ELECTRO-FUELS... WHAT ARE THEY?

It is a liquid or gaseous fuel that is made from electricity and component elements, usually carbon and Hydrogn or Nitrogen and hydrogen.  

If the fuel is carbon based, it uses sources of CO2 (usually ocean water) to make carbon chains with Hydrogen from water.  The hydrogen is around the Carbon, much like Gasoline or Diesel fuel has.  

C8 (synthetic gasoline) is 8 carbons with 10 Hydrogen atoms around the chain.  

C10 (synthetic Diesel/jet fuel) is 10 carbons with 12 hydrogen atoms.  

The fuels can have other groups attached to make various chemicals or plastics as needed.

If the fuel is Nitrogen based, it uses sources of Nitrogen (usually air) to make NH3 or Hydrazine N2H4.  

The advantage of Nitrogen based fuels is the source of N2 is air, which any home has.  

The disadvantage of Carbon based fuels is the Carbon must come from ocean water, that has CO2 and carbonates in it, or other source of carbon, such as burned wood.  Wood could be burned and the CO2 then captured and turned into fuels.  This requires more equipment and a supply of wood, 

By cleaning up forests in California, Oregon and Washington States that are burning down due to mismanagement, an ample supply of wood could be obtained to make Methanol.  This fuel could be sold and used in cars or trucks.  The remaining waste could be clean burned and the CO2 captured to make C8 or C10 for old cars, Diesel trucks and airplanes. 

The key to Electro-fuels is that they are super clean like distilled water is clean.  Oil based fuels are much too dirty for fuel cells.  Electro-fuels offer ultra clean fuels that can be used in fuel cells that are sensitive to membrane contamination.  This allows fuel cells to be used in building, cars and other uses, and use dense fuels as the energy supply instead of H2 or batteries, which have massive problems.  

Note the H2 is also an Electro-fuel, but it only uses water to get H2.  H2 is a very poor fuel and difficult to compress and keep from leaking.  H2 fires are a serious danger.  No effort should be used to pursue H2 as a fuel.  Perhaps in 50 years or so in large transports using liquid H2, but not in cars, trucks, light airplanes, boats and houses.  

The New Engine Type (NET) engine technology could use H2, but it is the worst choice there is for any mobile application due to volume and other risks of storage, as well as hydrogen embrittlement to the metals in the engine.

Making a network of H2 fuel station from grid electricity is the most absurd option there is, especially with wind and solar.  

The future of energy is clearly nuclear, and of the nuclear options, Molten Salt reactors are the safest and best choice.  Thorium is the fuel of choice ideally (the link to rare earths is key!) and holds the potential for out-of-sight (low visibility or landscape use) electrical and thermal energy supply.  Thorium molten salt can be small like a semi truck and under ground with only wires and a small building for offices above ground.  There are no risks of melt down due to the design like there is with light water reactors that blow up now and then.  

Thorium could be as low as 2 cents/kwh if done right.  3 cents/kwh is likely.  Fuel makers can turn electricity and water into fuels for around 1.5 times the source electricity costs.  If the fuel is worth x amount of energy, it take 1.5x to make the fuel, in general.  With research this can be as low as the loss of charging a battery (1.1) according to some experts at Stanford.  

This allows fuels to be made for 3-4.5 cents/kwh which is $1-1.5/gallon gasoline equivalent (GGE).  This is close to the cost of Gasoline from OIL.  This sets a cap on oil prices making fuels a long term low cost source of energy.

The end game is Thorium and Electro-fuels, -chemicals and -plastics.  Key issue!

What people don't realize is OIL is a source of plastics.  To recreate plastics from electricity is much harder than to distill them from oil.  The technology needs $trillion in investments to eventually replace oil.  

Batteries rob investments for this oil replacement technology, making batteries a waste of time in getting us off oil.  Those who hate oil should hate battery cars.   Making fuels, chemical and plastics from electricity are synergistic technologies that also allow bio fuels and oil to be allowed in the mix, thus keeping energy costs as low as possible leading up to 100% CO2 free energy.  Fuels allow a smooth and easy transition to nuclear power which EVs cannot provide.  

Fuels can FUND electro-chemical and plastics development, but Batteries cannot.  Fuels are big volume, and plastics are not.  First make fuels, then make plastics.  First things first...

The State of Alaska proposed wind farms on the Aleutian Islands making NH3.  They claimed all the fuel needs for the USA could come from wind from the island chain via NH3 production.  A better option would be to make mostly C8 and C10 instead of NH3 due to the source of Ocean water near the Islands and add in small amounts of NH3 for fertilizers.

This, of course, would require an engine that can use NH3 as well as carbon fuels.  The New Engine Type (NET) technology is the only engine type that can use NH3 well enough to make it a primary fuel source.  Diesel engines cannot use it well, and neither can Otto cycle engines.

By making fuels instead of grid electricity, the cost of the wind machines can also be around 1/2 that of grid able machines, with less maintenance.  This makes wind competitive with nuclear and solar, or about 2-3 cents/kwh.  Fuel then is 3-4.5 cents/kwh wholesale.

The biggest issues for wind are land use, birds and noise.  Until all three are solved, this technology is NOT viable or valid.  Clearly no subsidies should be allowed for any wind as they don't need it when done correctly with fuels, as shown above.  

Wind on the grid is not a valid option either due to intermittence of the supply.  Without full battery backup for 2-7 days or back up with engine + fuel, this form of supply should not be considered equal to fueled machines as a stand alone device.  It is robbing other competitors via bias from regulators.  As Warren Buffet said recently, it makes no sense without subsidies.  Clearly this scam must end.  

This New Engine Type (NET) technology is also a solar thermal engine that can run from hot water (120-450F).  Solar thermal is 7 times better at capturing low grade heat for house climate control than is PV solar.   Solar thermal at 70% vs net for PV after battery at 14%. 

The concept is a new type of solar thermal panels (not discussed here) that feeds the New Engine Type (NET) engine with hot water to make torque to turn a synchronous generator.  During the day, electrical loads are provided from the engine via solar thermal energy supply and fuel (NH3) is made and stored in a tank to be used later.  This NH3 can be as low as 50-75 cents/GGE depending on assumptions of roof costs and heating/cooling offsets.  

This makes home fuel making better and lower cost than any commercial nuclear, wind or solar systems.  This caps or locks in the price of energy below the 3 cents/kwh range give or take, thus making energy cheap for all.  This compares to solar/wind on the grid at 30 cents/kwh now (Germany) and 60-160 cents/kwh with 100% solar/wind depending on assumptions.  

PV panels can also make fuels and use it in fuel cells instead of batteries.   If cars can use NH3 with my engine or a fuel cell, then PV panels can be used to fuel the cars.  

The problem with fuel cells is fuel purity.  When the car is away from home it would not be able to fuel unless the fuel is pure from Electro-fuels .  It will take time to get Electro-fuels to every fuel station as an alternate for gasoline and Diesel.  

The New Engine Type can run on oil fuels, bio mass fuels or electro-fuels, thus allowing old and new fuel supplies to compete without any mandates.  This ability to use "dirty" fuels from OIL and biomass is key for the next 40-50 years as the world moves to electro-fuels and away from oil.  Even when electro-fuels are common, biomass is also needed to allow forest management and crop waste management via biomass fuels.  This is all not possible with EVs....

The 800 lbs Gorilla in the Green New Deal room is plastics.  Wind, solar and batteries cannot make plastics or fund the needed R&D to develop the technology.  Fuels comes first, then comes the harder chemicals that make plastics.  Both need volume and fuels allows the volume and cash flow to fund it all.

This New Engine Type (NET) technology can use fuels from oils, bio or electro-fuels, thus allowing up front fuel savings (80% in cars) NOW from the engine with current fuel supplies.  The many sources of energy inputs can also have a seat at the table, whereas the GND only allows outdated wind and solar junk technology that kills animals and the environment.

If you want to replace oil then this engine technology is the best and fastest way to getting off oil.   Without plastics you have no modern society.  Without chemicals from electricity you will not be ending oil ever. 

Why?  Oil is 20% plastics (approximately) and 80% fuels.  To get the plastics from oil you must deal with the fuels as waste.  Burning them in the engine is why oil based fuels are the ONLY option until electro-plastics can be made.  My engine is key to this transition...

Just as rare earth mining makes Thorium waste of approximately equal amounts, oil has wastes that need to be dealt with to get to the plastics.  If you want plastics from oil, you must be able to deal with the fuels.  If you want rare earth metals, you have to deal with radioactive Thorium.  

Ironically, the modern age needs rare earth metals and plastics.  Both give fuel supplies of Thorium and oil fuels (Diesel, gasoline, Kerosene).  This NET engine technology is synergistic to these waste products and functions as a waste disposal converter that is super clean. 

Once electro-fuels, chemicals and plastics are perfected, the benefit of the NET engine still remains due to the use of air for active drag reduction that cuts aerodynamics load by 50%.  

This engine tech will be around for 100 years, especially if CO2 is the issue!   

Why?  Combustion is the best way to lower CO2 ironically...  EVs are the worst.

Fuel cells require pure fuels.  They have the advantage of no moving parts.  They do not use air like the NET engine does, so they cannot do Active Drag Reductions.  But the advantages of fuel cells for housing applications are many since active drag reduction via air is not an issue for a house. 

Fuel cells with Electro-fuels of C8, C10 and NH3 would have huge advantages over H2 fuel cells due to possible use of C8, C10 and NH3 in combustion engine applications.  The SAME fuel supply chains could be used for combustion engines and fuel cells with Electro-fuels.  The fuels would be ultra pure, thus making no pollution.

A disadvantage of fuels cells is the need for a battery to buffer the loads and the complex electric system to control it all.  This adds in huge complexity, reliability and maintenance issues not found with this New Engine Type (NET) technology.  

In aviation applications, a fuel cell would be at least 2-3x more energy than my engine technology, and thus would not be part of future transit in the air.

 Without electro-fuels we will not get off of oil.  New Engine Type (NET) technology allows old and new supplies of energy, not just wind and solar PV that is expensive and battery based.  Batteries will not help in getting us off oil if that is the goal.  The New Engine Type with Electro fuels will get us off of oil and do it faster than other other option by at least 35 years. 

Whatever your views on energy, this New Engine Type tech is the best path forward to lower costs for all the people of the world.  It is the lowest cost of any known technology and can be adopted without need of new infrastructure and complex electrical systems.