Good post. The deciding variable is missing

Good post. The deciding variable is missing.

The Yokohama plant produces about one barrel a day. 159 liters. The plan was 300 barrels a day in 2028 and 10,000 in 2040. ENEOS did not build the pilot plant and announced the end of the project within the GI fund in March 2027.

Fischer-Tropsch dates from 1925. Germany ran a war on it. South Africa ran an embargo on it. Nobody needed to prove that hydrogen and carbon become liquid hydrocarbons. What ENEOS tested was the integrated chain: direct air capture, electrolysis with clean energy, FT synthesis, refining. Integration engineering. Not discovery.

I spent more than 25 years in operations. I started at the end of the fuel chain, in automotive retail, and moved into energy by decision, not by chance. I built an operation in 18 states. Today I am a Director at Linus Green Energy, which generates power, and the math ENEOS did is the same math I do here every week.

Here the input is green hydrogen. While it costs what it costs, e-fuel competes with nothing. It is not a matter of time. It is a matter of the curve.

And before anyone thinks this is a Japanese problem: in Brazil we stopped growing for the same kind of math. Not for lack of sun, not for lack of demand, not for lack of technology. Because of the wire costs and transmission charges the country stacked on top of generation. The project still works. It just stopped closing.

I held back expansion because the line does not close. When that math rebalances, I resume the next day. I have the operation ready, waiting for the number, not waiting for the technology.

I have seen Boards approve projects because they work. Working is the floor. The question is at what price, with what CAPEX, over what horizon, and who funds the gap. ENEOS did that math and changed direction before burning the pilot. That is discipline, not retreat.

Whoever did not look at that line grew beautifully for two years and today is asking for help not to close.

Cost does not fall on its own with time. It falls because someone decides to fund scale before there is a return. ENEOS looked at its own balance sheet and said no. There are people here who looked at their own balance sheet and said nothing.