British Scientists Make Gasoline From Air
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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.
as you said to do that on a airplane I thought you had the idea to do it on a car as well. In the same sorta battry>to gas>to drive fasionHarker067 said:
I kinda expected you were not thinking of a perpetual motion machine
In any case it's a bad idea for both
No you misunderstood me from the start.direkiller said:
I was saying that this technology (making fuel from atmospheric CO2) is probably of interest to aviation. Since electronic cars may well replace fuel driven cars but fuel will probably remain important to aviation it will need a source of that fuel. Batteries are heavy for planes etc. That was my the point I was trying to make from the start.
I was at no time saying we should try to couple to 2 processes together the fuel would of course need access to the grid if not a dedicated power plant ( as I mentioned in posts before the one you commented on).
As i stated previuosly nuclear waste is not a big problem. Yeep the stigma of fear surrounding technology average citizen cannot understand and we got russians to thank for the worst and pretty much only disaster it ever had that fuels the fear. (yes there was also fukoshima, but its level of diaster was MUCH lower. enough to make germans revolt though apperently)cerebus23 said:
I agre that a comtination of energy sourcers is the best, but we should get rid of fossil fuel ones, because if we dont our enviroment is f**ked.Corn biofuel is expensive, why cany you do like europeans and make diesel from raps(spelling?)?. it is much more cheaper, easier to grow and its prices didnt skyrocket even with 10% raps diesel laws because there were many palces it could be grown easily that used to be abandoned.
Nothing in this world is black and white, but with the amount of contrast we have, whne you put nuclear power and mazut factories clsoe by the nuclear power look pretty damn white.
I guess it's sort of self-preserving. CO2 becomes gasoline, gasoline gets used, used gasoline excretes CO2, rinse and repeat.FelixG said:
spartan231490 said:
If you re-read the article, the idea was to get the technology to a point where it COULD produce gasoline in viable quanitties, and then set up a factory to do that run by a solar power plant........ A lot of work yes.... but you would be using THE SUN as a power source, as such you wouldn't have to worry about the fact that you are expending more power to make the fuel... I mean you can't hog the sun, and we won't use the thing up for a few billion years yet so......
Kinda makes your point null and void.
Can't wait to see how some group of rich dickheads is going to find a way to shove it offscreen before it goes into widespread use because it'll cut into their precious big oil profits.
People who ask why we're not living in the "future" can just ask those guys.
People who ask why we're not living in the "future" can just ask those guys.
Hold on - sorry to be the buzzkill, but what about the law of conservation of energy?
You would have to invest a ton of energy into producing this synthetic fuel and, at best, you should only be able to get the same amount of energy back when combust it (which in is impossible in practicality, as there are always energy losses along the process).
How is this going to be useful for anything - other then maybe as a way to story energy in the form of synthetic fuel?
You would have to invest a ton of energy into producing this synthetic fuel and, at best, you should only be able to get the same amount of energy back when combust it (which in is impossible in practicality, as there are always energy losses along the process).
How is this going to be useful for anything - other then maybe as a way to story energy in the form of synthetic fuel?
Yes you'd be using the sun as a power source, but even then it's still not as green as it sounds. You still need more energy from the solar then you get out of the gas, and that solar energy could instead be used to power parts of the existing infrastructure and remove them from the coal system so it will still result in coal being burned to power it, one way or another.MorganL4 said:
It's economically useful because all that energy is still cheaper than drilling and refining. It's also somewhat useful because this gasoline doesn't release fossil carbon, which is a good thing. However, all in all, it's only marginally useful at present, especially with the current global power infrastructure having so much coal power.Ashadow700 said: