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

111 points by socialdemocrat 4y ago

mrcwinn 4y ago
I support anything that keeps the wonderful Miata just as it is. (Okay, fine. I more so support anything that keeps the earth healthy and sustainable.)
- jeromenerf 4y ago
  Yes and yes. A simple naturally aspirated engine takes bio-ethanol/e85 just fine, though the benefits seem limited to fewer fine particles, with comparable carbon emissions but a much larger agro impact.
denton-scratch 4y ago
> Simply put, the synthetic fuel operated much like normal gasoline would have, without the emission drawbacks of the latter. Hmmm. The fuel is hydrocarbons; so the emissions are at minimum CO2 and particulates.
- marcus0x62 4y ago
  The usual theory here is that fuels made from plants are carbon neutral in that while the fuel produces CO2 when burned, the plant it was made from consumed an equivalent amount of CO2 while alive. (Which, even if true ignores particulate and NOX emissions. See also: green washing.)
  - kremi 4y ago
    Some more drawbacks : 1. the plants are usually grown using fertilizers that are made out of, ironically, fossil fuels. 2. the process of turning the plant into fuel might also create emissions that need to be taken into account.
    - pfdietz 4y ago
      Fertilizers can also be made without fossil fuels. One really has to distinguish between CO2 that would be emitted by the process in the current fossil fuel economy, vs. CO2 emitted when the world is off fossil fuels. In the latter, where do the carbon atoms come from if not from the biomass, and hence from the air?
  - jeroenhd 4y ago
    This also ignores a dire problem humanity has created for itself: massive amounts of arable land wasted on fuel crops rather than food for people. It's similar to the farming industry producing incredible amounts of food just to feed cattle rather than to feed people. Not all crops grow on all land, of course, but as long as there are large scale famines in the world, I think it's immoral to dedicate so much land towards inedible foodstuffs. We're already burning forests under the guise of "renewable fuels" that assume we've assured that the forests are allowed grow back the next 100 years even when biofuels are no longer profitable. There are good reasons to rid ourselves from fossil fuels where we can, not just because of global warming but also because of political reasons (the oil states getting away with literal murder and a blind eye being turned towards their funding of what would become 9/11, for one). However, I fear that these plant based "alternatives" will be quickly bought up by the oil industry, touted as the future of green energy, and used to postpone greener alternatives to the internal combustion engine yet another decade.
  - elif 4y ago
    "made from plants" will need a citation. The Porsche/Exxon syn fuel uses natural gas as it's feedstock, for instance. I'm pretty sure the Mazda pr guy was just smart enough to omit that detail, not that they are hiding it's magical eco friendly origins.
    - djmips 4y ago
      This other press release from Mazda's fuel supplier doubles down on the agricultural waste talking point. In this case 'straw' was used to create ethanol which was the feedstock. https://coryton.com/lab/articles/the-opportunity-for-sustainable-fuels-in-high-performance-engines/ https://coryton.com/lab/articles/the-opportunity-for-sustain...
- leovailati 4y ago
  Apparently they produced it with agricultural by-products. So no net CO2 (other than the energy it takes for the transformation)
cuteboy19 4y ago
I think heavy duty trucks and such will still work on gasoline even in an EV future. So why don't these companies try to solve that problem in a carbon neutral way?
- bioemerl 4y ago
  It's just hard to manufacture gas in a efficient way. It's a really complex and hard to make molecule and the most abundant source of ingredients for it is the carbon in the ground. You can use atmospheric carbon but it's very hard to pull it down out of the air because it's very dilute. That's why hydrogen is such a big deal and being focused on instead. It's harder in every respect, but the base component is water, which is very easy to get.
- theshrike79 4y ago
  Heavy duty vehicles will move to either diesel/biogas hybrids (they can replace ~30% of the diesel with gas nowadays without any major engine mods) or to full CBG with combustion engines. Farms can produce their own CBG with relatively minor investment, basically fueling all work vehicles with cow farts =) Some kind of hydrogen/biogas generator hybrid might be viable too. Some will become fully electric, but it's heavily dependent on the usage profile. There is a mining truck in use today that's never charged - but it's a special case where it goes uphill empty and comes back down in full load with regenerative braking.
  - aitchnyu 4y ago
    Having trouble parsing this, does this mean there is a liquid fuel thats diesel+cow farts or will diesel engines incorporate compressed biogas injection?
    - theshrike79 4y ago
      You can supplement diesel with cow farts without a major engine remodel. The mix is 70/30 IIRC.
  - dsfyu404ed 4y ago
JumpinJack_Cash 4y ago
[flagged]
- bioemerl 4y ago
  > only to abandon it for 10-20 years. This has not happened. Climate change is still very real and still being very countered by technology. Mazda investing in an engine when it's way way too early for everyone to switch to an alternative technology wise is good business and will reduce emissions if it's a more efficient engine. (In fact, I read the article and it's about a synthetic fuel so this is actually green tech entirely) It's not abandoning the idea that global warming is real and needs to be addressed.
- Mistletoe 4y ago
  Do you tell yourself graphs like this are faked or that they don’t matter? https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-atmospheric-carbon-dioxide https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/... https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-global-temperature https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/...
  - JumpinJack_Cash 4y ago
    You and I will be six feet under before any of those graphs will even put a minuscule dent in our quality of life and lifespan. And I am saying us, but the same is true for 2-3 generations down the road. Perhaps more. There are countries with millions of people which have a median lifespan of 48 years. It's high time to get priorities straight.
    - binarymax 4y ago
      I disagree. Climate change doesn't mean that things are slightly warmer, it means that there are more frequent catastrophic weather events. We're seeing this now. It WILL impact you during your lifetime.
newaccount2021 4y ago
[dead]
PaulHoule 4y ago
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 driven by fears that we won’t run out of oil.
- theshrike79 4y ago
  Current synthetic fuels cost around 10€/litre, which comes to around $37/gallon. Not really viable for day to day use yet.
  - teekert 4y ago
    I live in the Netherlands and we're almost there! ;) No not really but, when it peaked I saw 2.40 eur/litre (9.71$/gallon, now down to 1.80 eur/litre) in places... Of course, much of that is taxes, but hey, this stuff would receive a lot of subsidies. Fwiw, I once (4 years ago or so?) spoke to someone from an ICE conference (a parallel conference to my breast cancer conference) who explained that ICE's can be made 100% clean (just output CO2 and H2O) and 100% circular (take all that emitted CO2 out of the air again), it's just an economic consideration, technologically we are there (I guess that is true for many if not most environment related technologies, we just never take environmental damage along in the price of products, in a way we make them artificially cheap).
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - ksec 4y ago
      Imagine if the fuel could be sold as carbon negative. i.e They will (somehow) plant more trees or take the same amount of CO2 from air for every CO2 fuel you burn on top of the CO2 they collect back to make the synthetic fuel.
YesThatTom2 4y ago
I’m confused. This sounds like a good thing if the problem was an oil shortage, not CO2 pollution. Explain why they aren’t solving the wrong problem?
- lars-b2018 4y ago
  The synthetic fuels are made from sources such as hay, which, theoretically is a net neutral to the carbon cycle since the hay's carbon came from the atmosphere already. This approach doesn't contribute additional CO2 to the atmosphere like traditional fuels do. However, not sure what the carbon costs are to create this synthetic fuel so that is a variable in the total carbon gain to the system.
- itsoktocry 4y ago
  Maybe we have more than one problem that needs solving?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
driverdan 4y ago
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.
- etskinner 4y ago
  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 that's being shy about the details.
  - hasmanean 4y ago
    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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-piston_engine
- CrazyStat 4y ago
  Coryton (the fuel supplier) has a PR post [1] about it with a few more details. Their Sustain fuel is "blended bioethanol and biogasoline" [2]. Sustain 100% might mean either it's 100% bioethanol or 100% biogasoline, I haven't been able to find anything saying what the percentage means. [1] https://coryton.com/lab/news/mazda-using-sustain-100-per-cent-fossil-free-fuel/ https://coryton.com/lab/news/mazda-using-sustain-100-per-cen... [2] https://coryton.com/sustain/ https://coryton.com/sustain/
  - 4y ago
kuschku 4y ago
> 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?
- worldsayshi 4y ago
  It might be worth using for non EVs once we give healthy prioritization to sustainability?
- adql 4y ago
  Alternative for cases where electrification is hard (long haul trucks) or impossible (cargo hauling via planes)
  - kuschku 4y ago
    Those are reasonable use cases, but: - those are entirely different types of engines - which are already able to use ethanol today - and none of which mazda is even producing engines for
  - ianai 4y ago
    This is Mazda. They have yet to get serious about electrification. Worse than Toyota in that regard. I am beyond giving them the benefit of the doubt that this was anything but “hey we don’t have to make BeVs!!”
    - dragonmost 4y ago
      They've already announced 3 BEVs and 5 hybrids by 2025 so wouldn't say they aren't investing in EVs. Considering how bad the current batteries are for the environment and the limited supply of lithium I don't see why alternative fuels that leverage existing infrastructure is a bad thing. It remains to be seen but BEVs might not be the be-all end-all especially if you include vehicles where range and weight is important like semi and planes.
account_created 4y ago
Is this the one that was discussed on Joe Rogan by Randal Carlson recently?
marcus0x62 4y ago
1) How much of this fuel could be made at scale — how much of the type of agricultural waste they use is available worldwide? 2) Petrol is great for passenger cars, but the world runs on diesel and fuels that are more or less equivalent to diesel, like Jet-1A. Can they make that?
- pfdietz 4y ago
  Companies have made drop-in compatible jet fuel from biomass. https://www.virent.com/ https://www.virent.com/
  - marcus0x62 4y ago
    Does that work with the process described in the article, can it be done at scale, how much does it cost? While I hear about a couple of these breakthrough alternate fuels a year, I’ve yet to see a single one that doesn’t fall down on at least one of those areas. The first one isn’t a deal-killer — you could have an alternate fuel product for petrol and a different one for fuel oils, but if they can’t be made economically at scale, these technologies are useless for all but niche purposes.
    - pfdietz 4y ago
      I don't know what the process in the article is, so I cannot answer that question. We can conclude the Virent process is not competitive at current prices (or else it would be done more widely.) The more relevant question is would it be cheap enough to work in a world without fossil fuel net CO2 emission. It would have to be cheaper than obtaining the fuel from oil, followed by direct air capture and sequestration of CO2, for zero net emission.
- firecall 4y ago
  You can run a diesel engine on vegetable oil!
  - thinkcontext 4y ago
greenthrow 4y ago
Synthetic fuels should only be used going forward for hobbyists who want to keep classic cars going. They likely will be, and should be, expensive. Even if they are "carbon neutral" (unlikely as they still have higher costs associated with transportation than electricity), they still involve burning which always creates pollution, and any ICE requires lubrication and cooling which also today involves toxic chemicals. EVs are much more efficient and better for the environment beyond the most obvious and biggest benefit of not having a tailpipe that spews CO2 into the air. In other words; nobody should be hoping "carbon neutral fuel" is a path to continuing our status quo.
- elif 4y ago
  And as here, syn fuels are useful for satisfying regulators.
api 4y ago
Biofuels have at least two huge issues: The first is that solar PV has already well exceeded the efficiency of growing crops for fuel by multiples. Then there’s wind, nuclear, hydro, etc. Biofuels consume far more land than renewable and zero carbon ways of generating electricity. Even worse they consume fresh water. Electric generation consumes very little water by comparison. Secondly and related to this biofuels compete with agriculture for food. You frequently hear about using farm waste but there is only so much of that. Our machines use more calories than we do so try to scale that up and soon you are growing crops for cars. That’s a bad path to go down in a world where population is expected to peak as high as 11 billion. Much better to run machines on stuff we can’t eat than to set up a competition. The only good bet against EVs is in heavy and long range vehicles not cars. I am skeptical of electric trucks not because they can’t be done but because I am skeptical of our will to build out adequate charge infrastructure. But trucks account for a lot less liquid fuel use than cars so solving the car problem is a huge win. If we electrified light vehicles we could cut liquid fuel use by more than 50%. That doesn’t mean all car companies should totally cease ICE production though. There will still be some market for them into the foreseeable future. I expect EVs to take the bulk of the market though.
fsh 4y ago
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. Being able to reach any place on earth in 24h is awesome, and there is simply no battery technology that can power a practical airplane.
- mauli 4y ago
  Same here, am excited for what happens in the coming year. I did read on HN some time ago and just checked, SWISS airline working together with Synhelion https://www.swiss.com/magazine/en/inside-swiss/sustainability/flying-with-kerosene-made-from-sunlight https://www.swiss.com/magazine/en/inside-swiss/sustainabilit...
- tmpburning 4y ago
  > I don't think that this is a very good application for the technology. Compared to lithium batteries, Mazda also have an all-electric car, the Mx-30. (Starting MSRP $33,470)
  - pornel 4y ago
    It's the worst EV on the market. It's only a compliance car, not something they expect anyone to drive. Toyota/Subaru aren't much better. Japanese carmakers seem to hope that BEVs are only a fad.
    - tmpburning 4y ago
      Why do you think it is the worst on the market?
      - pornel 4y ago
        It’s Doug DeMuro’s Worst Car of the Year. Every other review I’ve seen is also overwhelmingly negative. It has a range of a “city car”, but a price of EVs with double the range. It has max 50kW DC charging, while the competition has >100kW speeds. This makes the short range even more limiting. It’s not even powerful, even though high torque is the one easy trick for EVs. It’s a conversion of a gas car, not a dedicated platform, which wastes cabin and storage space. Mazda failed to keep the same front/rear weight balance making the car reportedly handle poorly. It’s technically at the level of 2009 Renault Zoe or the old Leaf, but for a price of 2019 eNiro or the current Kona and Cupra Born.
mensetmanusman 4y ago
Efficiency is a double edged sword. Hydrocarbons will always have a higher energy density than batteries due to physics, which is great when moving heavy things. Trucks are probably a good use case for synthetic zero or negative emission fuels.
elif 4y ago
It is disgusting for the author to call the synthetic fuel "emission free" It's still a long hydrocarbon chain that breaks down into CO2 during combustion. This entire line of reasoning is avoided in the article, so I can only imagine it was sponsored by BP or SA.
elif 4y ago
1. Synthetic fuels still take a minimum of 110g CO2 to produce one MJ of fuel. 2. Synthetic fuels still emit CO2, sox, nox etc. at the tailpipe 3. "Synthetic" fuels still use natural gas as the feedstock in production.
- Loic 4y ago
  4. We do not have enough renewable biomass to use as feedstock to replace our current use of non synthetic fuel. Synthetic fuel from renewable feedstock should only be used where we cannot replace ICE, for example planes. Synthetic fuel for cars is pure heresy from the environmental point of view. We already are at the limit in the production of wood pellet for heating (the forest are suffering enormously from climate change), bio gas is using not only waste but also corn and "good" crops to be produced. And of course, the process to convert all this biomass into a fuel is consuming a lot of energy. Please, do not dream of everything green with synthetic fuels everywhere, this can only be part of a small part of the transition.
IronWolve 4y ago
I saw a video of an offgrid station that makes hydrogen from solar/water to power farm/work trucks. That seemed pretty green and cost effective in the long run.
dieselgate 4y ago
This is a cool data point but I personally wouldn't call 45 mpg "staggering" - it's definitely good but not unprecedented by any means, many TDIs or smaller gas engines can get that on the freeway. The research into synthetic gasoline fuels is inspiring but at a certain point seem impractical and too-little-too-late. There are already well established "alternative" fueling technologies that are very easily accessible and likely cheaper.
- RhysU 4y ago
  I just did a long highway trip in an MX-5 and got about 38 mpg on the recommended 93-octane gasoline. I was not driving the vehicle to optimize for mileage. The article quotes the same. I mention it because it is an obtainable 38 mpg.
  - dieselgate 4y ago
    Driving long distances on the freeway typically is the best way to optimize for mileage though? at least seems you couldn’t have been going too fast ;) Must’ve been fun in the mx5
    - RhysU 4y ago
      Sadly, it was all dark and wet during the trip and I had just put on winter tires. Still, the ramps were fun.
Orangeair 4y ago
Does anyone know what ever happened to Mazda's skyactiv thing? Was supposedly going to help ICEs be more fuel efficient by adding an extra stroke cycle with water? Seemed very promising, but I haven't heard anything about it in years.
- jayavanth 4y ago
  It's out there but not in the US. It doesn't deliver as much torque/HP and apparently US market prefers the torque over fuel efficiency
- mdorazio 4y ago
  You’re probably thinking of Skyactiv-X [1] which is kind of hybrid between a normal spark ignition and compression ignition. It’s been in the 3 in Europe for a couple years but never came to the US. I’ve heard it’s a combination of cost and not-great horsepower, plus it runs louder. Basically for a lot more cost you get something inferior to hybrid in a lot of ways. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyactiv https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyactiv
bl_valance 4y ago
Toyota was also testing out synthetic fuels on their 3cylinder platform. I'm glad mfgs are testing different things and not just sticking to one thing just because everyone else is doing that. Interesting how Japanese carmakers are still not convinced on full electric, time will only tell. https://www.carsales.com.au/editorial/details/toyota-gr-86-now-turbocharged-137338/ https://www.carsales.com.au/editorial/details/toyota-gr-86-n...
LP3L 4y ago
Can we just use Ethanol with hybrid system? I mean, in ethanol are very common fuel, if we combine this with hybrid, thas a win win IMO.

I support anything that keeps the wonderful Miata just as it is. (Okay, fine. I more so support anything that keeps the earth healthy and sustainable.)

jeromenerf 4y ago
Yes and yes. A simple naturally aspirated engine takes bio-ethanol/e85 just fine, though the benefits seem limited to fewer fine particles, with comparable carbon emissions but a much larger agro impact.

denton-scratch 4y ago

> Simply put, the synthetic fuel operated much like normal gasoline would have, without the emission drawbacks of the latter. Hmmm. The fuel is hydrocarbons; so the emissions are at minimum CO2 and particulates.

marcus0x62 4y ago
The usual theory here is that fuels made from plants are carbon neutral in that while the fuel produces CO2 when burned, the plant it was made from consumed an equivalent amount of CO2 while alive. (Which, even if true ignores particulate and NOX emissions. See also: green washing.)
- kremi 4y ago
  Some more drawbacks : 1. the plants are usually grown using fertilizers that are made out of, ironically, fossil fuels. 2. the process of turning the plant into fuel might also create emissions that need to be taken into account.
  - pfdietz 4y ago
    Fertilizers can also be made without fossil fuels. One really has to distinguish between CO2 that would be emitted by the process in the current fossil fuel economy, vs. CO2 emitted when the world is off fossil fuels. In the latter, where do the carbon atoms come from if not from the biomass, and hence from the air?
- jeroenhd 4y ago
  This also ignores a dire problem humanity has created for itself: massive amounts of arable land wasted on fuel crops rather than food for people. It's similar to the farming industry producing incredible amounts of food just to feed cattle rather than to feed people. Not all crops grow on all land, of course, but as long as there are large scale famines in the world, I think it's immoral to dedicate so much land towards inedible foodstuffs. We're already burning forests under the guise of "renewable fuels" that assume we've assured that the forests are allowed grow back the next 100 years even when biofuels are no longer profitable. There are good reasons to rid ourselves from fossil fuels where we can, not just because of global warming but also because of political reasons (the oil states getting away with literal murder and a blind eye being turned towards their funding of what would become 9/11, for one). However, I fear that these plant based "alternatives" will be quickly bought up by the oil industry, touted as the future of green energy, and used to postpone greener alternatives to the internal combustion engine yet another decade.
- elif 4y ago
  "made from plants" will need a citation. The Porsche/Exxon syn fuel uses natural gas as it's feedstock, for instance. I'm pretty sure the Mazda pr guy was just smart enough to omit that detail, not that they are hiding it's magical eco friendly origins.
  - djmips 4y ago
    This other press release from Mazda's fuel supplier doubles down on the agricultural waste talking point. In this case 'straw' was used to create ethanol which was the feedstock. https://coryton.com/lab/articles/the-opportunity-for-sustainable-fuels-in-high-performance-engines/ https://coryton.com/lab/articles/the-opportunity-for-sustain...
leovailati 4y ago
Apparently they produced it with agricultural by-products. So no net CO2 (other than the energy it takes for the transformation)

cuteboy19 4y ago

I think heavy duty trucks and such will still work on gasoline even in an EV future. So why don't these companies try to solve that problem in a carbon neutral way?

bioemerl 4y ago
It's just hard to manufacture gas in a efficient way. It's a really complex and hard to make molecule and the most abundant source of ingredients for it is the carbon in the ground. You can use atmospheric carbon but it's very hard to pull it down out of the air because it's very dilute. That's why hydrogen is such a big deal and being focused on instead. It's harder in every respect, but the base component is water, which is very easy to get.
theshrike79 4y ago
Heavy duty vehicles will move to either diesel/biogas hybrids (they can replace ~30% of the diesel with gas nowadays without any major engine mods) or to full CBG with combustion engines. Farms can produce their own CBG with relatively minor investment, basically fueling all work vehicles with cow farts =) Some kind of hydrogen/biogas generator hybrid might be viable too. Some will become fully electric, but it's heavily dependent on the usage profile. There is a mining truck in use today that's never charged - but it's a special case where it goes uphill empty and comes back down in full load with regenerative braking.
- aitchnyu 4y ago
  Having trouble parsing this, does this mean there is a liquid fuel thats diesel+cow farts or will diesel engines incorporate compressed biogas injection?
  - theshrike79 4y ago
    You can supplement diesel with cow farts without a major engine remodel. The mix is 70/30 IIRC.
- dsfyu404ed 4y ago

JumpinJack_Cash 4y ago

[flagged]

bioemerl 4y ago
> only to abandon it for 10-20 years. This has not happened. Climate change is still very real and still being very countered by technology. Mazda investing in an engine when it's way way too early for everyone to switch to an alternative technology wise is good business and will reduce emissions if it's a more efficient engine. (In fact, I read the article and it's about a synthetic fuel so this is actually green tech entirely) It's not abandoning the idea that global warming is real and needs to be addressed.
Mistletoe 4y ago
Do you tell yourself graphs like this are faked or that they don’t matter? https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-atmospheric-carbon-dioxide https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/... https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-global-temperature https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/...
- JumpinJack_Cash 4y ago
  You and I will be six feet under before any of those graphs will even put a minuscule dent in our quality of life and lifespan. And I am saying us, but the same is true for 2-3 generations down the road. Perhaps more. There are countries with millions of people which have a median lifespan of 48 years. It's high time to get priorities straight.
  - binarymax 4y ago
    I disagree. Climate change doesn't mean that things are slightly warmer, it means that there are more frequent catastrophic weather events. We're seeing this now. It WILL impact you during your lifetime.

newaccount2021 4y ago

[dead]

PaulHoule 4y ago

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 driven by fears that we won’t run out of oil.

theshrike79 4y ago
Current synthetic fuels cost around 10€/litre, which comes to around $37/gallon. Not really viable for day to day use yet.
- teekert 4y ago
  I live in the Netherlands and we're almost there! ;) No not really but, when it peaked I saw 2.40 eur/litre (9.71$/gallon, now down to 1.80 eur/litre) in places... Of course, much of that is taxes, but hey, this stuff would receive a lot of subsidies. Fwiw, I once (4 years ago or so?) spoke to someone from an ICE conference (a parallel conference to my breast cancer conference) who explained that ICE's can be made 100% clean (just output CO2 and H2O) and 100% circular (take all that emitted CO2 out of the air again), it's just an economic consideration, technologically we are there (I guess that is true for many if not most environment related technologies, we just never take environmental damage along in the price of products, in a way we make them artificially cheap).
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - ksec 4y ago
    Imagine if the fuel could be sold as carbon negative. i.e They will (somehow) plant more trees or take the same amount of CO2 from air for every CO2 fuel you burn on top of the CO2 they collect back to make the synthetic fuel.

YesThatTom2 4y ago

I’m confused. This sounds like a good thing if the problem was an oil shortage, not CO2 pollution. Explain why they aren’t solving the wrong problem?

lars-b2018 4y ago
The synthetic fuels are made from sources such as hay, which, theoretically is a net neutral to the carbon cycle since the hay's carbon came from the atmosphere already. This approach doesn't contribute additional CO2 to the atmosphere like traditional fuels do. However, not sure what the carbon costs are to create this synthetic fuel so that is a variable in the total carbon gain to the system.
itsoktocry 4y ago
Maybe we have more than one problem that needs solving?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

driverdan 4y ago

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.

etskinner 4y ago
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 that's being shy about the details.
- hasmanean 4y ago
  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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-piston_engine
CrazyStat 4y ago
Coryton (the fuel supplier) has a PR post [1] about it with a few more details. Their Sustain fuel is "blended bioethanol and biogasoline" [2]. Sustain 100% might mean either it's 100% bioethanol or 100% biogasoline, I haven't been able to find anything saying what the percentage means. [1] https://coryton.com/lab/news/mazda-using-sustain-100-per-cent-fossil-free-fuel/ https://coryton.com/lab/news/mazda-using-sustain-100-per-cen... [2] https://coryton.com/sustain/ https://coryton.com/sustain/
- 4y ago

kuschku 4y ago

> 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?

worldsayshi 4y ago
It might be worth using for non EVs once we give healthy prioritization to sustainability?
adql 4y ago
Alternative for cases where electrification is hard (long haul trucks) or impossible (cargo hauling via planes)
- kuschku 4y ago
  Those are reasonable use cases, but: - those are entirely different types of engines - which are already able to use ethanol today - and none of which mazda is even producing engines for
- ianai 4y ago
  This is Mazda. They have yet to get serious about electrification. Worse than Toyota in that regard. I am beyond giving them the benefit of the doubt that this was anything but “hey we don’t have to make BeVs!!”
  - dragonmost 4y ago
    They've already announced 3 BEVs and 5 hybrids by 2025 so wouldn't say they aren't investing in EVs. Considering how bad the current batteries are for the environment and the limited supply of lithium I don't see why alternative fuels that leverage existing infrastructure is a bad thing. It remains to be seen but BEVs might not be the be-all end-all especially if you include vehicles where range and weight is important like semi and planes.

account_created 4y ago

Is this the one that was discussed on Joe Rogan by Randal Carlson recently?

marcus0x62 4y ago

1) How much of this fuel could be made at scale — how much of the type of agricultural waste they use is available worldwide? 2) Petrol is great for passenger cars, but the world runs on diesel and fuels that are more or less equivalent to diesel, like Jet-1A. Can they make that?

pfdietz 4y ago
Companies have made drop-in compatible jet fuel from biomass. https://www.virent.com/ https://www.virent.com/
- marcus0x62 4y ago
  Does that work with the process described in the article, can it be done at scale, how much does it cost? While I hear about a couple of these breakthrough alternate fuels a year, I’ve yet to see a single one that doesn’t fall down on at least one of those areas. The first one isn’t a deal-killer — you could have an alternate fuel product for petrol and a different one for fuel oils, but if they can’t be made economically at scale, these technologies are useless for all but niche purposes.
  - pfdietz 4y ago
    I don't know what the process in the article is, so I cannot answer that question. We can conclude the Virent process is not competitive at current prices (or else it would be done more widely.) The more relevant question is would it be cheap enough to work in a world without fossil fuel net CO2 emission. It would have to be cheaper than obtaining the fuel from oil, followed by direct air capture and sequestration of CO2, for zero net emission.
firecall 4y ago
You can run a diesel engine on vegetable oil!
- thinkcontext 4y ago

greenthrow 4y ago

Synthetic fuels should only be used going forward for hobbyists who want to keep classic cars going. They likely will be, and should be, expensive. Even if they are "carbon neutral" (unlikely as they still have higher costs associated with transportation than electricity), they still involve burning which always creates pollution, and any ICE requires lubrication and cooling which also today involves toxic chemicals. EVs are much more efficient and better for the environment beyond the most obvious and biggest benefit of not having a tailpipe that spews CO2 into the air. In other words; nobody should be hoping "carbon neutral fuel" is a path to continuing our status quo.

elif 4y ago
And as here, syn fuels are useful for satisfying regulators.

api 4y ago

Biofuels have at least two huge issues: The first is that solar PV has already well exceeded the efficiency of growing crops for fuel by multiples. Then there’s wind, nuclear, hydro, etc. Biofuels consume far more land than renewable and zero carbon ways of generating electricity. Even worse they consume fresh water. Electric generation consumes very little water by comparison. Secondly and related to this biofuels compete with agriculture for food. You frequently hear about using farm waste but there is only so much of that. Our machines use more calories than we do so try to scale that up and soon you are growing crops for cars. That’s a bad path to go down in a world where population is expected to peak as high as 11 billion. Much better to run machines on stuff we can’t eat than to set up a competition. The only good bet against EVs is in heavy and long range vehicles not cars. I am skeptical of electric trucks not because they can’t be done but because I am skeptical of our will to build out adequate charge infrastructure. But trucks account for a lot less liquid fuel use than cars so solving the car problem is a huge win. If we electrified light vehicles we could cut liquid fuel use by more than 50%. That doesn’t mean all car companies should totally cease ICE production though. There will still be some market for them into the foreseeable future. I expect EVs to take the bulk of the market though.

fsh 4y ago

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. Being able to reach any place on earth in 24h is awesome, and there is simply no battery technology that can power a practical airplane.

mauli 4y ago
Same here, am excited for what happens in the coming year. I did read on HN some time ago and just checked, SWISS airline working together with Synhelion https://www.swiss.com/magazine/en/inside-swiss/sustainability/flying-with-kerosene-made-from-sunlight https://www.swiss.com/magazine/en/inside-swiss/sustainabilit...
tmpburning 4y ago
> I don't think that this is a very good application for the technology. Compared to lithium batteries, Mazda also have an all-electric car, the Mx-30. (Starting MSRP $33,470)
- pornel 4y ago
  It's the worst EV on the market. It's only a compliance car, not something they expect anyone to drive. Toyota/Subaru aren't much better. Japanese carmakers seem to hope that BEVs are only a fad.
  - tmpburning 4y ago
    Why do you think it is the worst on the market?
    - pornel 4y ago
      It’s Doug DeMuro’s Worst Car of the Year. Every other review I’ve seen is also overwhelmingly negative. It has a range of a “city car”, but a price of EVs with double the range. It has max 50kW DC charging, while the competition has >100kW speeds. This makes the short range even more limiting. It’s not even powerful, even though high torque is the one easy trick for EVs. It’s a conversion of a gas car, not a dedicated platform, which wastes cabin and storage space. Mazda failed to keep the same front/rear weight balance making the car reportedly handle poorly. It’s technically at the level of 2009 Renault Zoe or the old Leaf, but for a price of 2019 eNiro or the current Kona and Cupra Born.

mensetmanusman 4y ago

Efficiency is a double edged sword. Hydrocarbons will always have a higher energy density than batteries due to physics, which is great when moving heavy things. Trucks are probably a good use case for synthetic zero or negative emission fuels.

elif 4y ago

It is disgusting for the author to call the synthetic fuel "emission free" It's still a long hydrocarbon chain that breaks down into CO2 during combustion. This entire line of reasoning is avoided in the article, so I can only imagine it was sponsored by BP or SA.

elif 4y ago

1. Synthetic fuels still take a minimum of 110g CO2 to produce one MJ of fuel. 2. Synthetic fuels still emit CO2, sox, nox etc. at the tailpipe 3. "Synthetic" fuels still use natural gas as the feedstock in production.

Loic 4y ago
4. We do not have enough renewable biomass to use as feedstock to replace our current use of non synthetic fuel. Synthetic fuel from renewable feedstock should only be used where we cannot replace ICE, for example planes. Synthetic fuel for cars is pure heresy from the environmental point of view. We already are at the limit in the production of wood pellet for heating (the forest are suffering enormously from climate change), bio gas is using not only waste but also corn and "good" crops to be produced. And of course, the process to convert all this biomass into a fuel is consuming a lot of energy. Please, do not dream of everything green with synthetic fuels everywhere, this can only be part of a small part of the transition.

IronWolve 4y ago

I saw a video of an offgrid station that makes hydrogen from solar/water to power farm/work trucks. That seemed pretty green and cost effective in the long run.

dieselgate 4y ago

This is a cool data point but I personally wouldn't call 45 mpg "staggering" - it's definitely good but not unprecedented by any means, many TDIs or smaller gas engines can get that on the freeway. The research into synthetic gasoline fuels is inspiring but at a certain point seem impractical and too-little-too-late. There are already well established "alternative" fueling technologies that are very easily accessible and likely cheaper.

RhysU 4y ago
I just did a long highway trip in an MX-5 and got about 38 mpg on the recommended 93-octane gasoline. I was not driving the vehicle to optimize for mileage. The article quotes the same. I mention it because it is an obtainable 38 mpg.
- dieselgate 4y ago
  Driving long distances on the freeway typically is the best way to optimize for mileage though? at least seems you couldn’t have been going too fast ;) Must’ve been fun in the mx5
  - RhysU 4y ago
    Sadly, it was all dark and wet during the trip and I had just put on winter tires. Still, the ramps were fun.

Orangeair 4y ago

Does anyone know what ever happened to Mazda's skyactiv thing? Was supposedly going to help ICEs be more fuel efficient by adding an extra stroke cycle with water? Seemed very promising, but I haven't heard anything about it in years.

jayavanth 4y ago
It's out there but not in the US. It doesn't deliver as much torque/HP and apparently US market prefers the torque over fuel efficiency
mdorazio 4y ago
You’re probably thinking of Skyactiv-X [1] which is kind of hybrid between a normal spark ignition and compression ignition. It’s been in the 3 in Europe for a couple years but never came to the US. I’ve heard it’s a combination of cost and not-great horsepower, plus it runs louder. Basically for a lot more cost you get something inferior to hybrid in a lot of ways. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyactiv https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyactiv

bl_valance 4y ago

Toyota was also testing out synthetic fuels on their 3cylinder platform. I'm glad mfgs are testing different things and not just sticking to one thing just because everyone else is doing that. Interesting how Japanese carmakers are still not convinced on full electric, time will only tell. https://www.carsales.com.au/editorial/details/toyota-gr-86-now-turbocharged-137338/ https://www.carsales.com.au/editorial/details/toyota-gr-86-n...

LP3L 4y ago

Can we just use Ethanol with hybrid system? I mean, in ethanol are very common fuel, if we combine this with hybrid, thas a win win IMO.