Porsche’s synthetic gasoline factory comes online today in Chile

Highly Innovative Fuels opened its first synthetic gasoline production facility. In order to run the new plant, a group of companies collaborated, including Exxon Mobil and Empresas Gasco. Initially, the site will produce around 34,000 gallons (120,000 L) a year, with plans to increase that to over 50 million gallons (55 million L) a year by the end of the decade. The first gasoline produced by the plant was used in a ceremony to fill a car.

"Yesterday, we celebrated together with all the employees from HIF and our partners, this historic moment," said Barbara Frenkel. It was a very special evening, because we are seeing a lot of potential in e-fuels for the decarbonization of the Earth's climate, and that is very important to us. She said that the synthetic fuel we are producing here is a compelling idea.

According to Frenkel, a wind turbine can produce up to four times as much energy as one in Europe, and the site will use wind to power the process.

The project has been going on for a while now. Two engineers from AME, the predecessor company of HIF, came into contact with the idea of setting up an e-fuel pilot plant in the southern part of Chile.

From this, we started to find partners who would like to join this idea, and we started with Exxon Mobil, who had a process developed that converts methanol to gas. He said they started to plan the pilot plant they would open today.

The e-fuel plant will use wind power to produce hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen is combined with carbon captured from the air or industrial sources to synthesise methanol which can be used as fuel. The synthetic e-fuel is a direct drop-in for pump gasoline, and initially Porsche will take all the site's production and use it to run its one-madePorsche Supercup race series as well as using it to fuel vehicles at itsPorsche Experience Centers around the world. There are places where you can test different cars.

The goal of each site is to capture 2 million metric tons of CO 2 annually. There are a lot of regions around the world where you can get green energy by windmills, photovoltaics, or even hydropower.

Is it possible to get green CO 2 in the same amount. We have to find better ways to capture CO 2 from the ambient air in order to gain green CO 2. This technology requires more research and development.

Steiner thinks the synthetic e-fuel will cost around $8 per gallon, but that doesn't include taxes or duties, which makes up most of the price of fuel in most regions around the world. With the best will in the world, there aren't all going to be replaced by electric vehicles any time soon, so this is an important project.

Some of the fuel could end up in Formula 1 The sport wants to be carbon net-zero by the year 2030. Although Porsche's plans to enter F1 as an engine manufacturer look to be in doubt, it's possible that team may source its sustainable fuel from HIF.