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Audi e-diesel takes a bad idea and makes it worse
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I came here to say the same thing.
The only scheme I've seen along these lines that makes sense is for military use. Imagine an nuclear aircraft carrier that has onboard systems that can make synthetic jet fuel using carbon taken from the ocean (dissolved CO2 and carbonates), purified water from the ocean, and electricity from the on-board power plant. Elimination of the supply lines that deliver jet fuel to the carrier has far more value than any use of of synfuel on land.
Aircraft, ships, trains, heavy trucks etc. etc. People in this forum seem to ignore at times that BEV are still very much a fringe phenomenon and depend very much on subsidies and favourable regulation. Probably fossil fuels will be with us for quite a while.
Trains? Trains have been electrified for 100 years already. Where they are still not, they should be ASAP. There is no real need for them to burn dinos directly, nowhere.
Ships should run on electric motors powered by small salt nuclear reactors.
Heavy trucks should be parallel-hybrids burning what is left of dinojuice.
Planes OTOH, for some foresee-able future, yes.
Ships should run on electric motors powered by small salt nuclear reactors.
Heavy trucks should be parallel-hybrids burning what is left of dinojuice.
Planes OTOH, for some foresee-able future, yes.
In Tesla's "21st Century Electric Car" document (no longer on their website) they compared how far you can drive with a given fuel input for various propulsion technologies. If that same analysis were to be applied here, I would bet that a given kWh of electrical energy would power an EV much further than a diesel car using Audi's synthetic fuel.
The energy required for hydrolysis alone puts the diesel car at a disadvantage. Fuel cells have this same disadvantage. But wait, there is more, since this process also adds synthesizing the hydrocarbons and the inefficiencies of diesel compustion.
GSP
The energy required for hydrolysis alone puts the diesel car at a disadvantage. Fuel cells have this same disadvantage. But wait, there is more, since this process also adds synthesizing the hydrocarbons and the inefficiencies of diesel compustion.
GSP
While trains are electrified for wheel torque, they still have onboard, massive generators that burn diesel fuel (at least when we talk about long-haul freight and passenger trains in the US). Metropolitan light rail systems are typically all-electric, but the long-haul heavy routes are not.
Johan
Ex got M3 in the divorce, waiting for EU Model Y!
In Europe all trains, more or less, are electrified, including long-distance and freight.
Much of the Eastern Seaboard is electrified (mostly done during the Great Depression,) but very little else in the US is right now. I would agree with the earlierfoff hand comment, though - electrifying all of those rails is one of the simplest, easiest, and in the long run cheapest ways to reduce emissions and fossil fuel use.
My parents' home sits 50 feet from a freight train railroad track; no fence. As a child I'm sure I would have had a lot of fun times BBQ'ing animals on open and exposed electrical cables hanging in the air.
My parents' home sits 50 feet from a freight train railroad track; no fence. As a child I'm sure I would have had a lot of fun times BBQ'ing animals on open and exposed electrical cables hanging in the air.
How big a ladder did you have? The standard for long distance rail lines both in the US and in Europe is an overhead catenary line, something like 20 feet in the air.
I keep an open mind to the possibility that drastic, rapid reduction in all new carbon emission is necessary, even if it's a big departure from the "norm". To keep a more or less livable biosphere there is a carbon quota, and it is very very low by today's standards. Ie we easily burn through our grandchildren and grand -grand children yearly carbon quotas with simple acts like firing up an ICE eating a cow or taking one long flight.
I'd say the Audi approach is a Rube Goldberg contraption because after all the blah blah it has an open loop approach ending with carbon molecules in my atmosphere. I don't want my grandkids to subsidize Audi's lack of engineering.
Never underestimate the ability of an engineering-oriented yet relatively safety-stupid child.
Yes, there's a disadvantage, but this process, more than methanation, produces something that can be stored cheaply and burns cleaner than its fossil equivalent. Production of synfuels using excess power could allow for economical build-out of excess renewable generation capacity to deal with seasonal variation, with the output used in cases that are the most challenging for electrification, both in terms of capability and economics.
While we all hope that batteries will become cheap enough that long-distance electric cars become affordable, there is no guarantee.
If these tracks haven't been electrified by now, then its probably not economically viable. The same is true for comparable lines e.g. in Australia.
Driving a BEV is a bit of a gesture that isn't going to save the planet unless you are also altering your whole livestyle. One of the biggest polluters by now is shipping, e.g. those huge ships that carry our consumer goods from East Asia to Europe and the US. What are we going to do about this "invisible" industry?
I was in Hamburg recently and there were people charging i3s at public chargers while less than a mile away some of the world's biggest ships - carrying thousands of containers each - were belching fumes into the sky; and that was with the "clean" fuel they have to burn in the North Sea, you don't want to see what they are doing on the High Seas. Made the i3 seem slightly pointless.
*sigh* It is economically viable to electrify many of these tracks... now.
The reasons many tracks in the US weren't electrified relate to totally different economics in the past -- ranging from the economics for trains being less viable relative to trucks (1950s-1990s) to the economics for electricity being less viable relative to fossil fuels (pre-1970s).
FWIW if this Audi idea is as energetically efficient as they say (I have my doubts) it might be a way to store excess solar power. And it would be useful for airplanes, which are quite hard to electrify.
Just because a corporation hasn't chosen to make a big investment right now using their own money, it must not make financial sense as a whole now or in the future?
That seems like a rather short sighted statement - especially given the short term focus that pervades most American companies. Electrifying rails isn't cheap, and it won't pay for itself in two years (or, most likely, five) - so I'm not surprised companies haven't jumped up to do it.
It still makes sense, for long term profits, for emissions, and for national security (being able to move things across the country without oil might be important one of these days...)
Walter
I agree Audi probably isn't on the right track here - mine was more of a general observation. Audi's lack of Vorsprung in recent years is a disgrace.
That said, the alternative fuels race is probably only starting. BEVs won't solve all types of vehicles and use-scenarios for a while and that might leave the door open for other types of infrastructures replacing ICEs (and thus also threatening BEVs).
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Oh and by the way, very impressed by the vast amount of energy production, transmission, storage and efficiency knowledge on this forum. It is very interesting to read a lot of them time.
jgs
Active Member
That's incorrect. The reaction can be cartooned as: water + atmospheric carbon + energy -> fuel. Then you take the fuel and burn it: fuel + atmospheric oxygen-> energy + water + atmospheric carbon. Closed-loop. This assumes the energy source is clean of course but the same is true with batteries.
There are things to criticize about it (particulates, efficiency) but it's potentially carbon-neutral. Why do you think otherwise?
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So use seawater in the process. No dearth of that.
Johan
Ex got M3 in the divorce, waiting for EU Model Y!
Yes, the process is carbon neutral it's just that using the syntethic diesel as a carrier of energy is just as wasteful as using liquid compressed hydrogen as the energy carrier. Only advantage is there are millions and millions of existin engines out there that can utilize it without modification. The advantage of Hydrogen is the cleanness of the exhaust. Both options though are very poor compared to a battery as the energy carrier.
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