British Scientists Make Gasoline From Air
- Thread starter JonB
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The big thing here is that it still requires energy input so... energy crisis not resolved. Perhaps if the process is efficient enough and cost effective we won't have to replace our gasoline powered transportation fleets with something else.Witty Name Here said:
Because batteries are inefficient, expensive and usually very toxic.CardinalPiggles said:
1: Use Solar, Wind, Geothermal, Nuclear, ectspartan231490 said:
2: Create 'Fuel' use said energy + CO2 & Water
3: Burn Fuel and release CO2 + Water
4: Repeat 2 and recapture equal amounts of CO2 & water
5: Allow biosphere to reabsorb emissions from previous era
6: Profit (I.e. Pseudo-closed energy system based on indirect sources of solar energy)
well minus the nuclear waste that is, though i agree we should make more use of nuclear power, but the old stigma of the 70s puts a damper on that lest over here, NIMBY and 3 mile island go hand in hand anytime someone suggests we should build more nuclear plants.Strazdas said:
IMO we need to do all the drilling, nuclear etc a combination of all resources available while putting research into biofuels, a one way or the highway approach that politicians put us on is unworkable and just plain backwards, when it takes far more energy to make hydrogen and biofuels than you get out of them.
and do not even get me started on the asshat move of mandating corn for biofuel while we cannot even use the plant part of the plants to make it. and skyrocketing global corn prices as a result. ethanol should have been a 10 or 20 year down the road thing and not today, simply because it is not ready, and the world cannot afford to pay more for corn.
meanwhile we cut off drilling.
why i say politicians are either completely ignorant or criminally motivated.
Or look up thorium another fissionable fuel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium-based_nuclear_power. There's a lot more thorium in the earth then uranium and we could run power plants off that for a very long time. Ice land has the advantage of people in a geologically interesting fault zone not sure how well geothermal works away from such areas.chadachada123 said:
Do which? Run a plane off a gasoline like fuel as I'm suggesting this technology might be an interesting tool for cause we move planes currently using jet fuel. Or are you suggesting trying to create an electric plane would make it a brick? Cause we can make a model plane that runs on batteries right now so again I don't think that's as dire as you suggest. Either way I have no idea where 100% efficient comes into this or what you're arguing for try to rephrase your complaint.direkiller said:
If my original point wasn't clear I'm suggesting using a primary energy plant using the researchers method to create jet fuel. Since weight constraints are much more important in aviation then in ground based locomotion this jet fuel may be more cost effective for aviation. A battery which may be fine for cars might be too heavy or not meet other needs for running a plane. This was merely speculative.
I don't particularly disagree on the main points. There's always the possibility that battery technology will stall of course but that's probably unlikely. I just didn't want to see the environmental impact quite so white washed (I am in fact a proponent of more nuclear power). Nothing we do is environmentally friendly. We mine the earth for rare metals used in solar cells, for fissionable materials none of that is really environmentally friendly.Strazdas said:
Solar is generally considered environmentally friendly. But current plans for a solar plant in the Mojave have run into problems with endangered tortoises in that same desert. We shouldn't be thinking of things as environmentally friendly vs destructive. Instead we should be realistically considering and discussing the pros and cons of these technologies.
Jets move forward based on basically one thingHarker067 said:
The amount of fuel expelled at a velocity(like a rocket)
So the change in mass is required for a jet to work. No change in mass no movement. and when you change energy from one state to another there is always heat loss.(hence the heater)
Wizardry like this can only be dealt with one way. Let's grab us some torches and a stake and have a good ol' fashioned witch burning!
Note that I'm talking about planes in general and not specifically jets (a subset of planes). You can in fact make electric planes that fly but which are not jets. So I don't see how that affects the fact that one might be able to make an electric passenger plane. Or the idea that using this kind of fuel process to power your plane instead of an electric plane could be advantageous.direkiller said:
Here as an extra here's the wiki page on electric planes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_aircraft
So this reaction requires that you put energy into the equation? Doesn't that mean a greater drain on our energy resources? Even if we power it through green energy... why not just invent cars that run on green energy and cut out the middle man and the energy necessary to turn air to gas int he first place? If CO2 removal is our concern, why not try to invent a solar powered CO2 absorber? This seems like a good thing but the core logic seems flawed, like we invented an unnecessary middle step.
Yes im well aware electric planes exisist.Harker067 said:
They are not well suted to large scale commercial use and never will be due to the nesesity of being prop driven(due to reason stated before) and the inability to store that much electricity on a plane and still carry an economical amount of passages.
Here is the math and why this idea is absurd
Assuming you made a plain with the same energy use as a 747 just with electricity
A 747 burns 5 gallon of fuel per mile(or about 100miles to the gallon per passanger)
a gallon of gas is 1.3x10^8 Joule of energy
so 130,000,000J= 1.3*10^8J
A lithium Sulfur battery has a Energy density of 1MJ/kg or 10^6 J per kilogram
So to move 1 mile it would have to drain the energy found in 130kg of the high end of rechargeable batteries.
To fly to NYC to LA you would need
a 317,000 kg battery at full charge or about 95% of the 747's total takeoff weight excluding the plane
The thing is, if they perfect it then fuel prices are going to have to go down aren't they? That means less money for them (In theory, one could argue that this would discourage people from using public transport and use their cars instead because fuel is dirt cheap). So they'll either have to limit production or this is something that just wont happen, because they're not making enough money. I'm not talking about the people that are actually a part of this but fuel companies etc.Matt King said:
As for helping the whole global warming thing, you don't see bags of cash being poured into renewable sources of energy, do you?
I never said it was a bad idea(in-fact it's a good idea to save billions in infrastructure cost of switching to a pure electric car system based on renewable energy)Harker067 said:
I said it was a bad idea to put this on a car your planning to drive or a jet your planning to move due to very basic physics.
You guys know what this means?
This is probably one of the first Synthetic Fossil Fuels!
...
I say this means we have a good chance of creating a system that no longer needs us to go digging up Real fossil fuels; provided the Clean source of energy used to make it can provide enough for Every Fossil Power plant around.
So... How long will this take to happen? No idea.
But we have just reached the next step on our way to harnessing an entire planet's energy.
Type 1 Civilization, here we come!
This is probably one of the first Synthetic Fossil Fuels!
...
I say this means we have a good chance of creating a system that no longer needs us to go digging up Real fossil fuels; provided the Clean source of energy used to make it can provide enough for Every Fossil Power plant around.
So... How long will this take to happen? No idea.
But we have just reached the next step on our way to harnessing an entire planet's energy.
Type 1 Civilization, here we come!
As it stands the only biofuel capable of competing with gasoline/diesel/petrol/whathaveyou is methanol. It has 2/3rd the bang of the former but can be refined and sold for $1.30 a gallon right now. Multiply by 1/3rd to offset the loss in power and you still have $1.95 per gasoline/petrol gallon in economy of scale. Both left (New York Times) and right wing (AEI, National Review) publications have put their support behind this fuel as a viable competitor to gas/petrol.
I do however like this idea. Support it with nuclear power due to net loss of energy, redirect corporate farm subsidies to this effort, scale it to an effective offsetting level, and only sell the product to plastics manufacturers or other solid object refining instead of fuel refiners, and you'd have a great environmental answer to climate change concerns.
I do however like this idea. Support it with nuclear power due to net loss of energy, redirect corporate farm subsidies to this effort, scale it to an effective offsetting level, and only sell the product to plastics manufacturers or other solid object refining instead of fuel refiners, and you'd have a great environmental answer to climate change concerns.
I don't think we'll hear a lot from that company in the future:
no matter how hard they try, chemical synthesis of alkanes from air
will just be to expensive to use for regular cars and such.
The problem is that there just isnt enough co2 in the air for it.
Even if they could let all the carbon that is in the air react,
about 300000000 litres of air would be needed to fill up your tank.
Since they would produce their petrol in a building they would have to pump all
of that air in and out, wich alone would make the production to costly.
Of cause you wouldnt have that cost if you could bind the carbon out in the
open like, you know, plants do it most of the time and for free.
There will be a lot more electric cars around in the decades to come,biofuels
are relatively inexpensive and you could always make some hydrogen from water
if you are that desperate to convert electric to chemical energy, so i cant really see
a need for Air Fuel Senthesis.....except if they mix a tiny bit of their goo with
regular fuel to make it all ``hip´´ and ``green´´ and expensive so companies can
``boost´´ their images and eco hipsters can feel all better about themselves, wich seems to
be their intention anyways.
no matter how hard they try, chemical synthesis of alkanes from air
will just be to expensive to use for regular cars and such.
The problem is that there just isnt enough co2 in the air for it.
Even if they could let all the carbon that is in the air react,
about 300000000 litres of air would be needed to fill up your tank.
Since they would produce their petrol in a building they would have to pump all
of that air in and out, wich alone would make the production to costly.
Of cause you wouldnt have that cost if you could bind the carbon out in the
open like, you know, plants do it most of the time and for free.
There will be a lot more electric cars around in the decades to come,biofuels
are relatively inexpensive and you could always make some hydrogen from water
if you are that desperate to convert electric to chemical energy, so i cant really see
a need for Air Fuel Senthesis.....except if they mix a tiny bit of their goo with
regular fuel to make it all ``hip´´ and ``green´´ and expensive so companies can
``boost´´ their images and eco hipsters can feel all better about themselves, wich seems to
be their intention anyways.
humm it all sounds a little too good to be true...How much energy is actually required to make this so called air fuel.
It would be great if it could be done on a small scale, imagine if you could fit a car with a solar cell or 2 to allow the car to makes its own fuel when it is not being used, Or make a similar setup on your house to make electricity and warm your house, Or hell it could be a better solution to batteries. A solar powered diesel generator...I could see that happening.
But in more practical terms and from what was said it looks like it would just make solar, wind tidal and hydro plants easier to set-up who set-up a power line system when all they need to do is send in a tanker ever few days or weeks.
Then again it is all just a "Concept". Concepts don't equate to final products, or atleast not all the time.
It would be great if it could be done on a small scale, imagine if you could fit a car with a solar cell or 2 to allow the car to makes its own fuel when it is not being used, Or make a similar setup on your house to make electricity and warm your house, Or hell it could be a better solution to batteries. A solar powered diesel generator...I could see that happening.
But in more practical terms and from what was said it looks like it would just make solar, wind tidal and hydro plants easier to set-up who set-up a power line system when all they need to do is send in a tanker ever few days or weeks.
Then again it is all just a "Concept". Concepts don't equate to final products, or atleast not all the time.