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Mazda has tested a synthetic fuel in an unmodified MX5 on a 1000-mile road trip

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Re: Mazda has tested a synthetic fuel in an unmodified MX5 on a 1000-mile road trip

#91

Post by criley2 »

danrl wrote: post #58
criley2 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's more about finding an offramp for motorsports and classic cars (and some rural machinery) that are against electrification for a variety of reasons (both legitimate and illegitimate). I don't think there is anyone at all that thinks turning agricultural waste into carbon neutral synthetic fuel for ICE has anything to do with "oil not running out" (which it absolutely is, demand is at all time highs, whil…

Just to add to this: You seem to be referring to the global picture. If we look at the US in isolation it is a different story. 30 yr low was ~4M barrels of crude oil from fields. We were at ~12M Barrels in 2022. It is true that no major field has been opened recently which I blame on the (legitimate) push against fossil fuels and the rising cost of capital for projects that won’t pay off until at least year 5-8 of a…

>Just to add to this: You seem to be referring to the global picture. If we look at the US in isolation it is a different story. 30 yr low was ~4M barrels of crude oil from fields. We were at ~12M Barrels in 2022.

The oil market is a fully globalized commodity and there is no "American picture", there is just the global oil market. This is why OPEC can manipulate elections by changing the rate at which they produce oil, and it is why Biden was able to "leverage" global prices to make the taxpayer billions by selling high and buying low.

The American reserves of oil are insignificant with regards to the next generation of transportation, and wringing out the last drops of oil from shale rock at prices approaching $70/breakeven (and rising fast) is not the savior of ICE.

Plus OPEC will happily drop prices and destroy American oil industry every so often because their breakeven is still dramatically lower.

>Speaking about the US: Crude oil will be around for a long time together with LNG. Whether that is good or not is an interesting question. Either way, the conversation IMHO starts to become very different for the US compared to other significant economies, and global metrics are becoming less useful.

"Being around" and "being affordable enough for your F150 and XL SUV" are very different things.

Oil absolutely will not remain affordable for Americans in 15mpg vehicles, and the next decade will see the death of cheap American oil. We cannot print enough debt to subsidize it forever.

When you consider the BILLIONS of humans who want way way more oil in China, India, and Africa (et al), you start to see how declining global production + quadrupling global demand = the end of cheap oil.

Re: Mazda has tested a synthetic fuel in an unmodified MX5 on a 1000-mile road trip

#92

Post by Retric »

kybernetyk wrote: post #74
brk wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the crypto mining dying off should free up a lot of grid resources for EVs. I've heard the "grid can't handle all EVs" statement, but have not seen anything backing up the claim. I believe the grid can in fact handle EVs becoming prevalent. We might need more power generation , which could be new plants, and/or residential solar. Baring some kind of crazy legislation requiring ICE vehicles to be crushed or perman…

In Germany the government asked people not to use electric heaters this winter because the grid could break down. An ev drains way more power then a 2kw space heater.

An average EV averages far less power than an average 2kW space heater over time.

A 2kW space heater used just 12 hours a day uses the same power per day as 4 mile per kWh EV driven 35,000 miles per year. Many space heaters see more than 12h/day of use but 35k miles per year is extremely rare.

EV’s are like microwaves, they use a lot of power when on but the grid cares about average load across millions of them not what’s happening in any one home.

Re: Mazda has tested a synthetic fuel in an unmodified MX5 on a 1000-mile road trip

#93

Post by D13Fd »

kybernetyk wrote: post #74
brk wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the crypto mining dying off should free up a lot of grid resources for EVs. I've heard the "grid can't handle all EVs" statement, but have not seen anything backing up the claim. I believe the grid can in fact handle EVs becoming prevalent. We might need more power generation , which could be new plants, and/or residential solar. Baring some kind of crazy legislation requiring ICE vehicles to be crushed or perman…

In Germany the government asked people not to use electric heaters this winter because the grid could break down. An ev drains way more power then a 2kw space heater.

This is a ridiculous comparison. Google tells me an electric vehicle uses around 14kWh per day if you drive ~14k miles per year, and is much more efficient than an internal combustion engine.

Your hypothetical 2kw space heater uses 24kWh a day and is drastically less efficient than a heat pump.

Re: Mazda has tested a synthetic fuel in an unmodified MX5 on a 1000-mile road trip

#94

Post by raisedbyninjas »

kybernetyk wrote: post #74
brk wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the crypto mining dying off should free up a lot of grid resources for EVs. I've heard the "grid can't handle all EVs" statement, but have not seen anything backing up the claim. I believe the grid can in fact handle EVs becoming prevalent. We might need more power generation , which could be new plants, and/or residential solar. Baring some kind of crazy legislation requiring ICE vehicles to be crushed or perman…

In Germany the government asked people not to use electric heaters this winter because the grid could break down. An ev drains way more power then a 2kw space heater.

It looks like Germans drive an average of 19 miles per day. Charging an EV to cover that would only need 7kwh at 100% efficiency. So a space heater could use more or less overnight depending on its duty cycle.

Re: Mazda has tested a synthetic fuel in an unmodified MX5 on a 1000-mile road trip

#95

Post by sbaiddn »

fsh wrote: post #39

I don't think that this is a very good application for the technology. Compared to lithium batteries, synthetic fuels have much higher energy density, but much lower energy efficiency. Modern EVs achieve plenty of range, charge quickly, and the somewhat larger weight doesn't really matter in a vehicle, unless you want to race it. However, I am quite excited about using them for CO2-neutral long-distance flights. Bein…

When you consider the limited availability of batteries, electric vehicles don't make sense compared to hybrid ones.

Neither make sense compared to halving our speed limits.

Re: Mazda has tested a synthetic fuel in an unmodified MX5 on a 1000-mile road trip

#96

Post by hasmanean »

etskinner wrote: post #30
driverdan wrote: post #12

It sounds like they ran it on straight ethanol. This isn't new or news. Many production cars can run on straight E in good weather. The mileage claim doesn't make sense though because ethanol is less energy dense than gasoline. It'd be nice if this blogspam linked to the source so we could verify details.

I too was frustrated that they didn't say what the fuel was. It led me to believe that it's ethanol too. They just didn't want people to see the article as the nothing burger that it is. I looked at several other sources covering this and they're all similarly quiet about what the fuel actually is. Looking at they supplier's (Coryton's) website, they boast about 'bespoke' synthetic fuels. So I'm guessing it's Mazda t…

Yup. The "innovation" here is in the car, not the fuel.

There is another engine design, a linear piston engine, which is just a piston connected to a magnet and coil. The engine generates electricity (at a constant speed, constant load) and this is fed to an electric motor. So the car is a hybrid. It's more efficient than a regular engine (which turns a large crankshaft etc.) and the fuel probably can be more finicky since the combustion cycle can be tuned for one operating point.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-piston_engine

Re: Mazda has tested a synthetic fuel in an unmodified MX5 on a 1000-mile road trip

#97

Post by zirgs »

theshrike79 wrote: post #13
PaulHoule wrote: post #7

There is no surprise that synthetic fuels work. They worked for the nazis in the 1940s and they still produce them in South Africa, Qatar and other places. In fact in a lot of ways they are better than today’s gasolines because they have a low aromatic and olefin content. The question revolve around affordability and sustainability. Most of the interest was driven by fears we would be running out of oil, now it is dr…

Current synthetic fuels cost around 10€/litre, which comes to around $37/gallon. Not really viable for day to day use yet.

Yeah, because current fuel prices - especially in countries like the USA are fake.

Re: Mazda has tested a synthetic fuel in an unmodified MX5 on a 1000-mile road trip

#98

Post by hasmanean »

Semaphor wrote: post #82
kybernetyk wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Germany the government asked people not to use electric heaters this winter because the grid could break down. An ev drains way more power then a 2kw space heater.

Well, yes. If tomorrow everyone replaces their ICE cars with EVs, then the grid won’t be able to handle that. Completely different situation, though.

We should not replace ICE cars with EVs, but something smaller. Steam engines were large because that was how they got efficiency up. ICE cars could afford to be smaller and more efficient. If they had just replaced steam locmotives with diesel ones that would have been stupid...instead they built a whole new infrastructure around smaller cars that was much better than the rail network and redesigned our entire cities. Existing cars are the optimal configuration for a given engine cost and gas price.

Electric motors are even more efficient, but using them in the form factor of a car is also stupid. With robotics we can now make tiny self-driving vehicles that can do chores for us. Why should I drive a 2-ton car to the store to pick up a gallon of milk, when the store can send a small robot to deliver it to me? Similarly a large empty bus can be replaced with smaller ATV sized EVs that drive me from my house to the main artery and merge to form one train. That reduces the size of the EV engine and battery pack by 10x. Some of the problems to be solved are not merely technological but organizational and cultural.

Re: Mazda has tested a synthetic fuel in an unmodified MX5 on a 1000-mile road trip

#99

Post by duped »

theshrike79 wrote: post #23
kuschku wrote: post #15

> it’s safe to assume that it’ll likely charge a hefty premium over traditional gasoline. > Also worth noting is that while, yes, this synthetic fuel appears to make vehicles slightly more efficient, it still greatly trails the efficiency of EVs. Consequently, vehicles using this fuel will likely always be more expensive to drive per mile than their electric equivalents. So why are we doing this again?

There is a dream that synthetic fuels or hydrogen will suddenly get their own Elon Musk who will drive down the wholesale price to a viable level. But in the end (25 years+) I think synthetics will be used for hobbyists to run their vintage vehicles on track days and weekends.

Hydrogen has the second largest manufacturer of vehicles on the planet behind it and its still not viable.

Re: Mazda has tested a synthetic fuel in an unmodified MX5 on a 1000-mile road trip

#100

Post by jodrellblank »

Retric wrote: post #92
kybernetyk wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Germany the government asked people not to use electric heaters this winter because the grid could break down. An ev drains way more power then a 2kw space heater.

An average EV averages far less power than an average 2kW space heater over time. A 2kW space heater used just 12 hours a day uses the same power per day as 4 mile per kWh EV driven 35,000 miles per year. Many space heaters see more than 12h/day of use but 35k miles per year is extremely rare. EV’s are like microwaves, they use a lot of power when on but the grid cares about average load across millions of them not w…

> “as a 4kWh/mile EV”

“The battery size for a Tesla Model 3 ranges from 50 kWh to 82 kWh” that would give the largest a range of 20 miles.

Ev-database.org says they use 151Wh/km which is about 240Wh/mile.

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