Petrol from air - can you spot a catch?

[More Amps]

I was browsing the web as you do, and occasionally following links to other sites that might be interesting (not those sort of sites!) and came across a site which mentioned "fuel from thin air" - here we go I thought as I duly clicked on the link (https://www.visordown.com/news/fuel-thin-air-new-tech-promises-fossil-free-petrol-motorcycles) which explained that a company has developed a means of producing petrol from air and water. Their machine uses an MTG (methanol-to-gasoline) process (plus a few kWh of leccy) to turn out high quality 95 RON petrol. All sounds reasonably ok so far... Dig a little further and they say they're targeting an end-to-end energy conversion efficiency of over 50% as development scales. At that efficiency, it requires around 75 kWh of electricity to produce 1 gallon of gasoline per day. (The company website https://www.aircela.com/)

Now assuming that they're not a bunch of scam artists, and given they've clearly got a fair way to go with development and costs will hopefully come down...the question to the forum is, do they have a realistic future, or at least the possibility of becoming commercially viable?

 

[Erie Fred]

What can 75kw do in an electric car ?

 

[m_c]

75kWh to produce a gallon, and I'm guessing that will be a US gallon, so realistically less than 30 miles for 75kWh.
A quick scan of some EV consumption figures, and most reasonable sized cars are doing around 30kWh/100mile, so you'll get over six times the distance for the same energy input.

I can't see that having much commercial success for the foreseeable future.

 

[More Amps]

Oh well, back to the drawing board then. I guess my entire life savings will remain under the sadly skinny mattress until they can bring their costs down by a factor of six or thereabouts! I had assumed that it wasn't a major breakthrough (no mention of worldwide patents or nobel prizes) so more likely just an application that has been known of for years but never pursued due to cost/benefit imbalance, but IF they do manage to get it to a stage where it becomes commercially viable...

 

[frank horton]

Same results to get Hydrogen at home.....cost's more to make it........

 

[hotponyshoes]

Does the efficiency of production matter?

If you get the power from a source like solar it can just drip out of the tap when the sun shines.
Once it's produced it will only take seconds to transfer into a car.

The obvious 'catch' - it's petrol.
I guess it just goes into a normal car and burns like normal petrol.
I don't think the environmental groups will be happy with it regardless of how it's produced. It's the burning bit they don't like.

 

[Wildefalcon]

Does the efficiency of production matter?

If you get the power from a source like solar it can just drip out of the tap when the sun shines.
Once it's produced it will only take seconds to transfer into a car.

The obvious 'catch' - it's petrol.
I guess it just goes into a normal car and burns like normal petrol.
I don't think the environmental groups will be happy with it regardless of how it's produced. It's the burning bit they don't like.

This is exactly it. If I've solar and no feed in tariff, then I'm better off with storing the energy in the tank of the V8.

 

[Gareth J]

All inefficiencies accounted for, it's still hard to get away from how incredibly convenient hydrocarbons are for powering things that move. I can't think of anything that comes close to rivalling the sweet spot of energy density, mobility and (relative) safety. Particularly diesel/heavier fuel oils. I reckon there will be a place for electrically arranged hydrocarbons, even if round trip efficiencies are only single figure percentages.

 

[8ob]

This was done years ago, early attempts used huge dish shaped polished mirrors pointing at the sun to achieve the insane temperatures needed to make this fuel from thin air. It was only making a gallon a day back then.

Bob

 

[jmp49]

I don't think the environmental groups will be happy with it regardless of how it's produced. It's the people having cars and motorbikes and not living offgrid in yurt's they don't like.

Fixed that for you.

 

[Islander71]

Its a mistake to keep calling petrol and diesel fossil fuels. Its been known for some time that they are finding it in places that had no animals or vegetation in the distant past to produce it, so it is something being created by natural processes in the earth's crust. We just dont know at what rate it is being naturally produced, but it looks like it would be more accurate to call it a renewable energy source.

 

[premmington]

Its a mistake to keep calling petrol and diesel fossil fuels. Its been known for some time that they are finding it in places that had no animals or vegetation in the distant past to produce it, so it is something being created by natural processes in the earth's crust. We just dont know at what rate it is being naturally produced, but it looks like it would be more accurate to call it a renewable energy source.

I get your "renewable" description...

Coal and oil is renewable - you just need ocean crustaceans or burried forests and millions of years.

But yes mate you are right (and I agree with you 100%) it is renewables but without a short time frame...

 

[daleyd]

Saw something recently which suggested that most coal was produced in a short (relatively, in geological terms) period where ancestors of trees had produced fibrous cells, lignin.

The fungi we see today hadn’t yet developed the mechanism for dealing with those fibrous materials and so there was nothing to break them down. The ancient plants and trees piled up over millions of years and formed thick coal deposits.

Eventually (over many millions of years) the fungi evolved to break down these fibres, and continue to do so to this day, and that breakdown (and the lack of it previously) is the reason almost all the coal was produced in one period of time.