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Audi have successfully made diesel fuel from carbon dioxide and water
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Funky Papa
FUNK-Y-PPA-4
This smells of green subsidies used to lower the price of diesel fuel.
I'm somewhat suspicious.
Very interesting. I'm guessing the question is, how well would this scale? 160 liters is nothingis that a cap based on the process, or is it a cap based on the carbon-neutral parameters? The article implies the latter, but then the bigger question is how effective would it be to focus your renewable energy sources into fuel?
Evolved1
make sure the pudding isn't too soggy but that just ruins everything
Well it's still releasing carbon into the atmosphere. Just less carbon, So there's that.
And using up water.
Hum.
How does this compare to using the electricity directly? I mean, yay for fossil fuel alternatives, but I have trouble believing that the (70%) efficiency can measure up to a direct conversion from energy into motion in a Tesla or something similar. Then again, a battery in those cars does something similar to store the energy, so who knows.
However, you still have shitty city air with this solution. Which is one of the main reasons I'm rooting for the electro cars.
Also, turning drinking water into fuel somehow doesn't sit right with me.
However, the theory is awesome. Yay for progress!
How does this compare to using the electricity directly? I mean, yay for fossil fuel alternatives, but I have trouble believing that the (70%) efficiency can measure up to a direct conversion from energy into motion in a Tesla or something similar. Then again, a battery in those cars does something similar to store the energy, so who knows.
However, you still have shitty city air with this solution. Which is one of the main reasons I'm rooting for the electro cars.
Also, turning drinking water into fuel somehow doesn't sit right with me.
However, the theory is awesome. Yay for progress!
Hexa
Member
How efficient is this? I couldn't find it in the article though maybe I just missed it. This has been possible for a long time. It just ends up taking a rediculous amount of energy to produce however. They seem to be talking about how it'll be competetive price wise, which would be amazing, but I wonder if that is the case and how they got there.
Yeah pretty much. This is has always been possible, just stupid because you're adding many steps to a process, making it much more expensive from an energy standpoint.
The Albatross
Member
The "catch" is that this plant is producing 160 litres a day. To recuperate operating costs, the blue crude would need to be sold for, like, $5,000/litre. Otherwise, cool idea.
Meh, filling a bathtub takes 200l, even if making 1l of fuel took 1l of water that's still below the average daily water use of the people driving the car. Maybe people in drier countries have bigger issues with that but in Central Europe we have plenty of water.
Hexa
Member
Yeah, but they say that they "anticipate that once production is scaled up, the e-diesel will sell to the public for between 1 and 1.50 Euros per litre, dependent on the cost of renewable electricity". That would be impressive if that's the case, though it could just be them blowing hot air since they didn't even touch on how that'll be possible.
bennywhatever
Member
Will probably only work on select Audi vehicles, too. I can't see companies like Ford or Chrysler trying to adapt to this kind of thing unless it's a government mandate.
theepicoftyler
Member
With releasing carbon, it's more about releasing carbon from fossil fuels rather than carbon in general. If we're can capture free carbon that's already in the "budget" it wouldn't matter. When you burn fossil fuels, you're releasing massive carbon reservoirs that weren't able to be released without our influence.
For that reason, it's very intriguing. I don't know enough about this type of engineering to say whether it's plausible to scale up however.
_/¯crowphoenix
Banned
That could be a nice step forward toward cleaner fuel, but I am sure there's a catch or three somewhere.
Trojita
Rapid Response Threadmaker
The article says that once refined it can be used in regular diesel engines.
Coriolanus
Banned
The catch is very simple: why use electric energy to create e-diesel that'll combust at 70% efficiency when you can just...y'know, use an electric car and get near 100% efficiency?
As they say, it's only relevant if renewable energy is cheap. If it is cheap, it is because there are ample amounts. If there are ample amounts, why bother with combustible fuel for regular cars?
BlackSalad
Member
This reaction is nothing new, it just requires so much energy it is not even worth it--Hence why they have to focus on "renewable" energy to be the main source for this production and maintain this as environmentally friendly.
Are you.....from California?
In Europe we have plenty of fresh water. We will be driving Audis while California enters its Mad Max future.
poppabk
Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future
There is no way we can produce enough electricity by renewable means to power a fraction of the world's cars - so large scale this would be powered by traditional energy sources - coal, gas, nuclear. Then you have two steps of inefficiency, in the engine and then in the making of the fuel.
OrangeYouGlad
Banned
This. I'm amazed at how some people think water is magic and we'll never run out of clean, useable water.
that first step sounds like what they'd be doing anyway for fuel cells. But instead of burning Hydrogen and getting the water vapour back in the exhaust, this would be like burning normal diesel.
And a lot depends on the cost of electricity.
But it is very exciting, and it will be interesting to see how it compares for overall cost of production Vs fuel cells or electric cars - including the costs of things like the rare metals needed for the batteries in the latter.
And a lot depends on the cost of electricity.
But it is very exciting, and it will be interesting to see how it compares for overall cost of production Vs fuel cells or electric cars - including the costs of things like the rare metals needed for the batteries in the latter.
It's very encouraging to see the many breakthrougs we've had in renewable energy in the last few years. This is obviously an inefficient process but it's still early in development. I agree that right now pure electric seems like the best option but it's very positive that it's not our only basket of eggs, so to speak. If it doesn't work out for whatever reason we need other fossil-free alternatives, even if they're less efficient on the energy-spent-to-energy-produced scale. And even if they do work out like I hope they do there are still niches that need to be filled by highly energy-intensive fuels, like in aviation and spaceflight where you can't lug around massive batteries, or extreme environments, where power might not be available or reliable or where batteries lose efficiency, such as in exceptionally cold areas.
We obviously need to give serious thought to what the future energy mix needs to look like but the more options we have, the better.
We obviously need to give serious thought to what the future energy mix needs to look like but the more options we have, the better.
Devil's advocate
Member
Not only does burning diesel (or most other fuels) release the used water again, we are actually pretty good at getting water clean. At least in industrialized countries.
Also, why not use the hydrogen as an energie source?
Because the majority of people won't change to an e-vehicle in the next ten to twenty years? Sure it's more efficient to use electricity directly, but that's just not going to happen in the short term, meanwhile the cost of renewable energy production have decreased steadily over the years. Think of it more as an energy storage medium which just happens to have 70% efficiency. They mentioned that the initial plan is to mix it with standard diesel fuel in order to reduce dependency on oil production, this could be a start.
The Shadow
Member
Energy efficiency of the fuel, not the engine.
Because the majority of people don't own an electric vehicle and this can use the current refueling infrastructure.
Electric cars would be better but we will need stopgaps before getting there.
schroddycat
Member
As if we have so much fresh water to make more carbon fuel.
Alx
Member
It would only release as much CO2 in the atmosphere as was consumed at the beginning, so that's not a bad side of it. Water could be more of an issue, although it depends on how pure it needs to be.
In the end it's more a solution for energy storage in chemical form, rather than creating a new resource. Converting electricity to diesel and then burning that could involve losses, but we don't have many efficient solutions for electricity storage either.
In the end it's more a solution for energy storage in chemical form, rather than creating a new resource. Converting electricity to diesel and then burning that could involve losses, but we don't have many efficient solutions for electricity storage either.
Is the specific process Audi is demonstrating dependent on fresh water? Because seawater electrolysis is a thing.
As if we have so much fresh water to make more carbon fuel.
dave is ok
aztek is ok
This process has been known forever and sucks.
You missed it. It takes CO2 out of the atmosphere when it is made. So it takes H20 and CO2 to make, then it returns them to the atmosphere. So a large amount of the Carbon and Water are just recycled. Depending on the efficiency, very little could be lost.
Any Questions
Member
Genius. Am impressed and wish more cash was spend on this type of R&D
Seawater electrolysis exists.
Even if this initial process requires fresh water (does it?), knee-jerking a new tech like that is silly. Technology needs to be iterated.
As far as CO2 goes,
Unless I'm misunderstanding the design, it sounds like they are harvesting CO2 from the atmosphere, which is then re-released at combustion.
Is this 100% CO2 neutral (ie, no net gain of CO2 released)? I assume not, but let's say it's substantially less 'new' CO2. That's a significant step.
Everyone here would love for the world to magically flip a switch where all electricity is 100% renewable, and we have the required infrastructure to use 100% electric cars. The reality is that's simply not possible right now.
If this proves to be a step that significantly lowers new CO2, it should be lauded, pursued, and improved ... not knee-jerked because it isn't a magic bullet.
ohyouagain
Member
Good remark but seawater-to-freshwater conversion consumes a lot of energy. And I don't see any mention of water pre-treatment in the process. Ergo, it most probably isn't taken in account in their calculation.
Ergo... their process might be less environment-friendly than they are presenting it. Water is vaporized in all cases though. So it's probably a side issue.
The efficiency quoted is the efficiency of the process for turning electricity into diesel, not the efficiency of the actual end use.
What they are saying is that X BTUs of electricity turns into .7X BTUs of diesel fuel.
Obviously burning it in an ICE after that, you get .25(.7X) for the overall life cycle efficiency.
This is recycling carbon dioxide from the air not putting out more. And those worries about it using up water, when you burn the diesel you produce water and co2 so you get the water back. Electric cars are great and all but you still need to dig up the lithium to make the batteries and you still got to make cars which means more co2 emissions. Making a carbon neutral fuel this way allows you to keep using the engines we got already
You're assuming the step of converting to freshwater is required. Are we sure that's the case?
The point of seawater-to-freshwater conversion is to yield fresh water, which is not the goal here. They are only after the hydrogen. So is that definitely required?
yup
Not to mention the use of electric cars requires an always-powered grid. The reality is in most areas that means burning fossil fuels for power generation (tons of CO2 released, is non renewable). As yet, you can't simply pick and choose what is generating your electricity for your devices ... including cars ... you plug into said grid.
Since this is generating a transportable / storable fuel, it has no such requirement. They can (if they choose, and is what has been advertised thus far) decide to make sure the electricity they are using during the process is in fact from renewables.
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