Porsche Investing in E-Fuels

[Krusty Walnut]

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/02/porsche-investing-24-million-in-e-fuels-for-traditional-sports-cars.html

Interesting process. I wonder how scalable it would be? Would there be many micro refineries that would capture the CO2 for different regions? Great news for all of us that love the noise and feel of an ICE.

[Manwich]

I predict that this will end up being a waste of time and money and will be little more than ethanol or methanol with some fancy marketing.

[Krusty Walnut]

@manwich I'm not sure if this is similar to how ethanol is produced. The E fuel process is two things: one a carbon capture technique to reduce the amount of co2 in the environment, two an energy conversion process where renewable energy is converted to stored energy in the form of a fuel. I'm assuming that there is more energy inputted into the process than what is generated but the fact that burning the fuel results in a net zero carbon emission, that is a major benefit. Also, we have excess solar and wind electricity that is not consumed so using that excess energy for this process is also a benefit. It makes a lot of sense but can generate enough volume of fuel to make a difference is the real question. I am also assuming that this process can be modified to produce ethanol and methanol or other similar fuels.

[frinesi2]

Reminds me of this:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/fuel-seawater-whats-catch-180953623/

Also, e-fuel is a dumb name. We need to call it synth-gas.

[Poor_sh]

@krustywantout this is what I've been saying every time people say electric will kill all ICE cars eventually. I really don't think that will happen because there's just not a good way to get electric cars in the hands of a large number of people based on location/finances. But I believe there's gotta be a way to make synthetic fuel with comparable energy density so we can prolong the use of existing car infrastructure and keep the hobby alive like riding horses essentially.

The fact that such a fuel has not been sold yet doesn't mean it's beyond our reach. Merely it may be unprofitable, or only possible with tech newly available.

[Krusty Walnut]

@poor_sh I think a independent energy analysis between EVs, ethanol fuel and synth fuel needs to be completed . It needs to account for manufacturing of batteries, electricity generation, charging infrastructure, subsidies, carbon emissions/ reduction etc. I bet the gap isn't as big as we think. If the government mandated a % of synth fuel to be used by gasoline stations, then that would help with adoption.