Slashdot Mirror
CO2 To Fuel, Closing the "Carbon Loop"
leprasmurf writes "Inhabitat has posted an article detailing a recent announcement of a process to turn CO2 into fuel. The process, which used to be considered too energy inefficient, uses a multi-step, low pressure, and low temperature biocatalyst to break the CO2 into 'basic hydrocarbon building blocks.'"
Searching the company's website, there is no mention whatsoever of even a single gallon of usable fuel being susccessfully produced using their method. There is, of course, mention of "investment opportunities".
Caveat Utilitor
Photosynthesis?
ROMANES EUNT DOMUS
Imagine that, we could power the universe!
"Inhabitat has posted an article detailing a recent announcement of a process to turn CO2 into Fuel."
And you all thought a Breathalyzer was bad.
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
The process, which used to be considered too energy inefficient, uses a multi-step, low pressure, and low temperature biocatalyst to break the CO2 into 'basic hydrocarbon building blocks.
1) Grow a plant.
2) Stick in the ground for a few thousand years.
3) Dig up resultant black goo.
4) Distill goo into reactive liquid and distribute...
How is this new? When did it become more efficient?
Self owned. No spell check in the title bar....
Just Basic Organic Chemistry... This process of "upgrading" has been done for decades to create "Synthetic" oils and other hydrocarbons. They just are using something magical called "Biocatalytic Reactors" (Probably contain high temperature enzymes and catalysts but operate at lower temps than current industrial processes). This is just reversing the hydrocarbon oxidation (burning) process using some for of "upgrader" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_petroleum_industry_in_Canada_(oil_sands_and_heavy_oil)#Upgraders . These reactions to reduce CO2 into "fuel" will be VERY endothermic (absorb heat energy) and must take place at higher temps without Oxygen present.. All that energy must come from somewhere! It is just sooooo much cheaper to use hydrocarbons from the ground.
CO2 is just an acidic oxide of Carbon.
To create 'fuel' from it you must change it to something completely different by adding significant energy and removing the Oxygen... The energy is stored in the formed carbon bonds and hydrogen bonds (Why we call these type of fuels Hydro-carbons).
CO2 is a significantly lower energy state carbon oxide compound.
This process is not different than the incorrect view that H2O (water) is a as fuel. (Sure after you add massive amounts of electricity and electrolytically separate (reduce) the hydrogen from the oxygen from the hydrogen into hydrogen gas and Oxygen.
This is really the same thing using some "Biocatayltic Reactor" to add energy to CO2 to separate the carbon from the oxygen (reduction of the carbon to a non-oxidized form such as CO2 or CO)
You cannot hide from the chemistry.
The energy to do this MUST come from *SOMEWHERE*. Considering that 99% of the massive amounts of energy stored in the molecular bonds of all fossil fuels do not have to be added to these fuels in their extraction, refinement, delivery to end-users, what this "new" technology is doing is just adding the "Creation" part of the hydrocarbon fuel and that takes about 99% more energy to do because you still have the remaining three steps.
I will bet that this process is more expensive than letting mother nature create starches/sugars that we then modify into hydrocarbon "fuels".
It is VERY hard to beat the efficiency of mother nature on this one:
6CO2 + 6H2O + Light = C6H12O6 (Glucose) + 6O2
I wonder what a gallon of this "fuel" costs. (Add enough energy to most substances and you can create "fuel" to them.) CO2 is a waste product because it (and CO and H2O) is the lowest energy product of hydrocarbon combustion (oxidation). This is Basic Chemistry.
Plants can also turn CO2 into fuel--but it all takes energy. For plants, the energy comes from the sun.
Where does the energy come from for the Carbon Sciences process? All I see are diagrams of a "biocatalyst" and an explanation that somehow it takes less energy for their process--but the amount of energy in to turn CO2 into a biofuel must necessarily be more than the amount of energy you'll get back out of that biofuel.
In this house we observe the laws of thermodynamics.
There's WAY too much in the way of unanswered questions here. Mainly: WHERE is the ENERGY coming from?
Bio-this-and-that doesn't change the thermodynamics of it.
The homepage of this company is VERY suspicious. Any company like this that focuses as much on 'investor relations' as on the tech itself (and has a penny stock to boot!) is likely bullshit.
The tech pages say NOTHING of where the energy is coming from. NOTHING about what kind of 'biocatalytic' processes are involved. And patent bullshit like
"Of greatest significance, our process occurs at low temperature and low pressure, thereby requiring far less energy than other approaches."
Um, no.. The VAST BULK of the energy you spend on making hydrocarbons out of CO2 will ALWAYS be on the energy required for the reaction itself. (Unless the process was created by a total incompetent.)
This process, known as Dowers Conversion, has been shown to be extremely inefficient. The uptake energy flow often amounts to the heat dissipation, which really detracts from the captured source amount. Several respected physicists, such as Hoederring at UTSC, Berlin have panned this idea as a perpetual motion hoax.
There has to be some energy input if they're going to be breaking up CO2 and turning it into oxygen and hydrocarbons. There also has to be some source of hydrogen.
If they were able to get cheap hydrogen and electricity without using even more fossil fuels, we probably wouldn't need this process in the first place.
If you had the clean energy available to power this process at a coal fired power plant, why wouldn't you just sell that energy in the first place and dispense with the coal?
I suppose you could burn coal and use the energy and some of the CO2 to make a lesser amount of gasoline, diesel, or some other more portable fuel.
Can we please have a new Crackpot (or maybe Quackpot, or Snakepot, shit, I dunno) section on slashdot, specifically for these half-baked bullshit stories? Would make a nice replacement for Idle, methinks.
I mean, unless this was just meant to remind us of high school science & biology. Heck, that'd also make a nice Idle section substitute.
Today's weirdness is tomorrow's reason why. -- Hunter S. Thompson
More snake oil, this time with an enviro sales pitch.
The company's website, Carbon Sciences has no real information, no science, no scientific articles, no patents pending, nothing.
It's also very weird that they are based in Santa Barbara (California), but only collaborate with a university in Finland. No universities closer than Finland? That commute is pretty long. Southern California is full of schools.
Of course, Carbon Sciences are a penny stock on the NASDAQ over-the-counter market (is leprasmurf an investor?):
http://www.carbonsciences.com/01/investors.php
http://finance.yahoo.com/q?d=t&s=CABN.OB
You are safer investing in Lehman Brothers or AIG.
*sigh* Why admit a mistake, when you could have just cleverly defined "porcess?"
If you can make fuel out of CO2 from a power plant, why use that power plant in the first place? Why not make fuel out of thin air? There's plenty of CO2 in the atmosphere.
no, I don't have a sig
No, really, I'm serious! They use snake oil. The oil excreted by snakes as they burrow from their underground lairs is what actually creates oil. However, it takes combinations of snake oil from both venomous and non-venomous snakes to make oil that is combustable -- That's why there are MULTIPLE PHASES of the transformation from CO2 to the necessary compounds.
The real secret here is finding snakes capable of slithering over blocks of dry ice without freezing to death. The way they do that is they pour piping hot McDonald's coffee on the snakes before having them slither over the dry ice to create the oil sludges required. Hence, they use snake oil.
That, or this is a crock of shit and shouldn't get the time of day.
The problem is that all the energy studies I've seen (which anyone at a university or college can read) seem to show the highest bang-for-the-buck is for wind turbines being used to crack water (H20) into fuel cells to power large vehicles, especially trains (where a fuel cell powerplant works well) and large tractor trailers (less efficient).
Carbon sequestration and recycling, while important long-term goals, won't be able to do anything before 2050, by which time we're more likely to have fusion power.
Stick with what works - tidal, geothermal, wind, solar, algae biofuel - not with things that are difficult to deliver in a timespan longer than your entire working lifetime.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
"somebody has CO2, and made it into fuel! no details!"
there's a million ways to do that
all of which require energy. there is no way to convert CO2 into any kind of usable fuel that does also include putting energy in at some point
whereever that energy comes from is the real story. since that isn't even hinted at, there's no story here. or, alternatively, some idiot thinks you can turn CO2 into fuel without an energy input. which beggars the low end of the iq curve in terms of understanding the subject matter here
if i took random spam from my inbox about growing my penis size and posted it here, that would be more informative and useful than this crap nonstory
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
New word derivation: pork, porcine, porcess. Obviously the word is related to the missing #5 step Profit. No doubt he concludes its a method of getting government subsidies and tax break investments in order to make a "silk purse out of a sow's ear". As has been very obvious a corporation does not need to show a profit on the books for it to be profitable to its founders and officers, too obviously of late.
Last February, Los Alamos announced they had a process that converts CO2 to gasoline. The associated white paper proposed using a nuclear reactor to provide the requisite energy to drive the process. They went as far as to estimate the costs of their process and pegged the cost of gasoline at $4.30 gallon at the pump. A significant fraction of their cost estimate was credit costs to finance the plant. They figured 50 cents for every dollar sales given the billions they'd need to start the process. Without factoring the credit costs (which they could do if they could convince enough investors to take an equity position instead of borrowing the capital) they estimated their process produced gasoline at $1.40 per gallon.
...how about locating the reactors in the Deserts of our planet so they can simply absorb lots of heat from the environment?
Poop to food, closing the world hunger loop.
Help fight poverty: Punch a poor person.
Where the f**k do people find these brain-impaired investors? Why can't I find them? I can make snake oil, po sweat. I can tell people everything they want to hear. I can make up ridiculous unbelievable stories with no problem at all! Hell, I can do even better. You want infinite energy??? I can give you infinite energy * 2! That's twice as good even our best conmen competitors! Surely if the whole of Slashdot were to team together we could make a fortune with these wacky ideas!
What is it that makes it possible for these kind of people to have investors fawn at their feet whilst the rest of us have problems getting investors to believe in the basic laws of physics?
What we need is a fill-in form in the series of the
.)
Your post advocates a
( ) physical ( ) legislative ( ) market-based ( ) chemical
approach to global warming. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws
form. This is slashdot. We don't need no stinking optimism here.
I'll compile it, contributions are welcome. Here are mine.
( ) it violates the First Law of Thermodynamics
( ) it violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics
Specifically, your plan fails to account for
( ) the energy needed to accomplish your simple tranformation
In the process called burning, hydrocarbons combine with oxygen and release energy.
To reverse the process (which is what they're saying) you have to put an equal amount of energy back in ... if it's 100% efficient, which it won't be.
The only way to get a net gain is to add some free energy from somewhere. The only plausible source is sunlight, but there's no mention of that on their web site.
Fact is, there's no science at all on their web site, just plenty of links for "investors", "investor FAQs", NASDAQ stock quotes, etc.
For credibility they have a link to a Popular Mechanics article but it's for a completely different C02 treatment process.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/earth/4274541.html
No sig today...
everyone here seems to be missing the point. while i have not RTFA, this doesn't seem to be a breakthrough on the 'creating energy' front, it is a breakthrough on the 'getting rid of CO2' front.
yes, a lot of heat is required to convert CO2 into usable energy.... so use nuclear power, or run this in a geothermal crevice, or set up mirrors to catch solar energy, or any number of creative ways. the end result is we can eliminate CO2, and get usable fuel out of it as a bonus.
any means of energy conversion or transferal is going to be a net loss, but at least this way the initial product is something we already want to get rid of, for environmental reasons.
Would this "multi-stage" process simply be highly active green algae producing sugars that are then fermented, and then distilled?
It takes CO2 and produces fuel.
There are two issues here.
The first - energy. It cant be avoided. To make fuel from CO2 you need energy. Nuclear, wind, solar. It doesn't matter what really, but you will need some input and this technology cannot address that.
The second - why do this. Actually, it makes sense to have a liquid fuel base. Transportation runs on liquid fuel as a store of energy. If we make liquid fuels from solar, for example, we can store solar energy in a useful form for when it is dark.
So without commenting on this particular technology - which everyone has quite rightly stated won't work without considering energy inputs - the general concept of creating a liquid fuel energy store has some merit.
Having said this, I've spent quite a bit of time looking at a rather different liquid fuel store which I think has more promise than hydrocarbons.
That fuel is ammonia.
Whilst its only half as energy dense as diesel, its not that hard to make from electricity. In fact, it can be made by electrolysis fairly easily, and this has been done for nearly 100 years. so its not exactly new technology.
Nor is the ability to use it in a standard internal combustion engine. In fact, it was being used as a fuel for buses over 60 years ago and it works in a standard engine with little modification.
Because its less energy dense than diesel, its a lot easier to make synthetically, but has enough energy per litre to be worthwhile. Whilst having half the range per litre of fuel is an inconvenience, I am sure that we could live pretty much as we do today with vehicle technology that is available today.
We either accept half the range, or build the fuel tanks twice as big, or maybe even make the cars twice as efficient. All of these are easy options really.
I think that we have all gotten so fixated on fossil fuels that we have ignored a really low technology solution here.
Michael
There is no cryptographic solution to the problem where the intended receiver and the attacker are the same entity.
Carbon Sciences has developed plans for a CO2-Fuel transformation plant that takes CO2 from a large emitter, such as a power plant, and produces usable fuels as the output.
In case you missed it, that would be when you know this is nonsense.
(By the laws of nature, getting the carbon out of the CO2 will take at least as much energy as you got by burning the carbon in the first place. So attaching the "transformation plant" to a carbon fueled power plant means you have a process turning hydrocarbons into hydrocarbons, and spending energy doing it.)
Even if the process is efficient it might still require a high amount of energy input and not scale well due to constraints on renewable power sources and non-polluting power sources such as sunlight, wind, geothermal, and ocean waves. I am skeptical that enough energy could be diverted from these renewable sources, in light of alternative demands for that energy, to completely close the carbon cycle at our present levels of hydrocarbon fuel consumption. In other words, there will still be demand for natural hydrocarbon fuels because they will be cheaper than artificial conversion of gaseous C02 to fuel for some time to come and probably remain that way until most of the remaining natural hydrocarbon fuel has been extracted from the ground and used. The best that will probably come of this process is to ensure that hydrocarbon fuel will never be completely exhausted as long as the sun is still shining and the world is still turning, but it might become very expensive in the far future (i.e. a luxury that only the very wealthy can regularly afford to use).
Let's not call the race before it's over. While wind might be ahead in terms of "bang-for-the-buck" (not sure what that means exactly) it would be a mistake to back only that.
See which renewable energy becomes viable first on a wide scale. This is probably information that's easily accessible, and so I'm being lazy, but hypothetically if these wind fuel cells will work in fairbanks alaska, but not well anywhere else, then obviously it would be a mistake to fund them and only them.
If this algae stuff works mediocre in all environments, then we back it.
I also have to say that this technology is being touted as a way specifically to recycle carbon, wheras wind fuel cells don't. So... while wind fuel cells may be great, they're not doing what this stuff does. Kind of like pointing out that the prius is super fuel efficient. That's great and all, but if you need a tow truck, the advantages of the prius don't make a difference. Wind might be more efficient and affordable, but doesn't do anythign with CO2.
I was thinking about that too... they've found the key process my plan was missing:
1. Collect pants
2. Biocatalytic reactor
3. Profit!!!
*sigh* Why admit a mistake, when you could have just cleverly defined "porcess?"
A "porcess" is a female pig, I thought everyone knew that.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
No matter how they couch it, this can never help the environment. As other have mentioned, the laws of physics say you can never get more hydrocarbon fuel out of this process than you put in to run the power plant running the process. In fact, you can never make a 100% efficient process so you will always end up with extra CO2.
What this would allow is, in the event of Oil becoming truly uneconomical to excavate, the continued use of hydrocarbons for vital situation where nothing else has been shown to be anywhere near as effective, such as the creation of plastic, medicine, and fertilizer. It would also allow the continued use of modern cars and trucks without needing a radical re-design to support Hydrogen, Ethanol, etc. Of course, whether you think this is a good thing is a different story.
Rules of Conduct:
#1 - The DM is always right.
#2 - If the DM is wrong, see rule #1
How exactly does one break down something that does not contain hydrogen into a hydrocarbon? (you know... those types of molecules containing only hydrogen and carbon)
Fusion by 2050...
you're being optimistic.
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
I didn't say it was the only choice, the reality is we need to invest in BUILDING all the other choices.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
That is the ones with the lipstick?
I assume their "multi-step biocatalytic process" is more commonly known as a "tree," or more generally, a "plant."
Wake up, folks. If you get 10 energy units out of burning something, presumably with about 60% efficiency, that means you would need to put in at least 14 units to regenerate it. Add entropy and other inefficiencies, and you'll probably get up to a good 20 units.
Question: If it costs 20 units to regenerate the original 10 units, why not just use the 20 units and forget about regenerating the original 10? Surely they don't pretend to suspend the laws of thermodynamics? Do they know what a catalyst is, in terms of energy inputs and outputs? I'm sure they do.
Suckers everywhere, with pockets full of money. Who can resist?.
Carbon Sciences states that this is more of a stop gap mesaure than anything. They believe that technologies such as this don't create an excuse for gas guzzling vehicles. From the article, "We're not crazy about the concept of encouraging people to gas up in the future . . ." Their advocacy of cleaner, alternative energy sources is good.
With some plants, after you've
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Madness. Take a point-source of CO2 which could be relatively easily sequestered, and turn it into a liquid fuel which will doubtless be dispersed and burnt in thousands of impossible-to-sequester locations. That's no way to reduce emissions, it's a way of perpetuating the status quo. It perhaps may get more energy per unit of CO2, but won't help cut it.
Just have the pig farmers produce more shit, of the sort that this article is composed of.
My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my Father! Prepare to die!
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/04/01/algae.oil/index.html#cnnSTCVideo apparently, you can power all US transportation with 1/10th the area of new mexico.
I'll add my voice to those complaining of rampant idiocy here.
This can be done, has been done, for decades (for much, much longer by plants). It's a very good idea, and more people should be trying it. It would be nice if those people had enough scientific know-how to understand why inorganic catalysts are a good idea (biocatalysts break down very easily, cost energy to remake, are not as efficient).
The basic test is: Is your complicated bio system more or less efficient than sticking a wire from a cheap solar cell into some solution and generating fuel electrochemically? Catalysis is still thermodynamic, so you're going to take an efficiency hit at each stage of that complicated process.
My favorite part of their website is where they talk about the "intense" light energy needed to split an oxygen off of CO2. It's a good thing we're not exposing ourselves to this "intense" light radiation!
Sayeth TFA, "Carbon Sciences process uses inexpensive, renewable biomolecules to catalyze certain chemical reactions required to transform CO2 into basic hydrocarbon building blocks."
Biomolecules like chlorophyll, perhaps?
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Not necessarily; see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polywell
"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something" - Plato
I will admit to reading neither the white paper, or any other part of their website, but I did read the grandparent's post:
However, the normal questions still apply:
Now, the answer to number 1 is the same as every other intermediate fuel source (like hydrogen). It might not be practical or possible or as efficient to have the process going on separately in each car. In this case, the proposed energy source is nuclear. So, yeah, I don't think I'd want a nuclear reactor in every car on the road. At this point you might think about question 2, "If we're just going to use nuclear as the power source anyway, are we sure that using this process and storage mechanism is better than the others out there?" In this case I'm guessing no (I don't actually know, but it's just an inkling), but maybe not, and anyway using this method wouldn't require any changes to our current cars. -Steve
We always knew Comcast was corrupt, here's the proof: http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1909890&cid=34545432
And with cellulosic ethanol using the entire cornstalk - or sawdust or sawgrass, and with the electricity coming from wind towers and solar furnaces, there ya go: closed cycle carbon. For that matter, we could go back to wood-fired steam engines.
"As other have mentioned, the laws of physics say you can never get more hydrocarbon fuel out of this process than you put in to run the power plant running the process."
Solar cells and wind farms burn hydrocarbon fuel? I never knew that...
False assumption number 1: Your power plant is hydrocarbon based.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
Which is why, if you're pale, sunblock is a good idea. There's a billion+ year old working prototype for this concept, it's called chlorophyll. CO2 + H2O + low-temperature biocatalyst = fuel (in the form of sugars).
Converting CO2 into vehicle fuels will require MASSIVE amounts of energy. The source of this energy is mysteriously missing from the vendor's website. That would be the FIRST item that they would list on their todo list and their technology announcement if it were legitimate. This "announcement" ranks right up there with those devices to add to your car to burn water so that you can get 200 mpg. Maybe Slashdot can do a story on one of those next week...
I wonder how the 'hydro' in 'hydrocarbon' emerges as you break CO2.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
The process, which used to be considered too energy inefficient, uses a multi-step, low pressure, and low temperature biocatalyst to break the CO2 into 'basic hydrocarbon building blocks.
Yeah. I got those processes, too. They're called photosynthesis followed by another called fermentation and then (an optional) one called distillation. It turns out tasty by-products, too.
That is all.
"...a multi-step, low pressure, and low temperature biocatalyst to break the CO2 into 'basic hydrocarbon building blocks..." We've already got hundreds of units on our 13 acre lot. We're using the beta-name of "tree"s. A big improvment over the previous installments of "straw" and "brush". What's more, we can feed the by-product into a ferrous holding center where they are oxidized, producing infrared radiation with which one can heat a living unit. -Frank
People (especially policy-makers) need to learn to think more clearly about energy sources versus forms of energy storage. Existing petroleum reserves, solar energy (and its relatives like wind power), and nuclear power are, with respect to our technology and timescales, true energy sources; we can harvest energy from them directly, using much less energy to obtain them than we harvest from them.
On the other hand, things like this CO2->hydrocarbon scheme, or hydrogen-powered cars, involve new energy storage technologies. It takes as much energy to turn the CO2 into a hydrocarbon, or to crack water into hydrogen and oxygen, as you get when you burn the resulting fuel. Actually, it takes more energy to create than you get back, as you can never achieve 100% efficiency.
It may be that producing an energy-storage product and using it to (e.g.) power cars is a good overall investment, as you can get economies of scale and highly tuned efficient conversion at the true energy source (e.g., a nuclear reactor) and then use your storage material to distribute the resulting stored energy conveniently for small, distributed uses.
Until people get used to making this distinction, our energy policy will continue to be a foolish mess.
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a skull.
....once you can fake that you have got it made...
Since anhydrous ammonia is so easily used in the illicit manufacture of meth, the govt will never allow it to be easily accessible to the public. In fact many states have now made its mere posession a felony if you are not a licensed chemist or a farmer using it to fertilize crops, and even then it has to be purchased, transported, stored, and used under the strictest controls now.
Nothing to see here..
I guess he forgot to put lipstick on it then.
It might be desirable to use energy to get rid of a pollutant (ie. CO2).
I fail to see how this is better than carbon sequestering though. Their process will take much more energy than just liquefying the CO2 and they're intending to make it into liquid fuels which will be:
a) Converted back to CO2 further down the line.
b) Require CO2 to transport.
In effect the CO2 has become a sort of inefficient battery for energy storage/transport.
>"using this method wouldn't require any changes to our current cars"
I'm pretty sure that's a dead-end way of thinking. The cars on people's driveways are only going to last another ten years or so. It's nothing to base a long-term policy on.
I think diesel engines are the way forward because they can work with much more viable fuel sources, eg. raw vegetable oils and biodiesels and they fit the existing infrastructure.
Electricity is cute but the power grid will never handle the demands if we switch our transport systems to use it and there's already a worldwide shortage of copper for cables.
No sig today...
It's also less efficient at producing chemical energy than a solar cell, saltwater and some silver wire. Photosynthesis has a limitation in that it can't lead to the degradation of DNA or destroy the other components of the cell. Chlorophyll only lasts a few months before it's turned to mush by dissipating too much light as heat. The newest inorganic catalysts start with what chlorophyll does, then get rid of the limitations.
That would be a "Palin".
Investors wanted.
Bio CO2 Capture Mechanism
Conversion into usable fuel.
For your investment you will 1 apple tree seed. Enjoy the fruits of your carbon sequestration. Fruit can either be eaten for fuel or tree burned to run steam powered car.
I stopped reading when I got to the part that said that catalysts "transform CO2 into basic hydrocarbon building blocks".
CO2 + catalysts + other stuff, maybe, but not CO2 alone.
I knew what they meant, but before I take them seriously they need to learn how to put it in proper English.
Photosynthesis?
Boring. Besides, their method has towers and cooling tanks and a machine that goes "BING!!!"
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
I saw the Green Freedom developer, Dr. Jeffrey Martin, give a talk at Georgetown. His process is already really efficient. As I recall the GF process to convert CO2 into fuel was within a factor of 7 of the theoretical minimum energy required which compares well even to biological processes. I'm skeptical that the magic proprietary "Biocatalytic Reactors" Inhabitat has developed could be significantly more efficient, especially since no numbers whatsoever are provided. Yellow Flag: Inhabit doesn't even claim to have a patent pending on their "breakthrough" process. Green Freedom has at least a few real patents in the works.
It's obvious really. By the use of hydrino catalysts you can force the CO2 into a lower energy state allowing it to convert the two oxygen atoms into hydrogen. Just ask Dr. Mills.
hmm they invented the first (cold?) fusion device and all they need is a proprietary catalyst to fuse two Oxygen molecules into one Hydrogen molecule ? Or are they renting CERN for the rest of the evening ?
I hope no one falls for this obvious scam.. There is no H in CO2 or in CO.
--
I am so sorry for not reading this article before posting, but basic 101 chemistry says if there is no H in there, there is no hydrogen.
Since I was old enough to understand, when oil hit $10, $20, $30, $40, $50, $60, $70, $80, $90, $100, $110, $120, $130, $140, $150, and when solar PV efficiency hit 10%, 20%, 30%, 40%, 50% etc. then all the problems of the world would be solved. Oh, yea, where are the flying cars?
I'm sure the failure to realize this freedom, utopia, and the Star Trek economy is somehow George Bush's fault with Dick Cheney in the background pulling the puppet strings but frankly I'm sick of these bullshit stories on slashdot.
How about some real science with real progress and numbers about how this is really going to make a difference? Never mind the real destruction of wealth and food production the ethanol custerfuck has brought about, how about some real progress on alternative energy?
Oh yea, just a hint, get the fuckwit demopublicans politicians out of the process?
"I say we take off, nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
Ammonia is nasty stuff.
Ammonia spillages in car crashes would kill people, rescue workers would need breathing apparatus.
Run out of fuel? Why not carry a plastic bag of ammonia down the street? Good idea...
Ever had a good whiff of ammonia? Nobody would want to live within ten blocks of a gas station.
This problem is about more than just chemistry.
No sig today...
> The process, which used to be considered too energy inefficient...
Damn, why do these thermodinamic laws keep getting in our ways?
Give me a break, will'ya?
I don't know if this is related, but there was a similar Google tech talk recently:
Carbon Neutral Synthetic Hydrocarbon Fuels
They discuss creating liquid fuels from carbon dioxide and (here's what the article linked from slashdot is missing) hydrogen (from electrolysis or natural gas).
The method to do this has been around for many years. It is called planting trees.
This
In about:config, set layout.spellcheckDefault to 2.
It's not a gimmick - it's real science. If it didn't do something so amazing, could they afford to do this?
> See which renewable energy becomes viable first on a wide scale.
If I had to guess, I'm thinking solar, on the grounds that there's more total energy there to be had.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
Maybe I'm feeling pessimistic right now, but...
Like other great ideas which have come and gone, this is probably either
A) Too good to be true
or
B) Will never come to fruition due to corporate greed.
Yes they do, this guy says so!
The trick is to get the right catalyst. 3 parts unicorn feathers to 1 part pixie dust should be fine.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Business plan:
Step 1: Get lots of CO2
Step 3: Make lots of money.
Seriously, though:
- Fuels are high in energy; hence, when they are burned, they release energy; fuels low in energy are, by definition, poor fuels.
- CO2, on the other hand, is relatively low in energy.
- To convert a low energy compound to a high energy one you need... energy. Catalysts ('biocatalysts' or old-fashioned inorganic catalysts) simply lower the 'pay to play' of a chemical reaction, the activation energy. The net energy cost is identical.
- There's nothing on the website which indicates what that energy actually is, but unless they're going to get it from the sun (which is hardly 'new': plants do it) the production of that energy has to consume more energy than the 'fuel' created from the CO2 can ever deliver. (Damn that thermodynamics!)
So, to return to my point:
Step 2: convince lots of dumb people to invest in your scam.
Proof of concept, or it doesn't exist.
Truly, Slashdot is powered by your submissions!
.evom ton seod gis eht
I am confused here. Doesn't the "hydro" in "hydrocarbons" refer to hydrogen? Is there any hydrogen in CO2?
Kind of a bullshit article, huh?
Athiesm is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby.
at least for those of us on the old continent...
Tchernobyl is an old story now.
The biological chain that makes mushrooms absorb and retain radioactive compounds is still quite an actual story.
I'm not a bio fanatic, I just know that both my physics and my biology teacher at the time stopped eating any sort of mushrooms just after the 'incident' at Tchernobyl, and they recently told me they would keep on avoiding them for another 10 years or so.
The only exception they accept is what we call the "champignon de paris" which is raised in dark caves.
My ex-biology teacher also told me a little something about mushrooms imported from eastern europe (to western europe) being specifically sorted as they disturb the Geiger counter the less => since Chernobyl, food imports from eastern europe are tested for radioactivity.
So I don't know if in the US mushrooms are such a delicacy, and I don't know if the US had a 'serious' nuclear reactor incident since Three Miles Island (except if you count the nuclear testings in Nevada and everything the press never told you), but I made it a point NOT to eat mushrooms for another good ten years, even if I really love 'les Cepes' and 'les girolles'...
It takes 40+ muscles to frown, but only four to extend your arm and bitchslap the motherfucker
Depending on how frosty the piss is, we could extract power using a Stirling engine.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stirling_engine
And no, that is not a troll. The pic on the right is pure coincidence.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
The proprietary process:
photosynthesis.
This process simply provides a mechanism to store and transport energy. It is no different than plugging your electric car into an outlet that uses power generated by windmills to charge batteries, except you fill the tank with synthesized hydrocarbon fuel. No laws of thermodynamics are being violated. The only question is whether the process is a cost effective use of energy produced by other sources.
This is great news, but the plant union will never let this stand. And don't think you can just vote McCain and let government union busters take care of it. Imagine all the trees refusing to photosynthesize until this competing technology is kept from humanity. I say we fight back! I'm having a salad for dinner, how about you?
> H-O-CH2-CH3 that served certain functions for the cell/lifeform
Everybody's favorite molecule.
thegodmovie.com - watch it
Even though the process will still require energy input, if it takes place at a low temperature, it could be powered by a low-grade heat source, effectively using energy that would otherwise be wasted. Alternatively, it may be possible that the process can be powered by the breakdown of waste materials.
Not a chemist, but...
Conversion of CO2 to a carbolic acid and reacting that with organic compounds to form carboxlic acids, which can then be converted into hydrocarbons through reaction with heated alumina... should give you the low carbon weight hydrocarbons with a low energy expenditure levels.
Google: carbolic acid
Google: carboxylic acid
Google: carboxylic acid conversion hydrocarbon alumina
They can't reveal too much because if they did, others would be able to use the process.
There is also the case of the process would require a fairly massive facility, as the conversion process, if operated on in a low-energy fashion, would have fairly low efficiencies, and thus would require a large scale setup to get usable amounts of material.
Just a thought, after a little googling. :)
Wing.
Winged Power Photography
Practicality. There are lots of vehicles designed to run off hydrocarbons and an infrastructure to support that setup.
Transmitting electricity over long distances leads to a loss, and there'd still be a converion of electrical to chemical if you're charging a battery.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
There are 2 sections; the other process proposes converting CO2 to carbonates. One of the people mentioned at their site, Ron Zevenhoven, wrote about using waste slag in combination with co2. I think the conclusion was that renewing/using the hydroxide(s) either was too expensive or generated more net CO2. Anyone know how much energy it takes to convert CO2 to a carbonate?
break the CO2 into 'basic hydrocarbon building blocks.'
Breaking a carbon - oxygen compound into carbon - hydrogen fragments? Hold cold fission, batman!
As always, Peer Review or GTFO.
Oops... too much Oxygen and all the trees die, not to mention we could all explode in a massive fireball;^)
Yes ... the one that, for some unaccountable reason, wants to have sex with a green frog.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Your post advocates a
[ ] physical [ ] legislative [ ] market-based [ ] chemical .)
approach to global warming. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws
[ ] it violates the First Law of Thermodynamics
[ ] it violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics
[ ] catalysts are NOT magic
Specifically, your plan fails to account for
[ ] the energy needed to accomplish your simple tranformation
[ ] it requires more non-renewable energy inputs than the renewable energy produced by it.
[ ] It requires immediate cooperation from the entire world all at once.
[ ] People will cheat.
[ ] It requires the population to act contrary to self-interest.
[ ] Extensive existing infrastructure.
[ ] Problems storing power.
[ ] Inefficient power transport systems.
[ ] Variable weather.
[ ] Rich and powerful industries and lobby groups who stand to lose money.
[ ] Politicians who know nothing about science.
[ ] It uses Nuclear power, and that scares a large number of people who don't get the science behind it.
[ ] It uses science, and that scares a large number of people who don't get the science behind it.
In summary:
[ ] Nice try, but it won't actually work.
[ ] You're a scammer trying to blind investers with psuedoscience.
[ ] You're completely nuts.
Your post advocates a
[ ] physical [ ] legislative [ ] market-based [ ] chemical .)
approach to global warming. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws
[ ] it violates the First Law of Thermodynamics
[ ] it violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics
[ ] catalysts are NOT magic
Specifically, your plan fails to account for
[ ] sounds too good to be true.
[ ] actually is too good to be true.
[ ] no supporting studies or other peer-reviewed research
[ ] marketing materials use the word "proprietary" and/or "patent pending" way too often.
[ ] company founders^H^H^H^H^H^Hperpetrators previously convicted of fraud and/or embezzlement
[ ] investors must have the ability to suspend disbelief at will
[ ] the energy needed to accomplish your simple transformation
[ ] it requires more non-renewable energy inputs than the renewable energy produced by it.
[ ] It requires immediate cooperation from the entire world all at once.
[ ] People will cheat.
[ ] It requires the population to act contrary to self-interest.
[ ] Extensive existing infrastructure.
[ ] Problems storing power.
[ ] Inefficient power transport systems.
[ ] Variable weather.
[ ] Rich and powerful industries and lobby groups who stand to lose money.
[ ] Politicians who know nothing about science.
[ ] It uses Nuclear power, and that scares a large number of people who don't get the science behind it.
[ ] It uses science, and that scares a large number of people who don't get the science behind it.
In summary:
[ ] Nice try, but it won't actually work.
[ ] You're a scammer trying to blind investors with psuedoscience.
[ ] You're completely nuts.
I'll ignore the Slashdot summary as they do tend to be, especially, poorly worded, but if you actually read the article you'll realize that that's what they are advocating. They refer directly to it by talking about the "carbon loop". If they were planning on developing all the power from renewables, then it wouldn't be a loop anymore and your see a net decrease in total CO2 in the atmosphere. They make the point again when they talk about then running the fuel produced in cars. They acknowledge that there is no way to capture the secondary CO2 produced by those cars. They reference it a 3rd time in their first diagram when they list "Fossil Fuel Power Plants" as one of the primary sources for the feed CO2. Your assumption about the use of renewable energy sources is beyond the scope of the plan referenced in the article.
Rules of Conduct:
#1 - The DM is always right.
#2 - If the DM is wrong, see rule #1