Saudis Will Hurl Back EV Challenge With . . . Demo Trucks That Capture Some CO2 From Exhaust Fumes

[hatrack]

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During the last 10 years, Saudi Aramco has also been building a research program to persuade the world's automakers to produce cars and trucks with less carbon dioxide emissions and other pollutants in their exhaust. One of its newest innovations is a reengineered version of a Volvo semi-tractor-trailer truck that it put on display last winter at a conference near Detroit. It used a variety of ways to reduce the truck's carbon emissions by 40%. The most effective one was technology that absorbed CO2 from the truck's exhaust and stored it in a tank behind the driver's seat for future recycling.

"The interesting thing about this technology is that it shows there is light at the end of the tunnel," said Amer Amer, the chief technologist for Saudi Aramco's Fuel Technology Research & Development unit. Part of Saudi Aramco's long learning curve with oil is that it has discovered how to produce it with one of the world's lowest CO2 emissions rates, according to a 2018 study led by Stanford University. What will oil companies do with more CO2 collected from exhausts? They can recycle it.

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Amer's theory is that the emergence of electric vehicles will not begin to take the market away from petroleum-powered vehicles until around 2040, when most power grids worldwide may have carbon-free electricity generated from wind, solar and perhaps nuclear power. He predicts that until then, there could be a robust, two-decade global market for gas- and diesel-powered vehicles with lowered CO2 emissions. Saudi Aramco could enlarge the reductions by convincing automakers to combine carbon storage with streamlined body designs and more fuel-efficient combustion.

So far, they have demonstrated the carbon capture technology on a Ford F-250 pickup truck and a Toyota Camry. EVs, he asserted, "have a long way to go to get to mass [market} penetration," and electric motors and batteries may not be cost-effective for heavy trucks. Saudi Aramco's idea, Amer said, is to help automakers rely longer on the massive infrastructures they have built to manufacture vehicles with internal combustion engines.

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https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2020/06/02/stories/1063284733

[Miguelito Loveless]

1. Ummm, no...

EVs are coming. They are inevitable. Prices are falling, range is increasing, and they will be powered by a renewable fuel.

They will be:

- Cheaper to operate
- Cheaper to maintain
- Last longer
- Have zero emissions, thus not endanger the climate or human health
- Be safer
- Be quieter

To clarify, I am not challenging the poster, I am challenging the Saudi viewpoint.