Gasoline from Natural Gas

[SubLGT]

https://www.greencarcongress.com/2021/04/20210423-tigas.html

The plant will produce cleaner gasoline from low-cost natural gas, captured bio-methane from farms and landfills, and mitigated flared gas from the Permian basin.

The Penwell facility will be the first gasoline manufacturer in the world to incorporate carbon capture and sequestration. The captured CO2 will be used for enhanced oil recovery.

Gasoline produced by the TIGAS technology contains no sulfur, is cost-competitive with traditional gasoline, and can be used in today’s cars and trucks without modification. Nacero’s Penwell facility will create a market for natural gas that is currently vented or flared and is expected to double the US market for captured bio-methane.

TIGAS incorporates Topsoe’s SynCOR Methanol technology that achieves exceptional economy of scale. By using six SynCOR Methanol plants, Nacero’s Penwell plant will produce more than 30,000 metric tons per day (MTPD) of methanol, which will then be processed to gasoline. The only byproduct will be water, which will be recovered and used to supply 80% of the plant’s make-up water. The Penwell facility will also produce ‘blue’ hydrogen.

https://www.greencarcongress.com/2022/02/20220218-nacero.html

This agreement is a key component in Nacero’s plan to make its Penwell facility the first and largest supplier of lower and net-zero lifecycle carbon footprint gasoline for everyday American drivers. The Penwell facility will have the capacity to meet the needs of 4 million drivers in Texas and the Southwest.

The agreement calls for NextEra Energy Resources’ Texas wind power operations to provide Nacero with nearly 20 billion kilowatt-hours of green electricity over 20 years starting in 2025. The wind power will complement Nacero’s planned 200-megawatt on-site solar photovoltaic power plant and ensure that the facility is powered by 100% renewable electricity.

 

[BMWTurboDzl]

Interesting. This morning I was reading that the price of Tier 3 (ULSG) credits has gone through the roof because it's harder to refiners to refiners to get below the legal limit of ULSG. Refiners who can't meet Tier 3 are allowed to buy offset credits from refiners who produce below the limit.

I wonder what the break-even point is on this process. In any case it's seems like a net positive from an emissions perspective as methane omissions are getting traded for CO2. The amount of NatGas sent into the atmosphere in Texas is incredibly wasteful.

 

[atikovi]

How much energy does it take to convert NG to gasoline? Would make a lot more sense to use it directly in vehicles made to run on CNG. 69 cents a gallon the last time I sold such a car in Oklahoma 2 years ago.

 

[Vern_in_IL]

This is the wrong direction!

NG is suposed to be LOW COST AND ECONOMICAL. For home heating and "peak usage" energy production throughout the country.

Exporting it is just asinine, and converting it to gasoline is even more crazy.

 

[eljefino]

This is the wrong direction!

NG is suposed to be LOW COST AND ECONOMICAL. For home heating and "peak usage" energy production throughout the country.

Exporting it is just asinine, and converting it to gasoline is even more crazy.

If they can convert it to liquid fuel on site instead of flaring it off it makes lots of sense.

NG is supposed to be profitable for the guys drilling it out of the ground. It's only cheap because it's a hassle to compress, pipe, bottle, what have you.

 

[SubLGT]

....converting it to gasoline is even more crazy.

Wasting natural gas (1,500,000,000 cu ft per day !) by venting it and flaring it is 10X crazier.

 

[Motu]

New Zealand did this back in the '80's...shut down in 1999. They still make methanol I think, one of the first steps in the process.

https://www.engineeringnz.org/programmes/heritage/heritage-records/motunui-synthetic-fuels-plant/#:~:text=Opened%20in%201986%2C%20the%20Motunui,world's%20largest%20methanol%20production%20facility.&text=Synfuel%20Gas%20to%20Gasoline%20Plant,25.

 

[CDX825]

Is there still a lot of gas being flared? I would think with the current prices of natural gas it would be going to market instead of flared.

 

[PandaBear]

How much energy does it take to convert NG to gasoline? Would make a lot more sense to use it directly in vehicles made to run on CNG. 69 cents a gallon the last time I sold such a car in Oklahoma 2 years ago.

It is usually done because they don't have the pipeline to do so, or the demand for gasoline is much higher than NG so it makes more money. NG cannot be easily stored as liquid without refrigeration so it won't be aa good residential fuel. We have CNG vehicles in our neighborhood about 10 years ago and they sort of disappeared after EV came along. The tank replacement / recertification cost is almost the same as an EV battery replacement (i.e. Nissan Leaf) and the pump is always busy when a bus or garbage truck was pumping, and they are far and few in between unlike EV chargers or gas stations.

 

[PandaBear]

Is there still a lot of gas being flared? I would think with the current prices of natural gas it would be going to market instead of flared.

Depends on the locations, a quick price spike is not going to warrant the work to install pipelines or liquefaction investment that takes decades to payback. GTL is one way to recoup the cost in isolated islands or if pipeline is not feasible because of geopolitical instability along the way.