Inside The Crazy $6 Billion Plan To Turn Wind Into Gasoline

View online | Unsubscribe (one-click). For inquiries/unsubscribe issues, Contact Us

Don't like ads? Go ad-free with TradeBriefs Premium Inside The Crazy $6 Billion Plan To Turn Wind Into Gasoline    Near the southernmost tip of Chilean Patagonia, on the wind-buffeted Straits of Magellan, the Haru Oni eFuels Pilot Plant sits at the foot of a wind turbine. The plant produces greener gasoline. It starts by taking wind power to run electrolyzer machines, which separate the hydrogen out of water. The hydrogen is then joined with recycled carbon dioxide, in reactions that generate synthetic hydrocarbons — indistinguishable from fossil-derived gasoline. To be sure, carbon dioxide still comes out the back of any car running off this manufactured fuel, but it’s a start. Porsche AG, an investor, is excited about the prospect of marketing this chemically identical “efuel” (the e is for electricity) to drivers who want both internal combustion and a cleaner climate conscience. It plans to get maximum publicity per gallon, by first using it to gas up its racing teams. Why build a novel green fuels plant in remote Patagonia? First off, the strong winds created when Antarctica's cold air meets the warm air from the Pacific. Turbines there can achieve 75% operating efficiency versus an average of 45% for Texas wind farms. Second, the main shareholder of HIF Global, Santiago, Chile-based AME, already develops vast Atacama Desert solar farms, and is looking to erect thousands of wind turbines in Patagonia. That would be enough to make billions of gallons of fuel a year and turn Chile into the unlikely exporter of millions of gallons a year of greener gasoline made from Patagonia winds — the same ones that 500 years ago blew Magellan’s ships through the strait that bears his name. Continued here

You are receiving this mailer as a TradeBriefs subscriber. We fight fake/biased news through human curation & independent editorials. Your support of ads like these makes it possible. Alternatively, get TradeBriefs Premium (ad-free) for only $2/month If you still wish to unsubscribe, you can unsubscribe from all our emails here Our address is 309 Town Center 1, Andheri Kurla Road, Andheri East, Mumbai 400059 - 412729