Published December 2023
The world's growing energy demand, coupled with our current dependence on fossil fuels, has led to increased greenhouse gas emissions, particularly carbon dioxide (CO2). Among all sectors, the transportation sector is a major cause of significant carbon dioxide emissions. Although smaller vehicles are transitioning from gasoline and diesel to electricity, heavy-duty vehicles and aviation continue to rely on diesel and jet fuel. Hence, the need to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions is driving a shift away from fossil fuels, leading to an increased focus on renewable alternatives, particularly for jet fuel and diesel.
The gas-to-liquids (GTL) industry has played a critical role in monetizing natural gas to produce cleaner diesel and kerosene for transportation fuels. The industry is now exploring a shift from using natural gas as the carbon source to utilizing CO2. This CO2 can be obtained from various sources, including direct air capture, biogenic origins or unavoidable CO2 emissions from the industries.
The conversion of CO2 and H2 via Fischer-Tropsch (F-T) synthesis holds great potential as a pathway for producing transportation fuel. Several companies, including Topsoe, Johnson Matthey, Sunfire, Carbon Engineering and Intratec, have developed technologies for converting CO2 into synthetic fuels.
Synthetic fuels (synfuels) produced from CO2 offer significant potential for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the transportation sector. They can be particularly beneficial for applications, such as heavy-duty vehicles, rail locomotives, marine vessels and aviation aircraft that are challenging to electrify directly. These fuels, derived from waste CO2 streams and green hydrogen generated from electrolysis, have properties similar to the conventional petroleum fuels but with much lower emissions.
This report presents the techno-economic analysis of three commercial processes to produce synthetic fuels. These processes are.
1.G2LTM e-Fuels by Topsoe
2.Synthetic fuels by Johnson Matthey and BP via F-T CANSTM
3.Electrofuels by InfiniumTM
In addition to covering the above three processes, the report will provide an overview of the most recent advancements in technology, such as reactor design, catalyst performance and separations, emphasizing technology readiness.
The production economics assessment in this report is based on a US Gulf Coast (USGC) location. However, an iPEP Navigator module (an Excel-based computer costing model developed by S&P Global will be attached with this report to allow a quick calculation of the process economics for three other major regions: Germany, Japan and mainland China. The module also provides production economics for every process to be reported in English or metric units in each region.
The technological and economic assessment of the processes is Process Economics Program’s (PEP) independent interpretation of the companies’ commercial processes based on information presented in the open literature, such as patents or technical articles. It may not reflect the actual plant configuration in whole or in part. We believe they are sufficiently representative of the processes and process economics within the range of accuracy necessary for economic evaluations of the conceptual process design.