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What a savior that would be for Russia. Still, it would be nice to Saudi Arabia raw.
There is some fascination research being done and a pilot plant is already being built. There is a very good chance the whole oil industry will be turned upside down in the next 5 years. If the current research to convert natural gas to ethylene cheaply using a catalyst proves out on a large scale it will be earth shattering to the oil industry. Instead of taking huge carbon molecules and breaking them down at the refinery to gasoline and other hydrocarbons they will take simple carbon elements from methane and build whatever product they want at a huge cost savings. We are talking the ability to produce/sell gasoline under a $1 a gallon and still have a huge profit under current feed stock prices. Natural gas will be the new king and Texas/Louisiana will be beautifully positioned with the gas infrastructure and refineries already in place.
What a savior that would be for Russia. Still, it would be nice to Saudi Arabia raw.
"whole oil industry will be turned upside down in the next 5 years."
it will come from one or more MAJOR battery breakthroughs, and/or fuel-cell breakthroughs, not from natgas to gasoline.
natgas to hydrogen for FCVs is much more attractive, since we seem to be stuck with natgas a few more years, peak natgas being about 5 years away, Red-Queening all the way.
Bosch ALONE is spending $500M on battery research and is finding real progress, as are many others.
70% of US oil is for transport. A big fat sitting duck for EVs and FCVs.
Last edited by boutons_deux; 10-25-2015 at 01:09 PM.
We need battery progress. I want to only have to charge my iphone like once every two weeks.
Also, I won't buy a Tesla (or any electric car) until they get much better.
$1 gas would kill EV's Boo unless they were heavily subsidized. Solar is great for fixed installations, not so great as a transportable energy source.
This is real. There is already a pilot plant being built in La Porte (Texas). I'm probably gonna drop a bundle on stock when this company goes public this year or next.
One of the breakthroughs for batteries will be in price.
Then add in batteries in the home charged from solar and 100Ms of people going off-grid, and you have free fuel, totally pollution-free.
Yeah I'm skeptical of battery powered cars, and who wants to have to charge their car for 6-8 hours? Of course solar is worthless for cars, you couldn't power cars with NASA grade solar panels at 1400 watt per square meter at solar noon in the summer. I wish we'd start using natural gas itself more though, but you'd have to fill up more often since it doesn't compress as well as gasoline. I hope this happens and kicks ethanol the out, what a worthless fuel. I'm interested to see if hydrogen fuel cell can get some traction too.
Last edited by baseline bum; 10-25-2015 at 01:52 PM.
Besides pollution, you really can't match or beat the efficiency of an electric engine though. Charging is the least of the problems, you can make stations that simply replace the battery, that's an instant charge. That's why a leap in battery tech is likely going to change the face of many industries.
I liked Hydrogen back then too, but hydrogen has it's own production problems and costs. You would need a massive transformation of the gas network to make it worth it.
As far as OP, it sounds cool, but I don't expect Big Oil not to fight it.
That would be awesome if it pans out.
Sometimes such things are hyped, to make stock prices artificially rise. Have any technical material on this?
Google 'Siluria'
OK, the process takes two methane molecules and one oxygen molecule and makes one ethylene molecule and two water molecules.
Where's the drought at? It also releases heat in the process, that might also be utilized somehow.
http://www.technologyreview.com/news...m-natural-gas/
In the searching I did, nothing was found on the easy method of turning ethane to a liquid fuel.
I would be cautious in investing into this. No more than you can afford to loose, and they payoff can be large if its successful.
I'd call it a longshot investment, but what do I know?
Thanks.
Already found it.
The process doesn't give the higher carbon chains we need as a liquid fuel. Anything below hexane has to be pressurized. The only process I found top make gasoline type fuels from it didn't look very viable, but I only found a process from the 30's.
If they thought it was viable, you can bet they would get their claws into it.
you myopic pessimists are whining about the current status of batteries and hydrogen. the status of both will change, probably sooner rather than later
and yes, internal combustion engines are really ty convertors of chemical to mechanical energy, about 30% efficient vs about 70% "round trip" efficiency for EV propulsion.
EVs will get extra mileage with regenerative braking, because not all EVs offer R/B, yet.
London Underground is experimenting with regenerative braking, and I bet Paris, etc, will, too.
Rolling bombs, aka tanker trucks, already deliver pressurized propane and methane, gasoline, and diesel to point of sale, so hydrogen could be so delivered.
Last edited by boutons_deux; 10-25-2015 at 03:30 PM.
That sounds pretty expensive though, and aren't you likely to have lots of batteries in your car? How much is a battery that can power a car for 400 miles going to weigh? Is a regular person going to be able to pull up to a station and pull it out for replacement on his own? It also seems like you might be pushing a lot of the pollution into landfills when these have to be dumped, so I'm not sure electric is the free lunch it's hyped to be when it comes to environmental impact, even if charged via solar.
Do Your Own Research
-- WC
Here's a video from 2009, demoing one of those stations in Japan, no human intervention required for the switch:
The thing with batteries is re-usability. The battery that comes out goes to charge, while you go away with another full battery. Switch really takes no longer than gas pumping.
But you do bring up valid questions about what a battery that can do 400 miles will look like, besides power capacity, on things like weight and bio-degradation. At this time we gotta wait and see. I think the leap has to be big, and miniaturization can't be out of the question.
BTW, I think Tesla is also offering battery swap stations in select locations...
Here's a video from Renault, also from 2009, explaining the same concept:
Tesla's battery swap program is pretty much dead
the battery swap program isn’t being used.
When Tesla sent out an initial round of about 200 invitations to test the battery swap program only about four to five people opted to try it,
“People don’t care about pack swap,” Musk said.
“The superchargers are fast enough. Based on what we’re seeing here, it’s unlikely to be something that’s worth expanding in the future unless something changes.”
http://fortune.com/2015/06/10/teslas...-swap-is-dead/
^ well, there goes that
thanks
I've seen some of those superchargers here in NJ a few weeks ago... look pretty cool, tbh
Well that sucks, that pretty much kills it as something you can use on long road trips.
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