Zero Petroleum is a new company dedicated to the production of “net zero” petroleum based products.
The synthetics that Zero Petroleum is working towards are essentially fuels synthesized by recycling water and carbon dioxide using renewable energies like green hydrogen.
Applications of such fuels would be aircraft, high-performance vehicles, and motor sports, but not limited to conventional transportation – these plastics would also be used in giant mining machines, combine harvesters, and many other agricultural vehicles that are increasingly energy-dense and suitable for liquid fuel.
Zero Petroleum is the brainchild of Paddy Lowe, co-founder and director and former managing director of the Mercedes Formula 1 team (F1), and his business partner Professor Nilay Shah, head of the Department of Chemical Engineering at Imperial College.
Lowe left Formula 1 two years ago after a career spanning more than 30 years, including two separate positions in the Williams team, 20 years as a key technical figure in the McLaren F1 team and of course his years in the all-conquering Mercedes F1 team.
Lowe and Shah have been working together on a synthetic fuel at Zero Petroleum for a year; The company believes that society has benefited immeasurably from the unique benefits of hydrocarbons, and its vision now is to be a leading designer of a fully circular and carbon neutral supply on a large scale.
It already has a tangible product to showcase, as Lowe demonstrated in an exclusive webinar interview with the camera gasWorld.
“We spent the first year doing research and development in the lab, we have some very exciting products related to gasoline, we are also working on kerosene for kerosene, so our next step will be to build a manufacturing facility,” he explained.
“We intend to have a synthetic gasoline facility, ideally in the UK, next year – it will be a very exciting prospect if we can bring it to market as what may be the world’s first fully synthetic gasoline.”
What Zero Petroleum is looking for now are partners for hydrogen, a key component in this high-performance synthetic fuel.
“In order to build more and more plants, which we have to do, we absolutely want to tie in with the hydrogen sector – that is one of the key components, one of the greatest costs,” says Lowe happily.
“I think there is a great opportunity to work together either within the UK or internationally on putting together projects.”
“We are already seeing a number of projects around the world; Porsche has announced a project in Chile to produce synthetic gasoline, we also have the example of Norsk E-Fuel in Norway, which was announced last June and will produce diesel and kerosene. “
“So for all of your listeners, your readers, please sign up because we would be very interested in working with companies that are active in the hydrogen sector as this will be a very collaborative effort.”
The vision behind synthetic petroleum
“In my opinion, the industrial revolution is not yet over, we have only just begun – so far we have been using this energy and these materials linearly and drawing from the fossil reserves that were deposited there hundreds of years.” Millions of years ago “, said Lowe of the vision of Zero Petroleum.
“We have to change our system now; We cannot go back, we have eight billion people on the planet, we cannot return to nature, and we cannot rely on solely relying on biological processes to meet all of these needs. Likewise, we cannot ask entire populations to reduce their standard of living, because that encompasses so many facets – education, democracy, health, welfare, enjoyment and leisure. These are all things that people want and now expect and to which they have a right. “
Zero Petroleum believes electrification, hydrogen, and hydrocarbon fuels will be the three main channels for the energy transition, but sees the latter – synthetic fuels – as the ultimate and especially short-term benefits. Such fuels will be the key to a circular economy going forward, Lowe said.
“We have to convert this linear system that we have into a circulatory system, and when it comes to petroleum, which is the basis of our energy and material system, we see the way to get there through plastics.”
“We can synthesize crude oil in a circular rather than linear fashion from finite reserves,” he continued. “The production of synthetic petroleum will come full circle.”
“We are currently consuming, but we are not creating; therefore, industrially, if we add the creation side that we have called ‘petrosynthesis’, we can have a circular carbon system. This would be a carbon cycle in the industrial system, just as we have a carbon cycle in the biological system. Such a system is stable indefinitely, just as biology was stable. “
Exclusive webinar
Paddy Lowe spoke to gasWorld in an exclusive webinar broadcast gasWorld TV on Friday June 11th (2:30 p.m. BST).
In an in-depth interview with Rob Cockerill, Lowe talks about synthetic petroleum, the expansion of alternative fuels, politics and politics, fuels for the next generation of motorsport, and even his favorite races from his more than 30 years at the sharp end of F1.
For more information and information on how to watch the webinar, including on-demand access, please visit www.gasworld.tv.
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