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New Sunlight Reactor Produces Fuel
eldavojohn writes "A new reactor developed by CalTech shows promise for producing renewable fuel from sunlight. The reactor hinges on a metal oxide named Ceria that has very interesting properties at very high temperatures. It exhales oxygen at very high temperatures and inhales oxygen at very low temperatures. From the article, 'Specifically, the inhaled oxygen is stripped off of carbon dioxide (CO2) and/or water (H2O) gas molecules that are pumped into the reactor, producing carbon monoxide (CO) and/or hydrogen gas (H2). H2 can be used to fuel hydrogen fuel cells; CO, combined with H2, can be used to create synthetic gas, or "syngas," which is the precursor to liquid hydrocarbon fuels. Adding other catalysts to the gas mixture, meanwhile, produces methane. And once the ceria is oxygenated to full capacity, it can be heated back up again, and the cycle can begin anew.' The only other piece of the puzzle is a large sunlight concentrator to raise the temperature to the necessary 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The team is working on modifying and refining the reactor to require a lower temperature to achieve the two-step thermochemical cycle. Another issue is the heat loss which the team claims could be reduced to improve efficiency to 15% or higher. Since CO2 is an input, the possibility exists for coal and power plants to collect CO2 emissions to be used in this process which would effectively allow us to "use the carbon twice." Another idea listed is that a "zero CO2 emissions" is developed along these lines: 'H2O and CO2 would be converted to methane, would fuel electricity-producing power plants that generate more CO2 and H2O, to keep the process going.' The team's work was published last month in Science."
The summary covers a lot of it, but this is pretty fascinating (if it reaches production): something that can be added to the exhaust of a fossil fuel power generation station that reduces the carbon footprint and provides fuel to use in either that or other processes in addition to supplying oxygen for other processes. All it really takes is concentrated sunlight for an energy source.
I'd be interested to see in a few years what other uses are figured out for it.
We live in interesting times...
World Energy Problems Solved!
4th Time This Month
So it was *mostly* CalTech guys, using Swiss equipment for testing and further development.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
I've discovered a system that allows sunlight, groundwater, airborne CO2, and a few other elements to be converted into substances which can easily be used for heating fuel, building materials, and even in some cases food. It's really amazing, and costs relatively little to set up and even less to maintain. It's also aesthetically pleasing, so you get very little complaint from the NIMBY crowd. In fact, this system is so simple that you'll often find it in the front and back yards of ordinary single-family homes, apartment buildings, and office complexes.
Not that this idea isn't potentially nifty, of course.
I am officially gone from
That strange and exotic metal Cerium, is it at least cheaper than gold? How rare is this? Admittedly it sucks to have our oil stuck under their sand, but trading it for our Cerium stuck in their jungle is not a better solution either.
It's strange and exotic, at say, McDonalds or Pick n Save food store. On the other hand, Home Depot probably sells cans of it and its widely industrially available in bulk and used for all kinds of things.
Its extremely cheap compared to gold. Heck its pretty cheap compared to nickel, tin, and only about twice as costly as copper. Its about ten time as expensive as bulk raw aluminum per pound.
Its a relatively common semi-industrial metal used in all manner of catalysts and especially grinding processes. Cerium Oxide grinding paste sells for about $10 per pound. You can pay more retail in small cans if you'd like, or perhaps you could contract down to 50 cents per ounce if you bought a unit-train of railroad cars worth of it.
Ask your local (working, not retail) jeweler, whom probably has some quart cans of different size grits for polishing stuff.
Unlike the polishing / grinding industry, the catalyst industry would probably recycle heavily. So I'm thinking it would remain relatively cheap even if usage increased.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerium
http://www.radiochemistry.org/periodictable/elements/58.html
India, Brazil, USA, Sweden.
It's the most abundant of rare earth metals, and is low to moderate toxicity.
Saying Android is a family of phones is akin to saying Linux is a family of PCs.
This reactor produces one of the most important components of a Hydrogen Bomb, and thus should be banned! And everybody knows that reactors are evil, and will cause the China Syndrome (whatever that is), which will kill us all. Reactors are well known to explode in a nuclear conflagration, as well as poisoning everyone within a 1000 mile radius before they do!
Of course environmentalists are going to hate this.
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
While a "hydrogen economy" in whatever broad implementation is a fine idea in theory, there is one extremely important detail that must be done very carefully right from the start. The leakage of hydrogen gas must be kept to an absolute minimum. Why? Simple! Just multiple any X amount of leakage you choose, per person, by a couple billion users in a scaled-up hydrogen economy. Now factor in the simple fact that all leaked hydrogen will naturally rise through the atmosphere to the ozone layer, and that ozone is naturally "hypergolic" with hydrogen --the two chemicals instantly react. If you thought the effect of chlorocarbons was bad for the ozone layer, well, "you ain't seen nothin' yet", as the saying goes, if a large hydrogen economy doesn't do everything it can to keep hydrogen gas leakage to an absolute minimum.
gasp, or wait until they build better reactors, or gasp, wait until they scale to MW size reactors, or gasp, use it in places where turbines make no sense, or gasp, use it in addition to turbines.
oh my god, he's being asphyxiated from the device's CO2 emissions! someone help!