Gasoline From Thin Air

disco_tracy writes "An enzyme found in the roots of soybeans could be the key to cars that run on air. If perfected, the tech could lead to cars partially powered on their own fumes. Even further into the future, vehicles could draw fuel from the air itself. Quoting: 'The new enzyme can only make two and three carbon chains, not the longer strands that make up liquid gasoline. However, Ribbe thinks he can modify the enzyme so it could produce gasoline. ... [Perfecting this process] won't happen anytime soon... "It's very, very difficult," to extract the vanadium nitrogenase, said Ribbe.'

Comments

Stupid journalists

[Wonko the Sane]

I highly doubt that the original inventor has claimed to produce perpetual motion, but the summary will certainly lead people to think in that direction.

They're converting carbon monoxide into hydrocarbon chains. The only energy you are getting out of the car's exhaust is what it didn't use the first time around due to incomplete combustion.

This cocking around is stupid...

[GPLDAN]

Look, this pie in the sky shit is bull. I appreciate R&D much more than most, but we're not going to start chaining carbon atoms on the fly anytime soon, any more than we are just around the corner from inventing the battery that powers Iron Man's suit.


Let's focus on the here and now. A guy named John Wayland who works for Dow Kokam built a 10 second car from LiON batteries, and is now going around to America's drag strips and laying waste to Corvettes and Nissan GTRs in his 1960s Datsun 1200. And when I mean laying waste, I mean a beatdown. Take a look at this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rVTIpS5zb4&feature=player_embedded

This is what we should be looking at. Building a power infrastructure that makes 208 twist locks as easy to get to as gas stations. Or converting gas stations to have a nice 200W 20Amp at every pump. Not this crap.

Re:Misleading Summary

[hitmark]

indeed, thats what gasoline is, a energy container. Its just that its the perfect combo as its highly stable (relative to just about anything else with equivalent energy density), yet will release the energy quickly if poked in the right way.

i keep wondering if one could turn a highway into a kind of electric railroad tho, by equipping electric vehicles with a system to tap supply system pretty much like a electric train do today. So for longer stretches, one would not drain whatever internal storage system one have available.

Re:Vapor?

[Doc Ruby]

Because we can burn natgas in Combined Cycle power plants at over 80% efficiency, instead of in cars at under 18% efficiency. So we should put all the natgas we can into generating electricity instead of using filthy, inefficient coal plants, rather than diverting that gas into cars at under 1/4 the efficiency. In other words, use under 1/4 the natgas to make electricity rather than wasting 3/4 of the energy in it in cars.

Just because T Boone Pickens has a plan to create scarcity in the glut of natgas he owns so much of, to drive up prices by wasting 3/4 of it, doesn't mean we should do it.