New technology for energy storage

[longview]

The Department of Energy Learned How to Turn Carbon Dioxide Into Liquid Fuel
I saw this article, ethanol is useful, I think methane, would be better, but it is a start.
if they can get the claimed 90% efficiency that would be great.

A new catalyst turns carbon dioxide into ethanol at over 90 percent efficiency.

 

[swing_voter]

The Department of Energy Learned How to Turn Carbon Dioxide Into Liquid Fuel
I saw this article, ethanol is useful, I think methane, would be better, but it is a start.
if they can get the claimed 90% efficiency that would be great.

Maybe it will be economical to make fuel from CO2 trapped out of the air one day.


Then we'll have an atmospheric CO2 shortage. People will yell at fuel manufacturers to stop sucking CO2 out of the air.

 

[Exquisitor]

The Department of Energy Learned How to Turn Carbon Dioxide Into Liquid Fuel
I saw this article, ethanol is useful, I think methane, would be better, but it is a start.
if they can get the claimed 90% efficiency that would be great.

Should be useful on Mars.

 

[longview]

Maybe it will be economical to make fuel from CO2 trapped out of the air one day.

if they have a 90% efficiency, that day is a lot closer!
Once we have any hydrocarbon, we can make different hydrocarbons.
The path from C2H5OH to say jet fuel at C8H16, is not that difficult.
If we say the overall efficiency from scratch to transport fuel is 80%, (assuming a 10% cost to rearrange the carbons and hydrogen atoms)
then a gallon of gasoline at 33.4 Kwh per gallon would take 37.1 Kwh to make.
If wholesale electricity can be purchased at $.05 per Kwh, then each gallon of gasoline
would have a cost of goods sold of $1.86, equal to oil at about $65 a barrel.

 

[longview]

Should be useful on Mars.

While the article does not say, I think water is also needed.
There is no hydrogen in CO2, but plenty in C2H5OH.

 

[Deuce]

The Department of Energy Learned How to Turn Carbon Dioxide Into Liquid Fuel
I saw this article, ethanol is useful, I think methane, would be better, but it is a start.
if they can get the claimed 90% efficiency that would be great.

Faraday efficiency is not the same as energy efficiency.

 

[longview]

Faraday efficiency is not the same as energy efficiency.

Do you care to elaborate on the differences?

 

[What if...?]

Maybe it will be economical to make fuel from CO2 trapped out of the air one day.


Then we'll have an atmospheric CO2 shortage. People will yell at fuel manufacturers to stop sucking CO2 out of the air.

It will go back into the atmosphere when burned. The difference is that it's carbon that's already "here" instead of taken out of fossil sequestration.

 

[What if...?]

if they have a 90% efficiency, that day is a lot closer!
Once we have any hydrocarbon, we can make different hydrocarbons.
The path from C2H5OH to say jet fuel at C8H16, is not that difficult.
If we say the overall efficiency from scratch to transport fuel is 80%, (assuming a 10% cost to rearrange the carbons and hydrogen atoms)
then a gallon of gasoline at 33.4 Kwh per gallon would take 37.1 Kwh to make.
If wholesale electricity can be purchased at $.05 per Kwh, then each gallon of gasoline
would have a cost of goods sold of $1.86, equal to oil at about $65 a barrel.

Plus it makes it possible to use the process to store sunlight. Storage is always the bugaboo for power generation and vehicle power systems. If electricity combined with water and this new catalyst (which may he the rub in all of this) makes liquid fuel then that's sunlight stored for a rainy day.

 

[Deuce]

Do you care to elaborate on the differences?

I'm not an expert but I think a rough explanation is FE is the losses incurred during the chemical reaction that are a result of undesired interactions. This catalyst primarily converts CO2 to ethanol but 10% of the energy in the reaction ends up doing something else entirely. (could be producing some other byproduct or contaminant, or just waste heat) It's not the same as comparing the total energy input to the energy you get from burning said ethanol.

I'm extrapolating a bit because the article didn't actually mention Faraday Efficiency, but used the acronym FE and in context it seemed to fit.

 

[What if...?]

While the article does not say, I think water is also needed.
There is no hydrogen in CO2, but plenty in C2H5OH.

There's some water on mars and plenty in the solar system.

It's just a logistics problem.

Frankly I'm amazed so few think its a good idea to get some of our eggs out of this one basket.

In case somebody really ****s up this basket.

 

[longview]

Maybe it will be economical to make fuel from CO2 trapped out of the air one day.


Then we'll have an atmospheric CO2 shortage. People will yell at fuel manufacturers to stop sucking CO2 out of the air.

Fuel produced from atmospheric CO2 would have a net zero emissions.
Not putting new CO2 into the atmosphere for transport, would greatly reduce global emissions.
More important is that the process scales down, so a small remote village could have fuel for a tractor,
and running irrigation pumps, drinking water systems, ect.

 

[Deuce]

Fuel produced from atmospheric CO2 would have a net zero emissions.
Not putting new CO2 into the atmosphere for transport, would greatly reduce global emissions.
More important is that the process scales down, so a small remote village could have fuel for a tractor,
and running irrigation pumps, drinking water systems, ect.

It only needs to scale down in the same fashion that gasoline and diesel "scale down." It scales to the size of my gas tank.

 

[longview]

I'm not an expert but I think a rough explanation is FE is the losses incurred during the chemical reaction that are a result of undesired interactions. This catalyst primarily converts CO2 to ethanol but 10% of the energy in the reaction ends up doing something else entirely. (could be producing some other byproduct or contaminant, or just waste heat) It's not the same as comparing the total energy input to the energy you get from burning said ethanol.

I'm extrapolating a bit because the article didn't actually mention Faraday Efficiency, but used the acronym FE and in context it seemed to fit.

Faraday Efficiency is mentioned in the article link inside the PM article, but we should never expect 100% efficiency.
Argonne National Lab Breakthrough Turns Carbon Dioxide Into Ethanol
Still, 90% efficiency is great for a chemical process.
The Naval research Labs is only claiming 60% for jet fuel, and Sunfire is saying 70% for gasoline.

 

[Deuce]

Faraday Efficiency is mentioned in the article link inside the PM article, but we should never expect 100% efficiency.
Argonne National Lab Breakthrough Turns Carbon Dioxide Into Ethanol
Still, 90% efficiency is great for a chemical process.
The Naval research Labs is only claiming 60% for jet fuel, and Sunfire is saying 70% for gasoline.

Yes, higher faraday efficiency is good.

But it could still be an energy-intensive reaction and therefore expensive. I didn't see a figure for the energy efficiency.

 

[longview]

Yes, higher faraday efficiency is good.

But it could still be an energy-intensive reaction and therefore expensive. I didn't see a figure for the energy efficiency.

Like I said the Navy and Sunfire say the process efficiency is between 60 and 70%,
seeing as the process is the faraday efficiency, I am thinking the 90% is storage efficiency, but they clearly already
know about the other research, so to say it is much more efficient, means it is likely between 70 and 90%.

 

[Exquisitor]

While the article does not say, I think water is also needed.
There is no hydrogen in CO2, but plenty in C2H5OH.

I told them to go to Ceres instead of Mars.

Its much more efficient.

Can't do both yet.

By then we can quench the dust storms all at once and have a nice atmosphere.

No, you wouldn't want to turn around and do that right away so we'd be off to the core protoplanets.

That's where is the gold, precious metals and unlimited iron.

Just build cities and parks while you say, "Give us precipitation or we will mine you up."