Toto Wolf - Formula 1 should be leading the pack in sustainable fuels and biofuels instead of electric

[Big Tea]

A couple of years back the science press (*) was full of 'petroleum from sunlight and air', but there is nothing worth repeating on it It seems to have dies a death of disinterest.
Usually the world would be full of 'oil companies have bought and berried it' , but I don't see the advantage for them now even if you believe it.

*
I say science, I mean science lite, or even pseudo science

[wesley123]

Now, let's look into the electricity bills. They have SURGED the past few years. Energy price is going through the roof, and I can guarantee that it's going to go up even more. People however have little option: they'll still have to pay.
...
As another poster mentioned: you can damn well be sure that the biggest 'obstacle' to produce synth fuels is the 'energy' it cost. This will become much cheaper too fast, especially if there is DEMAND for it.

How would synthetic fuels, with it's energy requirements, become cheaper if electricity will become even more expensive?

A potential option are solar panels - but first and foremost; these are relatively expensive, and have a limited lifespan. You will have to invest in such a 'device' , and not everybody has those options. Next, you need to have a return of investment.
Solar panels have been steadily going down in their pricing, and their quality has been greatly improved - but this comes as a cost: cheap ones are not good ones, and expensive ones are obviously costly.

Solar panels really aren't all that expensive. Even the more expensive ones are very much affordable to a household. A solar panel would have additional costs, but this all is offset by the reduction on your power bill. You break even quite quickly.

But the biggest result from this is that solar panels help drive energy bill prices up. The energy providers are missing out on money, so they'll want to have that back. The only way to is to increase the bill.

No. First of all, the solar panels will deliver the redundant power back to the grid, which comes with a reduction in the cost. Second of all, many providers actually offer solar panels. Why, you ask? Because roofs are great spots to place them, which provides very little inconveniences, if any at all. You have so much area where you can thus generate power on that won't be subject to any NIMBY protests.

Cars are charged from home outlets. Not every parking spot has this yet, nor every country is facilitated well in this aspect. However, you charge from the outlet, and you pay for the charge. If the electricity price goes up, so does your consume price of the car, just like gasoline if you may. It's not unlikely that there is going to be a system in the future that you pay additional taxes for charging cars: after all, energy has to come from somewhere, and if 'overnight' everybody starts driving EV's then suddenly, everybody needs to charge what, 5 to 10 kwh each DAY.
Try and provide that!

This energy production is much more manageable to create than the other methods. Then there will also be different projects that would reduce the power usage from households, for example. LED lightbulbs are very energy efficient, for example.

Yes, EV's have improved their efficiency too and will more the coming years. But the 'world' will adapt to this too.

Not sure what you're trying to say here.

Now let's look back at Synth fuels.
As another poster mentioned: you can damn well be sure that the biggest 'obstacle' to produce synth fuels is the 'energy' it cost. This will become much cheaper too fast, especially if there is DEMAND for it.

Not really, as like you said yourself, electricity becomes more expensive. Also, synth fuels are fairly resource intensive, especially compared to electricity, which you can generate from your own roof.

Additionally, 'normal' gasoline - in more than one country - has added taxes. It's not out of the realm of possibilities that governments will NOT impose those taxes on synth fuels, to motivate the use of said fuels.

And it's also not out of the realm that they will tax it. If you consider the resources required, the incentive to tax synth fuels is quite high.

There is absolutely no reason to believe that won't go for Synth fuel. Matter of fact, i absolutely guarantee it.

I think the investment costs in electric, and the fact that pretty much every car manufacturer has stopped, or is planning to stop developments of ICE are quite good reasons to believe so.

I will make this prediciton: in 25 years, there will still be many combustion cars around driving on synth fuel.
the world will NOT run solely on EV's.

And exactly no one has claimed it will.

[JordanMugen]

again, have a look at the Gordon Murray supercar

The Gordon Murray automotive car is exempt from the EU WLTP CO2 fleet average because they are a low volume manufacturer. I haven't seen the CO2/km of the GMA-T50 mentioned anywhere, but I would be shocked if was equal to or under the 95 g CO2/km that mass manufacturers need to meet in the European Union in 2021.

For reference, a 1.5L Toyota Prius only just meets that CO2/km criteria. It would seem difficult to impossible for a 3.9L V12 to meet the CO2/km criteria.

[Zynerji]

Also, I often wonder what the electrical companies do with all of the energy that they save today compared to 10 years ago. The change of 1 billion incandescent lightbulbs to super efficient LEDS should have been a HUGE demand drop. What are they doing with the excess now?

I guess this isn't a sarcastic question? But anyway, if it's genuine, usually https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox kicks in

Why wouldn't it be genuine?

1 incandescent light bulb in my basement that was 200w and on continuously (laundry room) used more than my entire house does now with all LED.

Why wouldn't it be reasonable to ask why places like Cali can have brown outs after that load transition happened years ago?

[nzjrs]

Why wouldn't it be genuine?

Sorry, I didn't mean offense.

[DChemTech]

I guess i forgot to mention a few things.

yes, obviously, you're right - if energy prices surge from the socket, then that goes hand-in-hand with creating synth fuel as it needs lots of energy.

however, a few things to adress here imho. without a single doubt, the process of making synthetic fuel will become vastly more efficient in due time.

Here's the thing: it won't. The efficiency estimations provided weren't for a 'current hypothetical lab process', they are decent estimations for a mature process - and they are not expected to go down by much between say, now and 2050. (https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesmorri ... hey-could/). The reason for that is rather simple: the energy efficiency in the first steps is already rather high and there is little room for improvement. The losses are mostly because many steps are needed (so they add up), and because the low CO2 concentration in the air inherently makes direct air capture an expensive and energy intensive activity. However, the real big loss is, ironically, the ICE itself. And that is also the most mature piece of technology in the chain. Yes, we can make them smaller and out of cheaper materials, but in terms of efficiency there's not that much to gain there.

However, if these refineries build their own power plants - through solar panel, wind turbine and water power - then they will NOT be dependant on the socket,
as they provide it themselves. Obviously the issue here is providing ENOUGH energy to 'fabricate' synth fuel.
However, if - and it's not an If, it's a guarantee - energy prices surge due to there being an insane demand to charge EV's, then EV's will become more expensive to run and drive.

You are again assuming some kind of non-existing asymmetry between electricity use for synfuels and EVs.
In your argument, when EVs need electricity, prices surge and everything is expensive. When SynFuel needs electricity (and needs 5x more), prices will drop and it's seemingly easy for Shell to build huge, cheap solar farms. Obviously, that's not how it works:

- Shell and Vattenfall are competing for the same resources (solar panels, windmills). There's no reason to believe that Shell can buy them substantially cheaper than Vattenfall.
- Even if Shell would have their own farms separate from the grid - if the price difference between 'their' electricity and their own electricity are substantial... they'd just hook them to the grid and sell the electricity with a higher margin than they could on synfuel.
- Legislation doesn't matter: if countries can give tax breaks on synfuel, they can do the same for EVs, and they can equally decide on tax raises for either. If you cannot make your case without legislation, you don't have a case*

And we will inevitably fall to an equilibrium to where it doesn't matter in driving an EV,
or driving a Synth. All that will matter is it's 'economy' and practicality.

Except that you are continuously omitting the displacement effect that I highlighted several times. Even if prices would be equal, given that due to efficiency you can choose to:

- Have power 5 BEVs with X amount of electricity
- or, with the same electricity, power 1 synfuel car (and rely on fossil for the other 4)

Why would you chose the second option? It doesn't make a lot of sense to actively increase energy use, in a time we should be decreasing it.

As another example, let's consider a more macroscopic scenario. A country, hypothetistan, has a total electricity consumption of 3000 PJ/y, currently all fossil; in the coming years they plan to convert 600 PJ/y of their electricity generation to renewables. Furthermore, the country requires 450 PJ/y in petrol/diesel for road transport. They want to replace fully the transport fuel by an emission-free alternative.

If we assume an average engine efficiency of 33%, the 450 PJ/y of fuel is actually 150 PJ/y of 'transportation energy'. They can opt for BEVs (65% efficiency), which would require 230 PJ/y of electrical energy. Or they can opt for synfuel (15% efficiency), which would require 1000 PJ/y. In case of BEVs, the total electricity demand increases to 3230 PJ/y. Still, after installation of renewables, their overall fossil use will decrease (to 2630 PJ/y). In case of SynFuel, they will need to increase their fossil fuel electricity to 3400 PJ/y to even meet demand. Sure, they're getting rid of the fossil transportation fuels, but in effect all of the fuel they got off the road now goes into the big burner.

And let's face it: EV's are going to take longer to 'refill' practically than a combustion vehicle.
Liquid fuel is always more practical than battery power.

Did I ever deny that? Quite the contrary. I highlighted several times that there are certain niches where synfuels make sense. But we're talking about the average consumer car right now, and the average commuter or short-haul transportation firm can do perfectly well with charging overnight, and maybe during their lunchbreak.

And F1's running V6's and (was) thinking about 4 cylinders because of a 'green' image.

"green" indeed. It's greenwashing still. Sports are a luxery, and as such the "green" thing to do would be to cease.
Now, I have no such intentions. While the per-capita footprint of sports is huge, the total footprint is relatively small on the large scale of things, and within F1, the footprint of the cars is small compared to the whole circus around it.
I can live with that. But I'd rather see them be honest about it, than to go through great lengths for some greenwashing. Especially if that greenwashing is paired with claiming that what they are doing is road-relevant, while it's not.

ANY car buyer would prefer to have a Audi A6 or a Mustang with a V8, over a 3-cylinder turbo. And any Ferrari buyer or Lamborghini buyer will gladly have an exotic V12 over a 4cylinder or a full electric.

I don't. Beasts belong in the arena - on the road, I want something that does the job with minimum impact.

* with legislation here, I mean regular taxation/tax breaks. There is an exception for what now is called 'true pricing', but is otherwise known as including the costs of externalities - that is necessary practice for fair competition

[Just_a_fan]

Why wouldn't it be reasonable to ask why places like Cali can have brown outs after that load transition happened years ago?

It's entirely possible that two things have happened:
1. The power is just used by other devices e.g. charging portable devices (including EVs), additional HVAC units, etc.
2. The power companies have allowed old power producing plants to fall out of use and not be replaced.

The likelihood is a combination of the two, of course. More people using more power elsewhere and less being produced.

[DChemTech]

Why wouldn't it be reasonable to ask why places like Cali can have brown outs after that load transition happened years ago?

It's entirely possible that two things have happened:
1. The power is just used by other devices e.g. charging portable devices (including EVs), additional HVAC units, etc.
2. The power companies have allowed old power producing plants to fall out of use and not be replaced.

The likelihood is a combination of the two, of course. More people using more power elsewhere and less being produced.

Yep, and lighting is only a fraction of energy use. Overall, we started heating more things, cooling more things, making more things and electrifying more things. All that far outweighs the efficiency gains made in lighting. In particular, the air-conditioning epidemic is a huge problem. The further the earth heats up, the more we'll need, the more energy we use. Efficient cooling is listed as the no. 1 target for environmental impact for a reason.

A small but interesting quirk is that in some cases, replacing lightbulbs has had a side-effect: an increased need for heating. Practically, traditional lamps are not inefficient light sources, they are efficient electric heaters that happen to give off light. But yeah, that's only really a perk in cold, dark indoor locations. In warm and all outdoor locations, you're just wasting heat into the atmosphere, or increasing the cooling needs in your room, with all due impacts.

(as a sidenote to this sidenote, I can attest that GPUs are pretty good heaters too. At first, due to some botched climate system in my university building, my office was pretty cold. Now that I have a nice 1000-watt computer next to me, it's a pleasant temperature. But I'd rather see they have a proper climate control in the first place.)

[DChemTech]

A couple of years back the science press (*) was full of 'petroleum from sunlight and air', but there is nothing worth repeating on it It seems to have dies a death of disinterest.
Usually the world would be full of 'oil companies have bought and berried it' , but I don't see the advantage for them now even if you believe it.

*
I say science, I mean science lite, or even pseudo science

I can assure you research towards synthesising hydrocarbons from non-fossil sources (ideally, H2 from water, CO2 from air and energy from renewables) is still ongoing. In my own university there are programs on e-refining and biorefining. But the focus is not so much on fuels; there is some interest in fuels for aviation and heavy-duty long haul transport. But more activity is dedicated to creating higher-value products, such as plastics and protein.

[Big Tea]

A couple of years back the science press (*) was full of 'petroleum from sunlight and air', but there is nothing worth repeating on it It seems to have dies a death of disinterest.
Usually the world would be full of 'oil companies have bought and berried it' , but I don't see the advantage for them now even if you believe it.

*
I say science, I mean science lite, or even pseudo science

I can assure you research towards synthesising hydrocarbons from non-fossil sources (ideally, H2 from water, CO2 from air and energy from renewables) is still ongoing. In my own university there are programs on e-refining and biorefining. But the focus is not so much on fuels; there is some interest in fuels for aviation and heavy-duty long haul transport. But more activity is dedicated to creating higher-value products, such as plastics and protein.

Cant look it up from where I am now, but I read a very good article about making plastic from a type of fast growing mushroom that looked good.
Edit. sorry, ignore that, I am doing my speciality of dragging off topic again.

[adrianjordan]

....

And if given the opportunity; ANY car buyer would prefer to have a Audi A6 or a Mustang with a V8, over a 3-cylinder turbo. And any Ferrari buyer or Lamborghini buyer will gladly have an exotic V12 over a 4cylinder or a full electric.

"ANY" car buyer???

Nope. I love my etron. The acceleration off the line is amazing. It's comfortable and refined, yet has plenty of power when I want it. AND it's cheap to run.

Yes it required a change in attitude towards "refuelling" such that I top it up every few days, or whenever I'm at a retail park or car park with charging points etc. But I have no range anxiety. I'm doing a 550 mile round trip tomorrow and will be stopping where I would normally stop for breaks anyway and will likely not be stopped for much longer than I would anyway.

[Big Tea]

....

And if given the opportunity; ANY car buyer would prefer to have a Audi A6 or a Mustang with a V8, over a 3-cylinder turbo. And any Ferrari buyer or Lamborghini buyer will gladly have an exotic V12 over a 4cylinder or a full electric.

"ANY" car buyer???

Nope. I love my etron. The acceleration off the line is amazing. It's comfortable and refined, yet has plenty of power when I want it. AND it's cheap to run.

Yes it required a change in attitude towards "refuelling" such that I top it up every few days, or whenever I'm at a retail park or car park with charging points etc. But I have no range anxiety. I'm doing a 550 mile round trip tomorrow and will be stopping where I would normally stop for breaks anyway and will likely not be stopped for much longer than I would anyway.

I took my car for 3rd service and first M.O.T this morning. On the way home the odometer tripped into the 10 thousands. I don't think I fall into the monster motor group either.

[Just_a_fan]

I took my car for 3rd service and first M.O.T this morning. On the way home the odometer tripped into the 10 thousands. I don't think I fall into the monster motor group either.

I do about 20k miles / year at the moment and drive a 3L V6 diesel. I'd love a big V8 petrol but at £1.30-1.40 / litre, it would be a very expensive experience... (that would approx. $7 / US Gallon for our US friends - which is why big V8 petrol ICE aren't hugely popular in the UK / EU)

[Manoah2u]

....

And if given the opportunity; ANY car buyer would prefer to have a Audi A6 or a Mustang with a V8, over a 3-cylinder turbo. And any Ferrari buyer or Lamborghini buyer will gladly have an exotic V12 over a 4cylinder or a full electric.

"ANY" car buyer???

Nope. I love my etron. The acceleration off the line is amazing. It's comfortable and refined, yet has plenty of power when I want it. AND it's cheap to run.

you didnt read correctly. i did not ask whether any buyer would choose a mustang v8 over some performance EV.
i gave the option of buying a Mustang with a V8 over Mustang with a 3-cylinder turbo.

[Jolle]

....

And if given the opportunity; ANY car buyer would prefer to have a Audi A6 or a Mustang with a V8, over a 3-cylinder turbo. And any Ferrari buyer or Lamborghini buyer will gladly have an exotic V12 over a 4cylinder or a full electric.

"ANY" car buyer???

Nope. I love my etron. The acceleration off the line is amazing. It's comfortable and refined, yet has plenty of power when I want it. AND it's cheap to run.

you didnt read correctly. i did not ask whether any buyer would choose a mustang v8 over some performance EV.
i gave the option of buying a Mustang with a V8 over Mustang with a 3-cylinder turbo.

I must say, a Mustang V8 is one of the least appealing road cars for me. Not only would it bleed me dry but it’s just bad at everything a road car should do. Besides that, it screams compensation anxiety.