[uticus]

> It’s essentially a manufactured replica of gasoline, designed to power internal combustion engines while potentially offering a more sustainable alternative to fossil fuels.

Key word: "potentially". Because it is less accurate than the word "currently" - as in, "currently, the cost of production is a significant barrier" - I would argue the word "potentially" at the outset frames the whole description of benefits as an unsubstantiated faith.

When all processes for deriving synthetic gasoline require more input energy than available energy from the output, you're not describing processes that "potentially offering a more sustainable alternative to fossil fuels."

[cobbzilla]

If the energy source to make the fuel is renewable (hydro, solar, wind), then it is effectively carbon neutral, and that’s the best you can do. Someday I think we’ll get there, but I don’t know enough to guess how far off that is.

[schiffern]

  >and that’s the best you can do

Even if the e-Gas production process is 100% efficient (and it very much is not), you're still throwing away 40-70% of the energy depending on the type of engine. This compares very poorly to a battery drivetrain which achieves 90+% round-trip efficiency.

For cars and trucks at least, scaling battery manufacturing is simply a much easier challenge vs more-than-tripling the required size of the entire fleet's renewable energy supply.

E-Gas can't compete on land, even assuming e-Gas converters were free and 100% efficient. This isn't a matter of waiting for the tech to get better and become The Sustainable Future, it's already been made obsoleted by electric cars.

[schmidtleonard]

"E-gas cars vs electric cars" is settled, "e-gas planes vs electric planes" is very much not. You were careful to say "on land," but I wanted to highlight it for anyone who isn't familiar enough with the argument to spot the hedging. Energy storage density is extremely important for aviation and the best batteries still make for very poor planes.

Emergency generation is another application where density is important. It's extremely difficult to beat the a gas turbine + tanker truck on cost and flexibility, it's the energy equivalent of "don't underestimate the bandwidth of tapes in a station wagon."

[schiffern]

  >You were careful to say "on land," but I wanted to highlight it for anyone who isn't familiar enough with the argument to spot the hedging.

I didn't know saying what I meant is such a heinous crime. :) But to make things fun here's a nice strong claim:

E-Gas won't work for airplanes either.

That's because A) E-Gas converters are not free and not 100% efficient, so it's more like 5x the cost in best-case-scenario (vs 10x today), and B) the aviation industry is well aware that corruption is simply cheaper.

E-Gas will not happen. What will actually happen is more of the same:

1) aviation will continue to use E-Gas (and some costly demo flights) as a greenwashing tactic while behind-the-scenes working to soften climate goals,

2) eventually the intermediate technical-economic-policy compromise will be to only use fossil fuels for aviation, and

3) in the long-long term aviation will go electric too, only with slightly different routing and network design to accommodate the reduced range (this has a cost, but by then fossil fuels will be costlier).

E-Gas is good for nothing except greenwashing fossil fuel assets, hence the big push on HN. Gotta fool your talent pool that they're not 'really' part of the problem. This both lowers labor cost and delays effective regulation, since engineers tend to be thought-leaders in crafting future policy.

[uticus]

Great point.

[Telemakhos]

I think, in comparing the energy input and output of the fuel, you might be omitting its storage density and role in off-grid energy availability. For example, consider aviation: you can't hook up a plane to a solar farm or nuke plant, but you have to take energy with you onboard. In order to fly and lift passengers or cargo, you need to minimize the mass of energy supply, which means maximizing energy density. It's really hard to beat hydrocarbons for that, and they're available at a convenient range of temperatures and pressures. So, the idea behind synthetic fuels is to make artificial hydrocarbon fuel as a means of storing green energy. The energy input-output inefficiency is just the price of storing that energy for off-grid use.

[schmidtleonard]

The unsubstantiated faith critique swings both ways: the amount of biofuel hate that came out of that one time agricultural land use adjustment is truly diabolical.

Like, "ok, you win, but if I drop this gigantic adjustment onto your math, then I win," and an honest conversation would then move to whether or not the adjustment was justified but that's not what happened, the conversation turned into yelling at anyone who didn't want to take the outcome-determinative adjustment on faith. Lol. Being a crusader doesn't make you wrong, but it does make the whole accusation of unsubstantiated faith / appeal to reason quite hypocritical.

[uticus]

No doubt, it's a double-edged sword.

And to be clear, I wouldn't have a problem if only the facts were put down: current methods, advantages (probably compared to other methods) and drawbacks. But to say this is "potentially offering a more sustainable alternative to fossil fuels" is like saying: "I can use a 74GW data center and a prompt to get the answer to 2+2, it potentially offers a more sustainable alternative to calculators."

[schmidtleonard]

You say that, but is it true?

The science keeps walking away from the Searchinger 2008 result (100g GHG/MJ iLUC for corn ethanol) and towards the biofuels industry claims that this was absurdly high, yet green rhetoric still behaves like the argument was 100% settled in 2008 and anyone who thinks otherwise is a shill.

[giva]

> When all processes for deriving synthetic gasoline require more input energy than available energy from the output, you're not describing processes that "potentially offering a more sustainable alternative to fossil fuels."

Sorry, what? Even charging a battery "require more input energy than available energy from the output". Obviously it's not a source of energy, it's a way to store energy.

[ZeroGravitas]

And given the notorious low efficiency of ICE motors it's likely that traditional gasoline takes more energy to refine etc. than actually drives the car forwards.

[uticus]

Good point. I agree, framing it as a way to store and move energy from another source (especially a more sustainable source) makes a lot more sense.