Hundreds of millions of liters per year
The synthetic fuel plant in Chile, which was built with the help of substantial investments from Porsche, has started production of the substance. Initially, this is only 130,000 liters per year, but in five years that should be 550 million litres.
It was already known that Porsche sees the benefit of synthetic fuels. The Germans invested several times in its development and earlier this year put an extra sum in a synthetic fuel factory in Chile. Not without consequences, because that factory is now actually producing barrels of the stuff. The initial production volume is 130,000 liters per year. By the middle of this decade that should be 55 million liters and around 2027 ten times that amount, ie 550 million litres.
Synthetic fuels
As a refresher: synthetic fuels are made from hydrogen and CO2 and can run an (existing) combustion engine without using a fossil raw material. The combustion of synthetic fuels releases less particulate matter than the combustion of fossil fuels. In addition, its CO2 footprint – if produced with green energy – is smaller. Still, there are question marks about how ‘clean’ the stuff really is.
The production of synthetic fuels requires a lot of electricity, for which the factory in Chile largely draws from the windmill that is located next to it. As a result, according to Porsche, the synthetic fuel that is made there is virtually CO2 neutral when used in an internal combustion engine. The brand does not yet elaborate on the further application of the factory-produced fuel, of which much more is expected to be available in the future than now. Initially, the brand runs its Supercup cars on it and uses the fuel at its Porsche Experience Centers.
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– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl