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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.'"
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?
In this house we observe the laws of thermodynamics.
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.
I know the proprietary process:
Get a Snake,
Get some CO2,
Suffecate the Snake,
Extract Snake Oil.
signature is pants
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.
Poop to food, closing the world hunger loop.
Help fight poverty: Punch a poor person.
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
Animals convert oxygen into carbon dioxide (by breathing*). Plants convert carbon dioxide into oxygen (by photosynthesis). Fungi "breathe" like animals do.
My solution to global warming: Eat more steak and mushrooms and less vegetables.
*Simplification due to the various processes that animals use (i.e. lungs or gills)
If they can figure a way to tap into trees and get them sending a current to the grid, that'd be cool! An electric forest, stretching to the horizon, with just the stench of fried squirrel...
I drank what? -- Socrates
Exception at line ("Then keep chopping it down every two years"): Attempt to chop down an already chopped-down tree.
"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something" - Plato
Dude, put the mouse down and back away from the compiler.
Either that or they convinced the USPTO to grant them a patent on photosynthesis.
I hate printers.