Is Natural Gas to Liquids a Good Way to Go?

Liquid fuels offer some significant benefits compared to gaseous fuels:

- The infrastructure needed to store, transport, and distribute to retailers, if far cheaper to build and maintain for an unpressurized liquid than a pressurized gas. the infrastructure already exists for liquid fuels.

- The higher energy density of liquids allows either more cargo room, more range or some combination thereof when compared to the same vehicle converted to use gaseous fuels.

- Liquid fuels are probably safer in accidents and fires than pressurized gaseous fuels.

- People are in the habit of refueling using liquid fuels.

.

I'm with you on your assessment that 1$ gal liquid syn fuel is fanciful. The list on a page in the website competing with 80$ barrel oil, which equates to much higher fuel prices. Even at wholesale, think $1 gasoline gallon equivalent is highly improbable.

We have hundreds of thousands of miles of natural gas pipes in the USA that go almost everywhere where people are. It costs a lot of money to refine crude, and truck it to service stations.

Natural gas cylinders are generally safer than gasoline tanks, and normally vent harmlessly up into the air, whereas gasoline drips to the ground and burns the surrounding area. Natural gas cylinders are usually bulletproof. Cars with CNG cylinders have been dropped from buildings purposely, and no harm came to the cylinders. youtube.com has old films of all this.

Purpose built vehicles carry the cylinders under the floorboards, or a false floor. The space problem is real, but not a deal killer, even in a small car. Here is a VW bifuel with over 300 mile range on all tanks. http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.insideline.com%2Fvolkswagen%2Fup%2F2013%2F2013-volkswagen-eco-up-debuts.html&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNHh26ik9E02HpQxFUcyyyZwJCxs3g

Habits are hard to break, and that is possibly the biggest obstacle other than completing adequate numbers of service stations, trained mechanics etc.

Let me preface this by making it clear that I also would like to see more cars run on things like natural gas, propane and the like. I came close to converting my diesel to run on 75% natural gas, when conversion was fairly cheap and you could do it yourself...since then the DOT has cracked down severely, and conversions are not available for many vehicles.

.

My comments above were meant to realistically present a few of the challenges. You dismissed several of things I mentioned, but allow me to elaborate:

.

Significant investment in infrastructure is needed for compressed gas refueling if it has any hope of competing with liquid fuels. Convenience is a huge factor. Convenience of filling up already dissuades masses from purchasing diesels, and diesel stations are hardly rare.

Even though gas pipelines exist in many places, my guess is that distribution pipelines that could support a busy refueling station are probably not nearly as pervasive as say gas stations that sell diesel.

The refueling stations themselves require changes, at least new dispensing equipment and possibly including large storage tanks...Large pressurized tanks are not cheap.

.

In reference to safety, I do think compressed gaseous fuels present larger hazards than liquid fuels. I'm speaking just about the fuels, not about the specific container they might be in....

Liquid fuels as you noted leak down and may pool up, the good thing here is that most of it is not in contact with air, just the surface and vapor. Leaking compressed gas mixes intimately with air, and because when it leaks it will be fairly cold and dense, the resulting mixture is likely to remain low. If gasoline and the low vapors encounter a source of ignition, a very hot fire is likely to ensue. When the concentration of gaseous fuel is high enough, there is potential for deflagration or even detonation. It may be easier for an expanding gas cloud to find an ignition source than a fluid spilling on the ground.

.

All that said, I think compressed natural gas is a better idea than plug in hybrids or electric vehicles. Coal is a very dirty fuels and electric cars run mainly on coal.

-

There are large scale plants already producing GTL. The small to medium scale device is a device that could turn a lot of wasted natural gas into fuel. Most the oil wells out there produce some amount of natural gas. Most is bled off or burnt off. If we could change it to a liquid fuel at the source. Dump it into the crude to be refined off later. The estimated amount of this waste gas could produce 25% of the USA's yearly fuel consumption.

Flaring is a real problem but there are modular plants to use the stranded gas for fertilizer, and some other products already. I would welcome the use for stranded gas, if it is really feasible.

Do you own a natural gas company or something?

No, I have no investments. Live off retirement income. My motive is to see natural gas fuel available as an inexpensive, clean, and abundant fuel worldwide. I don't even have a natural gas vehicle, or local station yet. I am hoping to buy one as my next vehicle though. The big oil companies would much prefer to avoid natural gas vehicles becoming popular IMHO. Volkswagen just came out with a small car that is bifuel with a 319 mile range. It will not be offered here of course.

http://www.insideline.com/volkswagen/up/2013/2013-volkswagen-eco-up-debuts.html

Boone Pickens would like you

They should partner up with kennynabb6. He could be their PR guy.

This requires too big a leap of faith for me.

Guess I'll lose out on another "can't lose" deal.

I'm with you Ron on this idea of using CNG directly instead of converting to a liquid fuel but as you can see the Luddites will probably win by just simple inertia. IMHO There is one sole infrastructure argument I consider to be a valid point that has not been brought forward. A colorless gas leak instead of a leak of any liquid is very often difficult to detect. Thus distribution logistic problems of separating theft, pilfering and poor maintenance as a reason for a loss of product is tricky with a gas instead of a liquid fuel.

As for the $1.00 claim in the video, I think the claim is only the financial cost to just do the chemical conversion. None of the additional logistic costs or profit margin have been added to this price. So the wholesale price would certainly not be just $1.00 for a gallon.

I checked out the BTU equivalency of the gas vs. heating oil (diesel approximately) for a home heat conversion.

It is $2 - 2.50 /gallon equivalent for gas, delivered. The $1 number might be real at the well, not otherwise.

Natural gas won't liquefy at room temperature as it is above its critical point. So in order to liquefy and store it, some sort of cryoplant is needed.

Oh, cut out the middle man and go the solar-electrolysis-hydrogen or better the solar-battery routes. It will save millions in the long run.

We have several companies investing in CNG and LNG fill stations in my area(http://www.stltoday.com/suburban-journals/illinois/news/a-new-way-to-fill-it-up-is-coming-to/article_e50647f1-268a-515d-be8d-ab09cfc3b534.html). Fleet conversions from desiel to CNG/LNG have been very successful. I'm not sure what has been the driving force behind the conversions (fuel savings, reduced maintenance, tax credits) but more and more are being done.

You're right, GTL will retail for about the same as the gas we buy now. The difference is that it's much cheaper right now to turn natural gas into something we use than petoleum oil. Simply because oil has been getting more and more expensive every year while gas is relatively stable.

It looks like exports will be given the go ahead. The new DOE report says that exports would be good for the economy under any studied scenario. Other nations are very interested in using our LNG, and will pay a much higher price for it than natural gas brings in the USA. My studies show that we have plenty for using here and exporting, although I want to ramp up our own use. Maximizing CNG and LNG use here should eventually moderate gasoline and diesel prices. We also have a lot of shale oil to use, and to export after being refined. We are also using, and exporting ethane, butane, propane, and acetic acid. Canada is developing more infrastructure for processing and exporting also. It will be interesting to see how GTL works out. I think that Shell and Sassol will make it work, but I doubt the small scale will work out. The company doesn't have much backing and has been on a down trend.

A study that found that gas to liquids will probably not be profitable for a long time:

http://world.einnews.com/247pr/320370