Synthetic Fuels

[AGTDenton]

A couple of interesting videos on Synthetic Fuel that could be used to help keep our favourite classics going a little longer before the electric take over.
The cynic in me believes this won't get very far sadly, although a recent government article includes the suggestion that synthetic fuels can play a part.

The Committee also believes that greater investment in sustainable fuels could mitigate the risks of EV battery production or grid capacity being insufficient and would cater for conventional vehicles that will remain on the road past the point at which sales of new conventional-engine cars will be banned.

https://committees.parliament.uk/com...ort-committee/


An interview with Coryton a manufacturer of synthetic fuels:



And here's Top Gears take on it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4EC8cDTvSg

[Rob_B]

We just need to let this kind of fuel die and jump both feet first into renewable and storage, let's stop even pretending that's not what we eventually need to do anyway and save all of the harm between now and that realisation.

Anyway, Sir Miles Axlerod tried this and it turned out to be a scam.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

A bit of a rant incoming,but I am getting a tad fedup with governments and companies jumping on the "environmental" bandwagon,but the moment you step back a lot of really does not make any economic or even industrial sense.


Why the need for Oil,Gas and Coal won't magically disappear.

Oil,Gas and Coal are still required for chemical production,fertiliser production,steel,etc. Also good luck trying to electrify larger and longer range aircraft and helicopters,etc.

The reality is the world's economy still requires Oil,Gas and Coal and the countries which produce them will still benefit from selling it to everyone else. In Europe,we are in a reality distortion sphere - we have exported most of our resource extraction abroad and most of our heavy industry to save money and to "pretend" we have reduced our emissions. Then moan at countries like China and India for pollution whilst we need all the items they need,which means they need huge amounts of Oil,Gas and Coal just to make stuff we require. People can't add two and two together sadly.

It's made us very vulnerable to external influences,and issues with our currencies(due to running permanent deficits and lots of money printing). This is not at all sustainable.

Plus building all these new renewable sources,batteries,etc means more industrial manufacturing....which means you need Oil,Gas and Coal to do it. You need to have mines to dig up all the minerals,and the ability to refine them. Then you need to transport it. This also all produces pollution - people will find the "Green Revolution" is going to have to start with front loading a ton of CO2 emissions and other pollutants to do so. Even wind turbines need steel,lubricants,etc to build and maintain them.

Then the anti-nuclear power lot don't want nuclear. So that means in Europe we screwed. We lack cheap energy to make stuff. We are lacking reliable energy and the costs are going up for heavy industry which needs hydrocarbon sources.

That is on top of the cost of many of these "Green" technologies.

The power requirements behind electrification

Electrical cars are an example of marketing having worked wonders on people's minds. They for one cost way too much - especially with the dire public transport in this country,how can many afford to buy even a "cheap" electric car. Just walk around and see how many 20 year old ICE cars are still in use.

But lots of environmentalists,also think we can simply plug in new electrical cars into the current energy grid. You can't simply replace millions of cars like that. Firstly:
1.)The load carrying capacity of the electrical grid needs to be increased
2.)The whole electrical power generation capacity of the grid has to MASSIVELY be ramped up.

Have people looked at the plans of many governments. They PLAN,to replace EXISTING electical generation capacity with more renewable energy. NOT INCREASE TOTAL ELECTRICAL GENERATION CAPACITY BY HUGE AMOUNTS USING 100% RENEWABLES.




So in 22 years we increased capacity by 25% but our population increased by nearly 15% over that time period. Plus a lot of that renewable capacity is not stored or can be used properly:
https://news.sky.com/story/britons-p...-days-12822156

So the actual useable increase in renewables is probably far less. But there are also problems with energy storage too.

Has anyone considered how hard it will be the store even 50% of the energy required to run the country for even a day? Where is all the energy storage going to be built and more importantly how long is going to take to be built? All I see is why slow progress.

If anything making it far cheaper for households to have their own solar power and local energy storage probably makes more sense,as solar can be used to cover baseline needs,ie,fridges,etc which should lower the baseline load on the national grid.

What do you think is going to happen when we move over to replacing ICE cars with electric cars and all our heating/cooking with electical powered alternatives. A car needs Kilowatts alone:
https://evbox.com/uk-en/electric-car.../tesla-model-3

Upto 11KW for a Tesla Model 3.

4KW for a heatpump to replace an average boiler:
https://www.viessmann.co.uk/en/heati...ectricity.html

Around 0.5KW to 1.5KW to replace gas hobs and ovens:
https://www.comparethemarket.com/ene...e-most-energy/

Now compare that to your TV,PC,lights,fridge,freezer,etc which all consume far less power which are all measure in the 100s of Watts. You could easily see a doubling or tripling of households peak power needs.

Why do you think there is a sudden interest in nuclear power worldwide. Because there will be a shortfall in actual electricity production,especially as storage seems to be lagging behind installed renewable capacity.

The con of using environmentalism to hide built in obsolescence

Electric cars=new profit making goldmine for car companies.

It gets even worse - many people use ICE cars for well over a decade and there is still a market for poorer people to buy old cars because they lack upfront capital. Want to use a decade old electic car? This is at the point things like battery wear,etc might start to be an issue.

But try replacing a few kaput parts of an old car battery - car companies have engineered them on purpose,so the whole battery needs to be replaced and a new or refurbished battery costs so much,that you might as well buy a new car.

This is because governments should delink the batteries from the car companies,and force a common modular standard for batteries(like say an AA,etc). The batteries should be designed so that parts can be replaced in segments. Think of a device using AA cells,you can replace a singular AA sell if required.

That means multiple companies can supply batteries and the competition would drive prices down. But car companies don't want that as they won't to sell you a new car like a new iPhone.

But that is not happening with electric cars - they will become throw away devices with limited repairability.

You just have to look at Rich Rebuilds on Youtube and other similar channels - car companies do everything to stop electic cars being repaired. But what is even worse,is that most lithium is not recycled as companies say it is not profitable enough. Apparently the target is to re-use only 60% of old car cells in consumer devices,but smaller cells tend to chucked away. So it means more mining of lithium,cobalt,etc which has its own set of problems.

So the best thing is to simply USE YOUR CAR LESS,if you care about pollution. Walk more,cycle,use public transport,make less unneeded trips,etc. If you don't care about the environment then carry on as normal.

Why environmentalist need to stop thinking of technological fixes for everything

One of the biggest things to help the environment is ironically what not enough "environmentalists" are pushing for - making items easier to repair and upgrade.

All I see is a lot of so called "enviromentally friendly" technologies being throw away short lifespan item.

Pollution is a whole cycle. There is too much obsession about the "operation stage" pollution. What about the pollution from extraction of resources and the manufacturing of said items? Pollution from the disposal of such items? The number of times said items/technologies need to be replaced over a 20 year period.

For example my Dualit toaster is 31 years old and is made entirely of metal. It can probably be mostly recycled easily if it gets chucked away. After 31 years two of the heating elements are gone but I can buy replacements so I won't need to chuck it away for a while longer.Maybe the heating elements are bit less efficient than a 2023 toaster.

But then if someone just went with a bog standard throwaway toaster made mostly of plastic - maybe they would have gone through three or four of them in that period. Even if they are bit more efficient,I would argue the pollution from making four toasters and disposal of them is worse for the environment,especially as engineering plastics are hard to recycle.

Look at modern consumer electronic - despite all the champagne environmentalist spiel,lots of it can't be repaired easily because its all glued and soldered together. But it has Greenwashing marketing slogans:
1.)10.5% MORE EFFICIENT
2.)11.3% MORE RECYCLED MATERIAL
3.)23.79% MORE RENEWABLE ENERGY USED

But not:
4.)Harder to repair shortening the effective lifespan
5.)Harder to get parts for shortening the effective lifespan
6.)Make it harder for consumers and independent repair shops to repair items shortening the effective lifespan
7.)Make the product more fragile shortening the effective lifespan
8.)Use software to end the functionality of perfectly useable hardware much earlier,by making up reasons shortening the effective lifespan
9.)Removing the ability to upgrade parts shortening the effective lifespan

This means more items have to be made over each 10 year period. That means more pollution and environmental damage.

If people don't believe me - check out Louis Rossman's channel in the US.

Lots of companies virtue signalling about the environment but forcing users to upgrade. It's getting WORSE.

Just look at companies like Nvidia locking features to Ada Lovelace instead of Ampere,when it is obvious it should work(DLSS3).

[DanceswithUnix]

Interesting that they seem to be using bio waste there to make fuel. Porsche has been working on petrol through CO2 extraction and have a pilot plant finally working in Chile (apparently because it is really windy there). Price currently aiming for $2 per litre, which is unfortunate because from memory Porsche were hoping to have their pilot plant into production a year ago and targeting about $1.50/l but I guess that's what pilot plants are all about. Fuel made from air, water and a wind turbine is pretty cool

A good rant

At the centre of electrification seems to be governments carbon emissions promises for global warming, and this is one thing they can control. The thing that annoys me is the increase in CO2 emissions from people swapping their hatchbacks for heavy and poor drag coefficient SUVs. It's going to take some effort just to get us back to the emissions we had when people were driving cars instead of these trucks. Personally, I think governments should make all cars over 1500kg electric as a priority.

[kalniel]

It's always going to be hard to match the cost of effectively taking something ready packed (of energy) after millions of years of 'work' done by something else and cheaply given. We need time, technology and acceptance of higher costs vs oil (including cheapness of by-products), the latter of which is a major problem while we have such globally diverse wealth levels (i.e. we'll have to accept the cost of many things increasing if we want to wean ourselves off fossil extraction but that cost isn't palatable to most of the world at the moment).

The move to SUVs is especially dismaying, but if you give a company free choice to make something that customers are willing to pay more money for and which you make more profit on then it's a certainty we'll go in that direction. There is some small argument that says EVs need to be in SUV form while we have today's bulky battery tech so establishing SUVs are normal helps with the transition, but I think that's pretty baloney.

What we don't need are further government incentives at the point of purchase that make SUVs just as attractive (dropping the CO2 based tax bands), and from a manufacturing point of view.. well we don't get a say any more, the UK dropped out of being relevant some time ago, but it's going to be the US, EU, China and India who actually control where we go. The US is subject to populism and likes its oil, India likes it's nationalism at the moment.. so it's probably left to the EU and China to help us out. China has massive self interest in taking the world lead in all things EV tech related and their government control of manufacturing means they are probably best placed to force changes in behaviour. And the EU? Can't compete with China in terms of economies of scale, but is well placed to mandate some of the things Cat is referring to around repairability/recyclability etc. but guess what? As soon as it does you get countries like the UK complaining about EU red tape holding back businesses etc. and promptly leaving.

Optimism edit: I realise the above sounds a bit down on the UK, but there's quite a lot of stuff we can do, particularly around home heating - better efficiency, insulation and getting rid of the effective ban on on-shore wind are all very near term improvements.

[badass]

Optimism edit: I realise the above sounds a bit down on the UK, but there's quite a lot of stuff we can do, particularly around home heating - better efficiency, insulation and getting rid of the effective ban on on-shore wind are all very near term improvements.

Plus: Tax the hell out of SUV's - and limit them to 56MPH.
How do you define an SUV?
Comfort - i.e. exclude commercial vehicles like vans etc. Think creature comforts, number of seats etc
Weight.
Energy consumption - Low, medium and high speed.
Resources used to manufacture.
CdA (Manufacturers like to quote the completely meaningless CD rather than the relevant CdA)

[DanceswithUnix]

Plus: Tax the hell out of SUV's - and limit them to 56MPH.
How do you define an SUV?

Limiting speed will just make them slower when hogging lane two of the motorway.

I would just force any domestic vehicle over 1500kg to have to be full electric. That way the worst polluters no longer pollute, and double in price as a further dis-incentive

[kalniel]

Plus: Tax the hell out of SUV's - and limit them to 56MPH.
How do you define an SUV?
Comfort - i.e. exclude commercial vehicles like vans etc. Think creature comforts, number of seats etc
Weight.
Energy consumption - Low, medium and high speed.
Resources used to manufacture.
CdA (Manufacturers like to quote the completely meaningless CD rather than the relevant CdA)

You're supposing the consumer has much choice. Ford have pulled the plug on the Focus and Fiesta for instance. UK consumer demand is not going to be enough to convince manufacturers to do anything different, so people think it's just a war against the motorist in general and vote for someone else.

[badass]

Limiting speed will just make them slower when hogging lane two of the motorway.

I would just force any domestic vehicle over 1500kg to have to be full electric. That way the worst polluters no longer pollute, and double in price as a further dis-incentive

As long as they place a limit on the mass of the batteries and modules of 300Kg. A huge electric SUV over its lifetime does more damage to the environment through emissions and resource extraction an processing than a small petrol car.
The 300Kg Limit will ensure that either the SUV is amazingly efficient or has a short range. It will also ensure that the creation of the giant energy guzzler doesn't dwarf that of a conventional fuelled equivalent.

[badass]

You're supposing the consumer has much choice. Ford have pulled the plug on the Focus and Fiesta for instance. UK consumer demand is not going to be enough to convince manufacturers to do anything different, so people think it's just a war against the motorist in general and vote for someone else.

I am currently looking for a family car that can fit 3 Isofix seats and 2 adults comfortably so I really know just how much choice has been reduced. The reason choice has been reduced is that manufacturers get more margin on SUV's - so they advertise the hell out of them and make them a status symbol. Less profitable MPV's and smaller cars can then be ignored. Change the tax and regulatory regime and that choice will (probably) return.

[DanceswithUnix]

I am currently looking for a family car that can fit 3 Isofix seats and 2 adults comfortably so I really know just how much choice has been reduced. The reason choice has been reduced is that manufacturers get more margin on SUV's - so they advertise the hell out of them and make them a status symbol. Less profitable MPV's and smaller cars can then be ignored. Change the tax and regulatory regime and that choice will (probably) return.

Sadly it seems more circular than that. Estate cars got a bad image as a boring soccer mum car, so people started buying people carriers. They got the same tarnish, and people started buying SUVs. The general public is crying out for SUVs.

Alfa Romeo recently launched a smallish SUV because they need the sales and it seems like a decent enough car. Traditional Alfisti are recoiling in horror, but they are selling really well. It's crazy, the Guilia is an amazing chassis with a lovely interior and wonderful engines to power them, but saloon sales are just dropping off. The Stelvio SUV helped sales, but it's a bit on the large side for mass market. The Tonale is selling, despite being the antithesis of the usual light and agile driver's car you expect from the Italians.

[kalniel]

I am currently looking for a family car that can fit 3 Isofix seats and 2 adults comfortably so I really know just how much choice has been reduced. The reason choice has been reduced is that manufacturers get more margin on SUV's - so they advertise the hell out of them and make them a status symbol. Less profitable MPV's and smaller cars can then be ignored. Change the tax and regulatory regime and that choice will (probably) return.

Why would the UK tax regime have any impact? It'd just make us pay even more for the same options - UK consumers have next to no effect on manufacturers choice of products, we're too small. The fiesta was the UK's best selling car for years and years. Didn't have any impact on Ford canning it.

[badass]

Why would the UK tax regime have any impact? It'd just make us pay even more for the same options - UK consumers have next to no effect on manufacturers choice of products, we're too small. The fiesta was the UK's best selling car for years and years. Didn't have any impact on Ford canning it.

Where did I say UK

[DanceswithUnix]

F2 and F3 racing looking to use carbon capture based fuel by 2027

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2023/03...ies-this-year/