What’s missing from this discussion is the cost; synthetic hydrocarbons are incredibly expensive — think $45/gallon.
That may come down some, but people are going to electrify whenever possible instead of using e-fuels like this for cost reasons.
What’s missing from this discussion is the cost; synthetic hydrocarbons are incredibly expensive — think $45/gallon.
That may come down some, but people are going to electrify whenever possible instead of using e-fuels like this for cost reasons.
Totally, if you need it use the century old, high density, well understood fuel, it’s just good engineering. Doesn’t need to be carbon negative. Even rockets are using methane these days…
There are probably use cases for hydrogen, but they’re likely large installations, either fixed or trains / ships. Toyota spent a decade trying to make it smaller and failed.
It could be a little carbon negative, in the way planting trees is a little carbon negative.
Sourcing carbon from atmosphere and hydrogen from water to make liquid fuel would pull carbon out of the air and put it into your gas tank.
Methane is easier to work with than hydrogen, but it still needs to be kept colder than what’s practical. If it turns out that propane is much cheaper to make from (renewable energy + atmosphere + water), relative to the cost of making liquids like diesel, kerosene, or gasoline, then propane might be a winning choice for renewable transportation fuel.