[vampyregirl]

Gas to Liquid, also known as Syndiesel is a liquid fuel developed by Shell in the Amsterdam labs. It works in diesel engines and is cleaner burning than even ultra low sulfur diesel.
After successful trials in Europe and Asia it is now used to power civic transport in China and Thailand and may be about to set off a revolution in Europe.
The Pearl GTL plant in Quatar will produce 260k bpd of syndiesel for the European market. Chief Executive van der Veer described this mass production of Syndiesel as the opening of a new market.
Are we seeing the begining of a major new fuel source? Is the Pearl project just the begining? It is expected to be so. Van der Veer's motto is more upstream more profit downstream. Pearl, which will cost between 10 and 17 billion to construct should be up and running by next year. Then we shall see the emergence of a new eco friendly fuel

[americandream]

Till the gas runs out.

[Gerben]

I find it unlikely that GTL diesel, petrol and LPG will be a major transport fuel source. The huge investment in a factory to produce the fuels is only economic when natural gas is almost free. Especially since the Shell process is quite inefficient. Such natural gas only existed in remote areas until several years ago. It is now profitable to convert the natural gas to LNG. This gives natural gas a value no matter the source location on the globe. I expect the natural gas will be liquefied to LNG and used in vehicles as LNG or CNG rather than be converted to GTL fuels.

[Bas]

interesting, but yeah, gas will probably peak not long after oil, so it's not a real solution; we'd have to shift gas from other uses like heating to fuelling our cars. And ecofriendly? that's a bit of an overstatement, but I guess it's cleaner than petrol or diesel, yeah.

[evilgenius]

Its probably easier to get nat gas from 5 miles under the ocean than to get oil from 5 miles under the ocean.

[lowem]

I remember reading somewhere that the process of converting natural gas to LNG is only 60-70% efficient, the rest of the 30-40% of the effectively available energy is "lost" due to energy input into the compression and decompression processes.

Anyone has any comparable figures for the GTL process?

[vampyregirl]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Gerben', 'I') find it unlikely that GTL diesel, petrol and LPG will be a major transport fuel source. The huge investment in a factory to produce the fuels is only economic when natural gas is almost free. Especially since the Shell process is quite inefficient. Such natural gas only existed in remote areas until several years ago. It is now profitable to convert the natural gas to LNG. This gives natural gas a value no matter the source location on the globe. I expect the natural gas will be liquefied to LNG and used in vehicles as LNG or CNG rather than be converted to GTL fuels.

[Concerned]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('americandream', 'T')ill the gas runs out.

[LoneSnark]

Hmm, your metaphore sucks. Food comes from sunlight, not oil. That we today use oil in the shipping/packaging of our food is a coincidence of history (we have oil). When we don't then we won't, so be it.

[Concerned]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('LoneSnark', 'H')mm, your metaphore sucks. Food comes from sunlight, not oil. That we today use oil in the shipping/packaging of our food is a coincidence of history (we have oil). When we don't then we won't, so be it.

[Concerned]

duplicate post

[vampyregirl]

BTW the Pearl project is being financed by Shell alone with no partners. And it is a big investment. Apparently the boss has a lot of confidence in GTL as a future fuel.

[skeptik]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Concerned', '
')
Let's keep growing (doubling) and see where this ends up? China 1.3 billion people growing in excess of 10% a year and India 1.4 billion growing at around 8%