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

Call me when it's in production

[Red Flayer]

Vaporware, literally.

Re:Call me when it's in production

[cthulu_mt]

It should balance out those Prius drivers that love the smell of their own farts.

Misleading Summary

[dfetter]

The actual article is about an enzyme. The chemical transformation still requires energy, just as charging a battery does.

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:Misleading Summary

[Smauler]

Modern diesel engines are exactly as complex as modern petrol engines. No mainstream petrol engines now use carboretters (that I know of). The only big disadvantage with diesel engines is that they are heavier - they require a little more ironmongery.

Diesel engines are generally simpler to run and way less sensitive to water. There's a reason all commercial vehicles are diesels. The weight is also a reason why we haven't seen diesel bikes hitting the mainstream yet either.

Essentially, with current engine design, the _only_ disadvantage to diesels is their weight. That and their performance characteristics - you don't get high reving fun diesels.

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:This cocking around is stupid...

[russotto]

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.

200W? The flow through a gasoline fuel hose can be expressed in watts if you care to. Gasoline has about 32 megajoules per liter. Maximum gas pump in the US is 10 gallons per minute, or 0.63 liters per second. Thus the energy flow rate is 20 megajoules per second -- that is, 20 megawatts. If a gasoline engine is only 1/4 as efficient as an electric engine and there are no charging losses, you can derate that to 5 MW to get the equivalent electric power needed. So, you can keep that 20 amps... provided you're willing to charge at 250,000V. Good luck with that.

Re:i dont understand why

[danbert8]

It's because then you'd constantly require more vespene gas, and imagine how annoying that would be!

Re:Vapor?

[camperdave]

I'd be more interested in splitting the CO2 into carbon and oxygen, for breathing purposes rather than fuel. Spacecraft and submarines use lithium hydroxide "scrubbers" to remove carbon dioxide from the air. It has the side effect of keeping one of the oxygen atoms of the molecule as well as the carbon. The lithium hydroxide is also used up in this process, meaingin a limited supply of breatheable air. If the CO2 is can be cracked back into carbon and oxygen, then you could develop a continuously renewing cycle for the air. This means fewer supply runs for ISS and other outposts.

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.