Dr. Johann Wingard On Synthetic Fuels and Energy Crisis

I believe that the combination of electrified transport, bio-fuels and synfuels from coal and oil bearing minerals can eventually replace oil based fuels, which would last mankind for the next couple of centuries. I am a hydrogen skeptic, but research and development on fuel cells which use hydrogen bearing liquid fuels may provide the breakthrough, as phenomenal efficiencies are possible with fuel cells used in conjunction with unfired micro-turbines. I agree with physicist David Goodstein who said that fusion and shale oil are the energy sources of the future


Why is synthetic fuel a better option than fuel cell technology, which is currently being used in hybrid vehicles, and some claim may soon totally replace the need for gasoline in cars?

Hydrogen fuel cell technology for transportation applications conjures up all sorts of infrastructural problems to deal with the gaseous fuel. Obviously there are many different types of fuel cells; some that use hydrocarbons as fuel. It would be particularly attractive to use fuel cell technology for distributed power generation applications as hundreds of utility power plants are nearing the end of their economic life cycles, exacerbating the global energy problem. I am particularly excited about Solid Oxide Fuel Cells also called SOFCs. Without going into the technical details at this juncture, suffice to say that SOFCs derive its hydrogen from hydrocarbon fuels that could be bio-mass based. SOFCs work at very high temperatures (some work at 1000