syn fuel, a spectacularly inefficient one). It's a niche solution for some specific application. It's not a feasible scalable solution for our transportation need. 

 

Even if you can make it from renewable energy, it still makes more sense to use those renewable energy to charge the battery. Batteries has MUCH better efficiency than any syn fuel. 

Today’s synthetic fuel.  Why are you assuming there will never be a different formula or different method of producing it?

It has the benefit of working in every ICE vehicle ever built from a model T to a Ford GT so why wouldn’t you explore every possibility?  It would turn every existing vehicle into zero emissions overnight not just the brand new ones.

 

It may never be more than a niche product but you can’t sit there and say it’s not worth researching.

 

[silvrsvt]

11 hours ago, akirby said:

Today’s synthetic fuel.  Why are you assuming there will never be a different formula or different method of producing it?

It has the benefit of working in every ICE vehicle ever built from a model T to a Ford GT so why wouldn’t you explore every possibility?  It would turn every existing vehicle into zero emissions overnight not just the brand new ones.

 

It may never be more than a niche product but you can’t sit there and say it’s not worth researching.

 

Because of physics? 

 

Given how important oil and fuel

has been to the world for the past 125 years or more, I think that it might just have some major research done to it during that time to figure out an alternative way of doing it. 
 

The point boils down to this-why are you going to make a fuel that costs more energy to make then it is to charge a battery if your trying to cut down on emissions as the end result? Then add in the additional costs etc and it doesn’t really make any business sense to pursue it 
 

Synfuels are fine in a niche environment but they aren’t going to fix bigger issues at hand if you want to cut back on CO2 emissions. 

[akirby]

1 hour ago, silvrsvt said:

Synfuels are fine in a niche environment but they aren’t going to fix bigger issues at hand if you want to cut back on CO2 emissions. 

It’s absolutely needed to keep classic vehicles on the road cleanly and that includes a lot of current vehicles that will be future collectibles.  So not as niche as you might think if you consider Porsches, Ferraris, Lambos, Raptors, Corvettes in addition to all the older vehicles.  The alternative is to keep using gasoline.

 

And for the 47th time nobody is suggesting that synthetic fuel replaces batteries.

[bzcat]

14 hours ago, akirby said:

Today’s synthetic fuel.  Why are you assuming there will never be a different formula or different method of producing it?

It has the benefit of working in every ICE vehicle ever built from a model T to a Ford GT so why wouldn’t you explore every possibility?  It would turn every existing vehicle into zero emissions overnight not just the brand new ones.

 

It may never be more than a niche product but you can’t sit there and say it’s not worth researching.

 

 

I didn't say it is not worth researching. But what is the goal and objective? And what is the science? 

 

If you are concerned about powering legacy ICE, we still have lots of oil underground to power them for eons. Syn fuel is net energy negative no matter how you make it so fundamentally, it doesn't make sense to apply it at scale. 

 

This is not a theoretical point. If you think about it logically, converting all existing ICE to syn fuel will require so much more energy input it just doesn't make any sense. Much more logical to speed up replacement of ICE with EV if your goal is zero emission. But for hobbyist and enthusiast that still may want to drive ICE 50 years from now, absolutely, syn fuel is a possible but niche solution to driving your classic 2022 Porsche in 2072.  

 

 

[rmc523]

16 hours ago, akirby said:

Today’s synthetic fuel.  Why are you assuming there will never be a different formula or different method of producing it?

It has the benefit of working in every ICE vehicle ever built from a model T to a Ford GT so why wouldn’t you explore every possibility?  It would turn every existing vehicle into zero emissions overnight not just the brand new ones.

 

It may never be more than a niche product but you can’t sit there and say it’s not worth researching.

 

 

That's not the actual goal lol.

[tbone]

5 hours ago, akirby said:

And for the 47th time nobody is suggesting that synthetic fuel replaces batteries.

There’s very little objectivity with the EV crowd. There’s nothing that can be improved or invented that can supplant the battery.

[bzcat]

2 hours ago, tbone said:

There’s very little objectivity with the EV crowd. There’s nothing that can be improved or invented that can supplant the battery.

 

There is no "EV crowd" here - just rperez817 and 1 does not make a crowd. But the is definitely an ICE goon squad here that lacks objectively. ?

 

Most of us are talking about science and basic physics which is as objective as it can be. And it's not about battery which is just a storage medium. It is about energy and how some "solutions" for powering vehicles at scale are really nonsense. Like hydrogen (and syn fuel in general). 

 

Syn fuel is worthy of research. There are lots of niche applications where it will work. But it ultimately still rely on internal combustion, which is already near the edge of theoretical limit of efficiency. Roughly 30% of the energy input into internal combustion is converted into forward momentum to propel our vehicle. With syn fuel, that % is lower because you lose some energy in the process of making the syn fuel. Electricity converts about 80% of energy input into vehicle propulsion. You just cannot overcome this gap with wishful thinking. 

 

 

Edited February 15, 2023 by bzcat