Synfuels in metropolis – part I: Rhine-Ruhr and Randstad areas

Alternative fuels can come in two forms: biofuels and synthetic fuels, or synfuels. Any raw material containing carbon can be a source for synfuel production. Natural gas, coal or biomass can all be transformed into high-purity liquid diesel, which can be used in standard diesel engines and can be mixed with conventional diesel or used in its pure form. There is no need to build special cars or engines, nor to set up a parallel distribution network for synfuels.

“That is the beauty of synfuels,” says energy transition manager with Shell Netherlands Ewald Breunesse. He discusses synfuels with his former colleague, Wolfgang Lüke, still active as consultant to Shell in synthetic fuels technology, based in Hamburg.

Plants worldwide
The synfuel production process through indirect conversion is known as gas-to-liquids (GTL), biomass-to-liquids (BTL) or coal-to-liquids (CTL) obviously depending on the initial feedstock.

At the moment, South African based company Sasol owns the only commercial coal-to-liquids facility, in Secunda, South Africa. Sasol owns a second synfuel plant (GTL) in Qatar. For over ten years now, Shell has been running a small GTL plant in Malaysia. “Small in this case means five million barrels per year,” says Ewald. Peanuts on a total of eighty million barrels per day.

A new Shell plant, in Qatar, is scheduled to be ready around the end of 2010. That will be a milestone, because large volumes of GTL will be available from then on. But we won't be there yet. Wolfgang: “The Qatar plant is the culmination of a thirty-year development period but we are still early on the learning curve. Further improvements in plant technology and in the application of synthetic fuels can be expected.”

Window to the World
In German North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), the NRW-Fenster zur Welt project aims to combine a regional synfuel demonstration project with German diesel engine technology that is expected to improve air quality. Car manufacturers are needed for this, but what with the financial crisis and all, “they have other things to worry about right now,” as Wolfgang puts it. Anyway, it will take at least another year before GTL is readily available, so the planning is to have the demonstration project ready by then.

Choices
Even after the year 2010 the amount of barrels produced daily will still be too small to stop fossil fuels from being dominant world-wide. But Shell has a 'Mega-City-Concept' in mind – perfect for a niche product: large-scale pure synfuel availability in urban agglomerations, where traffic is dense and emissions cause health concerns. NRW, part of the highly urbanized Rhine-Ruhr area, and Dutch multinuclear metropole Randstad, are perfect city regions for pilot projects.

Why focus on urban areas in particular? Ewald: “Not just Shell, but society as a whole needs to make choices. I say we'd rather have taxis driving around busy city centres all day long running on syndiesel, than syndiesel buses driving through the fields. I'm not saying Friesland (a relatively sparsely populated northern province of The Netherlands – ed.) shouldn't have syndiesel, but local or regional authorities and public transport concession holders should get together and ask themselves what their goal is.”

Wolfgang: “The same goes for Germany: GTL can make a contribution to solving the particulate and NOx problem. But in the end it is a political decision which involves costs and possibly some incentives for customers during an implementation period.” Would that be a decision on local or federal level, we ask. “The German low emission zones were a federal decision, but local authorities are free to decide when they instate them. And of course there is European legislation to take into account as well.”

Sharing
To what extent do NRW and Randstad cooperate and what can they learn from each other? Ewald admires the German consistency: “Once they've set out a course, they follow it. In The Netherlands investments are more uncertain.”

Cross-border knowledge sharing within Shell is excellent, both say. Wolfgang: “But in general broader cooperation is necessary. My task within the NRW project is to cooperate with car manufacturers, bus operators and authorities to establish more serious interest in GTL application. The NRW Ministry of Economics has an industry policy to stimulate the regional economy and increase its competitiveness – while also improving air quality,” he hastens to add. “It is not all about money, precisely the combination makes it interesting for the Ministry to get involved.”

“In the Randstad we have no such thing,” says Ewald, “cities like Rotterdam and Amsterdam have their own environmental policies and CO2 targets, like the Rotterdam Climate Initiative.” The NRW Energy Agency is an example of an institute The Netherlands could use. “As a government representative the agency cooperates in a positive manner,” Wolfgang explains. “Without their connections we wouldn't be where we are now.”

In The Netherlands SenterNovem comes closest to this. Ewald: “You need two things: firstly a factual basis for all options – for there is never one solution that fits all, so you need to set priorities; secondly, a choice must be made, political in part, based on availability, sustainability and costs. SenterNovem could help with both.”

Will SenterNovem pick up the glove? We'll ask them for comment and get back to you.