Good. There is no substitute for petroleum products. They are the best, most concentrated source of energy.
“Good. There is no substitute for petroleum products. They are the best, most concentrated source of energy.”
Nuclear is more concentrated.
Petroleum products are the greenest energy ever created. They are ALL DECAYED PLANTS!
Actually there are a few liquid and solids that have the requisite energy density to be equal too or superior to linear and branch/ring hydrocarbons.
Butanol alcohol is a direct btu for btu perhaps volume replacement for gasoline. No modifications are needed to a modern vehicle to run it, with an energy density of 115,000 but/gal and an octane rating over 100. Butanol can be made by yeast, and bacteria from sugar, cellulose, and directly from CO2,salt water and sunlight or electricity. There have been a number of universities that have tested multiple vehicles with 100% Butanol in the tanks one drove the vehicle over 15,000 miles on a countrywide tour to promote their technology.
Isopropanol is also a direct replacement to gasoline and has a higher energy density per gallon than Butanol as it is the next alcohol up the carbon chain, it’s octane rating is also above 90. Isopropanol can be synthesized from syngas via a zeolite catalyst. The syngas could be gassified from any carbon containing material such as wood scrap, field litter, construction wastes, trash, ECT or from coal which is where most of the research has been focused. Texas A&M developed the Mixohol process that uses bacteria to ferment wastes to mixed ketones and then to mixed alcohols with ethanol, Butanol, and isopropanol as end products. The ketones are also high energy density liquids that are flammable with a low octane rating but a reasonable centane rating being usable in compression ignition engines.
The Germans and later the South Africans both have technology that converts syngas into alcohols, or via FT synthesis into linear alkenes aka diesel and octane. Mobil has the MTG process where syntax is converted to methanol then over a zeolite to dimethether which stores like propane usable in diesels but adding a second active metal to the zeolite goes directly from methanol to octane and a coproduct of propane. Mobil uses the MTG process commercially viable with syngas from natural gas or coal and some biomass.
The U.S.Navy has a process that converts seawater plus electricity directly into linear and ring hydrocarbons making drop in JP5 fuel. They intend to use it to make fuel for jets on aircraft carriers or remote bases as the process can also use CO2 from the atmosphere. They have the costs down to $6 a gallon of JP5 when in production on the carrier that’s actually cheaper than fuel delivered via tanker underway halfway around the world in the combat zone hence the program to make jet fuel directly on the carriers.
UT Austin has developed aluminium air fuel cells with power density greater than gasoline on a kwh/L and Kwh/Kg basis. The theoretical density of power from aluminium is nearly twice that of gasoline on a kg/kg basis.
The issue is not technology there is plenty of proven technology to duplicate or replace liquid geohydrocarbons the underlying issues are the btu to btu costs are not competitive to petroleum at anything under $80 a bbl.
For those wondering I am a scientist. I have been a petroleum geologist for over 10 years, and also have done consulting in the biofuels and environmental energy fields, along with hydrogeology for saltwater disposal, brine production and desalination for potable water use, with some fresh water international community work.