Could Methanol-powered Trucks Help Solve The Climate Crisis? - Farizon G2M

[@CrazyBader]

What a great video. To be completely honest, if it were any country other than China, I'd have no hopes for this product. But considering how heavily Geely is diving into this, I'd love to see this grow even larger.

[@InsideChinaAuto]

Glad you liked it. As stated, it's not a perfect solution, none are, but I think it has a place as part of the mix, especially if it can help clean up some of the dirtier industries that we need but are difficult to do another way.

[@onetwothreefour-s1n]

That was wonderful and very informative.

[@InsideChinaAuto]

Thanks. Was a ball ache to put together but got there eventually.

[@RichardBuckMovies]

Very interesting - great video! I’m not sold on the ‘Green’ nature of this though. Taking hydrogen from coke production is hardly green, and there's no capture of CO2 from the air so it isn't circular either. Electrolysis also requires energy - there is clearly the opportunity for this to be generated by renewables but right now it’s much more efficient to put that energy into a battery. But - while industry is still kicking out CO2 and hydrogen it’s probably better to use it in place of mined hydrocarbons (ie. diesel and petrol)- it all ends up in the atmosphere either way but some emissions have been saved. I had no idea this sort of thing was so prevalent there! 👍

[@InsideChinaAuto]

Indeed. It's not completely clean but, as you said, is certainly better than just taking it out the ground. They describe it as a circular economy and to be fully circular that would entail carbon capture from the air, though I suppose they mean that plants capture it and produce oxygen which is a totally natural process regardless.

[@shawnnoyes4620]

@@InsideChinaAuto Generate the Hydrogen with High Temperature Steam Electrolysis via A solid oxide electrolyzer cell (SOEC). Get CO2 from sea water. Query "MIT pull carbon dioxide out of seawater". This is best done with nuclear energy for electricity and process heat.

[@dalsenov]

I think the range extender for electric battery has not to do so much with range but with the cold start during winter. I know that Emgrand Hybrid has a similar dual version in order to solve the cold start during winter.

[@InsideChinaAuto]

This is different from that. The Emgrand has an engine that directly drives the wheels with a motor for support. This is a range extender, which means the engine is basically a generator. It only charges the battery and the battery powers the motors, so it drives the same as an electric truck.

[@dalsenov]

Thanks for explanation! Then this presentation of Farizon is wrong. It is an electric truck with a methanol range extender.@@InsideChinaAuto

[@ellis777777]

Thanks and amazed by there is a already complete chain of eco fuel system from fuel generation to heavy duty vehicle.

[@InsideChinaAuto]

You're welcome. And indeed, they've got it all mapped out, though admittedly methanol is not yet as easy to get hold of in every city. It needs to grow nationally.

[@madev_channel]

Glad that there are people exploring new possibilities. Nice one

[@InsideChinaAuto]

Always keep exploring.

[@dalsenov]

Very interesting video! Thank you!

[@InsideChinaAuto]

You're welcome.

[@leobreevoort9151]

Methanol is defined as green, when: A. The hydrogen is produced from renewable sources (green hydrogen); B. The CO2 is derived from either carbon capture and storage (CCS) or direct air capture. Including CCS into the definition is a bit of a problem. Many processes with CCS still get their hydrocarbons from fossil fuels. The CO2 is captured, but not stored. Instead it's converted into methanol. Methanol emits CO2 when burned. So methanol from CCS delays emissions, rather then avoiding them. When used as a fuel for trucks, it replaces the use of diesel, so the net result will probably be positive. So, let's call it 'greenish'. Nice and informative video though!

[@InsideChinaAuto]

Indeed, it's basically designed to try and get that carbon to be productive twice before it ends up in the atmosphere, and burn a bit less of the other stuff in the process, which is net positive if not exactly zero emission, so a step towards a better solution for those processes that we just can't do cleanly yet.

[@HuiLi-z3c]

oh my, what a swell car review, it is really one of its kind!!!

[@InsideChinaAuto]

Bit different, eh? Would love to try it.

[@grahamjohnson4702]

You failed to point out that the methanol truck used 2.4 times as much fuel so to get the same range you need to carry more fuel or have more refuelling. Not a problem with the truck as you can carry additional tanks behind the cab in front of the trailer like gas powered trucks but not so easy in cars.

[@InsideChinaAuto]

Indeed, though I think the main purpose here is for trucks. That being said, Geely do make a methanol hybrid car and about 90% of the taxi fleet in Guiyang (city in China) uses them (mix of hybrid and non-hybrid)

[@possumsam2189]

Geely as an automaker have always been ambitious and methodical in their approach. Their product lineup, the menagerie of brands under their belt and their current global expansion as far reflects that.

[@InsideChinaAuto]

Indeed, and they're so much more than a car maker and now energy producer too, so I'm told. There's a whole world to Geely most people don't know about. It's one hell of a story.

[@papablessPapabless]

This truck looks futuristic, like people would be saying oohh it's a copy of scannia, it's a copy of their mother 🙄Chinese like copying, am sick 🤮 and tired of those comments 😊

[@InsideChinaAuto]

Most of those comments are copied from other people, that's the irony.

[@dennisyoung4631]

Yes, now your large truck can burn rubber indefinitely.

[@InsideChinaAuto]

Not sure it's indefinitely.

[@chris27gea58]

It isn't a terrible idea but describing this as green is absurd. Any CO2 captured as a gaseous emission from an industry powered by grey forms of power or grey fuels is by definition grey, viz. the net zeroiness of downstream fuel synthesis and combustion doesn't change a) the greyness of upstream fuel combustion that gave rise to the emissions in the first place or b) the probable greyness of the hydrogen used in methanol synthesis. Furthermore in this 'circular economy' what we have is a pseudo circle. Can the emissions recovery process be applied to all industrial emissions? The answer must surely be, No! Now, even if the electrolysis process results in no problematic emissions combustion of the synthetic fuel certainly does. So, the putative net zeroiness of the synthetic fuel itself - it is claimed that combustion of the fuel doesn't make things worse (even if equally it doesn't make things better) - but you only get to that result by not doing your sums right. First, electrolysis needs to be powered as well and if the energy source - electricity probably - isn't green then the electrolysis process isn't green either. We are now seeing grey everywhere, in the chemical components that must be combined to make the fuel and in the very process of making the synthetic fuel by grey energy inputs to that process (if they are grey). Pseudo circularity doesn't win the prize! Let us suppose, for the sake of argument, that the fuel synthesis, if not the synthesised fuel is entirely green, entirely based on electricity from solar or wind generation. That starts making the economy looking more genuinely circular doesn't it? It does, but there is a problem. If you had the green electricity in the first place why are you using it to create this fuel? Stored electical energy (in a battery) could be used to power heavy duty trucks (not just passenger vehicles). Indeed, that is the most straightforward thing to do if all sources of energy are green. All roads lead back to green electricity. There will still be carbon emissions from an economy and transport system wholly running on renewable/green energy. Recovering and transforming those emissions would make sense but would road transport be the best use of a (net zero) fuel of that sort. I doubt it but the point is arguable. I am pretty sure the most sensible way forward and least expensive way forward, as well, in a post ICE era, is for road transport, including heavy trucking, to electrify.

[@InsideChinaAuto]

Sure, it's certainly not entirely green (though with production of components, factories, batteries, what is?) but it's certainly better than using petrol.

[@chris27gea58]

​@@InsideChinaAutoOkay, perhaps, but I have extended my comment to more fully set out my concerns. All in all, I would like to know more about this methanol plant - the questions I have can be read off from my long comment. Also, I would like to know more about the truck. For instance, is the weight of a fully fuelled up truck comparable to other trucks - diesel or electric - in the same category?

[@InsideChinaAuto]

@chris27gea58 I believe the weight is comparable to standard trucks but haven't seen any numbers to confirm that. I've seen the truck though and it looks much like any other so nowhere it would really get heavier. As for the infrastructure and greenness of it all, it's very much open for debate and endlessly so, down to components, sourcing of the materials to make them, transportation between assembly sites, etc. You could go on forever. What I'm fairly clear on is that some industries cannot be electric at current standards, and they will pollute, but if you can stop some of those emissions hitting the environment directly and use them again in another chemical formulation that may be less harmful in terms of soot or large particles, it can at least be better in some way to use energy once rather than twice. But that's a far bigger investigation.

[@chris27gea58]

​​@@InsideChinaAuto I think there would be serious problems scaling this kind of tech and I can barely believe the advantageous methanol pricing mentioned in the vlog but that said count me fascinated. As you suggest in the vlog, methanol could have application as a fuel on a city by city basis for (shorter haul) commercial and fleet vehicles. Of course, some purchasers of plug-in vehicles need the reassurance provided by an EREV (which augments the battery range with the range available from an ICE range extender). A methanol range extender definitely is closer to optimal than a petrol/gasoline one for a plug-in/electric vehicle. Does Geely actually make an EREV with a methanol engine? It definitely would be interesting to see how something like that fares. I have heard that methanol fuel cells are being researched around the world, as well, so there may be further scope to reduce emissions by using a methanol fuel cell as a range extender. I've watched the video many times. It is very informative. Methanol could have easily had its day in the 1970s. And, we would be in better shape if that had been the way things went. The remedies to our energy challenges need to be more radical now but it wouldn't shock me if methanol synthesised in this way plays a role in the last days of ICE and perhaps even a bit beyond that in fuel cell form.

[@InsideChinaAuto]

@chris27gea58 Geely (Farizon) do in fact make a methanol range extender, the Homtruck, which we also covered recently. It may be the first one they've done, I'm not sure, but they did a range test with a full 40-tonne load in sub-zero conditions and managed 1341km without refueling, which is pretty impressive. As for the cost, it's true that that is the price in China, where it seems to be having a kind of resurgence. In fairness though, it is pretty much limited to certain places, it's not yet widespread. The largest such area is Guiyang where they have a proper methanol ecosystem with I think 90+% of the city's taxis running on methanol, and nearly all Geelys. If you check out Geely's channel I did a video for them on that specific subject and location. It's an interesting technology. Some might say it's a way to hold on to burning coal and the like, which hopefully we won't need one day, but until then an interim could be useful.

[@Alessandro-1977]

It' s much easier to follow the Scandinavian approach to produce methanol through biomass gasification with or without external hydrogen input. kzbin.info/www/bejne/nWKpdWyvoriEm7csi=waanSDDJ9QPkdiJr That way with a minimun amount of wood/biomass we canvproduce relatively high amount of liquid methanol with tiny amount of heat/electricity (particularly in a high efficiency methanol fuel cell that is ideal as range extender in hybrids)

[@InsideChinaAuto]

That is a good way to do it for the Swedes, but I guess these guys want to try and use some of that waste from all the stuff they make.

[@Alessandro-1977]

@@InsideChinaAuto I think the main point there is that starting with basically "free" biomass and gasification you have CO (and not CO2) and hydrogen (with the reaction CO+H2= CH3OH) while starting with CO2 (that is very intensive to produce per se) you have no H2 and need 3 parts of hydrogen, so basically 3 times more energy to invest into the process (through the reaction CO2 + 3H2 = CH3OH + H2O). Indeed, the Suede approach (providing you have enough biomass in a short range) is much less resource intensive, simpler and practical

[@flodjod]

if the powertrain needs to burn for its power then it is dirty full stop so no no no

[@InsideChinaAuto]

I tend to agree, though I think we'll still need a mix for a while.

[@flodjod]

hydrogen does not exist unless made

[@InsideChinaAuto]

Sounds like a bit of a fad to me