Carbon Dioxide From the Air Converted Into Methanol (gizmag.com)

Zothecula writes: The danger posed by rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide has seen many schemes proposed to remove a proportion it from the air. Rather than simply capture this greenhouse gas and bury it in the ground, though, many experiments have managed to transform CO2 into useful things like carbon nanofibers or even fuels, such as diesel. Unfortunately, the over-arching problem with many of these conversions is the particularly high operating temperatures that require counterproductive amounts of energy to produce relatively low yields of fuel. Now researchers at the University of Southern California (USC) claim to have devised a way to take CO2 directly from the air and convert it into methanol using much lower temperatures and in a correspondingly simpler way.

Comments

Energy in?

[Mr D from 63]

I see no mention of the energy put into the process vs the methanol output. Unless they are close, this would make no sense.

Re:Energy in?

[bobbied]

I see no mention of the energy put into the process vs the methanol output. Unless they are close, this would make no sense.

Trust me, it makes no sense... I can guarantee you that it takes a lot more energy input than you can get out of the methanol.

Maybe, being a liquid fuel that can be burned in internal combustion engines it makes sense as an energy storage medium, but if you wan to produce methanol, just produce it the normal ways. It will be cheaper and more efficient.

Re:Energy in?

[Opportunist]

They have to obey the laws of thermodynamics and conservation of energy? You don't say.

Re:Energy in?

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously you can't just keep going back and forward between CO2 and methanol without net loss of energy, so some energy will be needed for conversion. But there are still a tonne of applications if they are reasonably close.

Hook one of these up to a wind generator you get what is *effectively* free methanol fuel, which can then be trivially stored and used later. Or drive it off the grid and use it like a big battery for stabilising as more and more renewables come online. Start converting cars to methanol you can start doing cool stuff like making fuel at the petrol station (or even home) rather than shipping it to woop-woop in a big, slow, expensive truck (and, again, you can do it as a form of grid-stabilisation, so quite useful as more renewable power sources come online).

Time will tell.

Re:Energy in?

[blue9steel]

Even if it wasn't net positive a low enough ratio might make it worth it to just pull the carbon out of the air and store the methanol in tanks. This might be a good use for surplus power at renewable generating sites, they could actually be carbon negative.

Re:Energy in?

[Hussman32]

From the article:

"To produce methanol from CO2 in the air, the researchers at USC's Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences first bubbled captured air through an aqueous solution of pentaethylenehexamine (PEHA), an ammonia-derived organic compound with multiple amino groups that – at raised temperatures – helps form chemical derivatives from alcohols. They then added a catalyst made from ruthenium (a member of the platinum group) to promote hydrogen attachment to the CO2 when the mixture was subject to high pressure.

The solution was then heated to around 125 to 165 C (257 to 359 F), and around 79 percent of the CO2 was converted into methanol. Though the resulting methanol was still mixed with water as it was produced, the researchers state that it can be easily separated using simple distillation processes. In addition, with the new method operating at such comparatively low temperatures, minimum decomposition of the catalyst meant that the researchers were able to repeat the process five times with minimal loss of the catalyst effectiveness. It also uses a homogeneous catalyst (that is, a soluble catalyst in solution with the chemicals it is reacting with) resulting in a simpler and faster "one-pot" process."

So they have to procure an amine in the pure form, mix it with purified water, heat it to 125 to 165 oC (a lot of energy, also under pressure), bubble the air through it (requiring at least the same pressure as the solution so there wouldn't be backflow) then recover the product using distillation (energy intensive). It's good chemistry and interesting catalysis, but I don't see how it will be cost-effective.

My guess is it would be cheaper to let a tree reduce the CO2, chop it down, and make the wood alcohol from that.

Re:Energy in?

[Thelasko]

I see no mention of the energy put into the process vs the methanol output. Unless they are close, this would make no sense.

TFA mentions lower temperatures than other processes. That suggests the new process is more energy efficient than the old one.

Obviously, the laws of thermodynamics prevent this technology from being anything more than a way to store energy. However, it seems like they have made the process more efficient by discovering a new type of catalyst.

Re:Energy in?

[bobbied]

Again, no way this makes sense... At least not for carbon sequestration.

Just dumping waste energy into methanol production doesn't seem to be a viable way to sequester carbon to me. Now if you want to make it into a means of making use of this waste energy, say as a motor fuel or something, and reduce the amount of carbon we release, that might work... Some... But it's going to be hugely expensive and very inefficient...

Re:Energy in?

[Obfuscant]

Trust me, it makes no sense... I can guarantee you that it takes a lot more energy input than you can get out of the methanol.

Every energy storage process takes more energy to store it than you get back out. I don't think getting energy back out of the methanol is the goal. Using it for other industrial processes that require methanol would be more useful.

but if you wan to produce methanol, just produce it the normal ways.

This method can be used on the output of current industrial processes that produce carbon dioxide and prevent it from being released in the first place. It's less efficient to loose the dragon and then hope a tree eats him than to just keep the dragon in the dungeon to start with.

Re:Energy in?

[sd4f]

At the end of the article, they more or less admit that it's not viable. 5-10 years away means it's quite far from making economic sense. The big difference is hydrocarbons from crude oil are obviously really cheap to process, because all that we're doing is taking advantage of natural processes which produced those hydrocarbons. They wouldn't have been efficient either, in terms of thermodynamics, but since it happened naturally, and a long time ago, it's like as if they're free. The difference now is the research is going into finding out how to improve the chemical reactions to produce hydrocarbons. Obviously again, it's not going to be particularly successful until we run out of relatively cheap oil, which hasn't got the overhead of requiring us to expend significant energy to produce it, we just find it and pump it out.

Re:Energy in?

[sconeu]

In this house, we obey the Laws of Thermodynamics!!!

Re:Energy in?

[Anonymous Coward]

The first thing is that power plants like nuclear are extremely inflexible. Basically they have to keep producing energy no matter what. This means that sometimes energy costs become negative. The producers of electricity from nuclear will actually pay you to use their power.

The next thing you need to know is that renewable, whilst mostly very flexible, has a relatively high capital, but very low marginal cost. This means that if there is a time when energy prices are low (e.g. due to nuclear power plants having to run during a low usage period) the renewable sources will be willing to sell you energy for almost any positive price.

This means that there is quite a bit of time when energy loss really doesn't matter nearly as much as you think. If you can just store some of the energy and use it at a later peak usage time, when it's many times more valuable, then you can make a profit even with huge energy losses.

Methane would be better than methanol. If you can produce methane you can power highly flexible gas power plants. Stiill, methanol is definitely better than nothing.

Re:Energy in?

[blue9steel]

Just dumping waste energy into methanol production doesn't seem to be a viable way to sequester carbon to me.

Well I'd prefer a non-toxic solid so we could just re-bury it. Calcium Carbonate or something along those lines.

Re:Energy in?

[currently_awake]

Using energy from windmills to power the process in a remote location (arctic etc) is cheaper than flying in gas. Using energy from the nuclear reactor of an aircraft carrier to produce jet fuel while at sea would save a lot of money/risk on transporting fuel. Using this tech to make fuel at a military base in a dangerous place (Afghanistan etc) would reduce the need for supply convoys, and save lives.

Re:Energy in?

[PolygamousRanchKid]

5-10 years away means it's quite far from making economic sense.

5-10 years away means that in 5-10 years, it will still be 5-10 years away.

Re:Energy in?

[Anaerin]

So they have to procure an amine in the pure form,

Correct.

mix it with purified water,

Right again

heat it to 125 to 165 oC (a lot of energy, also under pressure),

Partially Correct - there was no mention of it being under pressure.

bubble the air through it (requiring at least the same pressure as the solution so there wouldn't be backflow)

1.001 Atmosphere of pressure, yes.

then recover the product using distillation (energy intensive).

Correct. Though as the solution was originally at 125-165C, the methanol would most likely be in vapour form, so condensation would be a relatively simple matter.

It's good chemistry and interesting catalysis, but I don't see how it will be cost-effective.

My guess is it would be cheaper to let a tree reduce the CO2, chop it down, and make the wood alcohol from that.

Oh, of course. Though that is a process that requires considerably more time than this one, it seems.

Re:Energy in?

[sumdumass]

Actually, it sounds like a perfect process for clean coal or other already existing energy production. The cooling towers alread carry enough heat to raise the temperature. As for pumping, well the generating already runs a bit under capacity so turning it up a little more shouldn't be too costly.

With a little tweaking, it could relatively easily reduce the carbon footprint of existing power plants.

Re:Energy in?

[Hussman32]

There are 44.6 moles per cubic meter of air. At 300 ppm, or 0.03% CO2, that would be 0.013 moles of CO2, at a 70% conversion rate you'd get 0.01 moles of methanol from 1 cubic meter of air. 1 kilogram of methanol (which isn't jet fuel, but never mind) is 31 moles of methanol. A 737 burns 3 kilograms of jet fuel per mile, let's say you want 6000 kilograms per trip. That means you'd need 3100 m^3 of air for one kilogram, or 18,600,000 m^3 of air. Assuming a residence time of a day for a facility to produce enough jet fuel for one flight, you'd need a facility with a total volume of 18,600,000 m^3. I'm not really sure it's cost effective to fly out a facility that as a minimum would be about 264 meters long, wide, and high. If the residence time were an hour, it would be about 100 meters on a side.

Another application is needed, this one won't cut it.

Re:Energy in?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe RTFA a little...

(captcha: unequal)

Re:Energy in?

[Applehu Akbar]

Just dumping waste energy into methanol production doesn't seem to be a viable way to sequester carbon to me.

Well I'd prefer a non-toxic solid so we could just re-bury it. Calcium Carbonate or something along those lines.

Even better: make biochar, so that we could bury it as almost pure carbon in farmed soil for thousands of years, while at the same time having it improve the soil. We could get rid of a lot of municipal waste that way.

Re:Energy in?

[Hussman32]

Pure amines are expensive, and purifying water isn't cheap at the volumes this would need (see my other notes).

Note the process says it's aqueous, and therefore liquid. The temperature is 125-165 degrees, above the normal boiling point of water. Steam tables say 6 bars/atmospheres of pressure at 165 oC for pure water. 6 atmospheres isn't too bad for a pressure vessel, but you will need some engineering behind it.

Condensation requires energy, especially if you need a vacuum.

 

Re:Energy in?

[HiThere]

In a different article (possibly about a different project) it was explicitly stated that the cost would currently be prohibitive, but that if oil ran out this could be a useful replacement.

I would be very surprised if the same caveat didn't apply to this project, presuming it's not the same project.

Re: Energy in?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe in places with lots of sun but sterile soil i.e. A desert ?

Re:Energy in?

[HiThere]

Methanol is a well known starter compound for numerous synthetic pathways. I believe that in WWII it was used in Germany to power cars (though how often I don't know.)

I will agree that methanol would be a terrible jet fuel. It is not only low in energy density, it absorbs water like a sponge.

OTOH, many model aircraft used to use methanol for fuel, so it not totally unreasonable as a drone fuel.

Re:Energy in?

[Woldscum]

HOW DARE YOU! That is NOT what Global Warming is meant for. It is meant for Progressive Socialist global wealth redistribution and enrichment of the keepers of the religion. Any heretics to the state religion of Global Warming will be rooted out and shamed by the SJW brown shirts and be regulated out of existence. How DARE you question the state religion. The keepers of the religion and their "useful idiots" have declared everything settled. We just need to give billions of dollars to 3rd world war lords to fix the CO2 "problem". Just stop being privileged.

Re:Energy in?

[Mr D from 63]

Using energy from windmills to power the process in a remote location (arctic etc) is cheaper than flying in gas. Using energy from the nuclear reactor of an aircraft carrier to produce jet fuel while at sea would save a lot of money/risk on transporting fuel. Using this tech to make fuel at a military base in a dangerous place (Afghanistan etc) would reduce the need for supply convoys, and save lives.

You couldn't fit enough windmills on a base to make all the fuel that base uses.

Re:Energy in?

[Mr D from 63]

TFA mentions lower temperatures than other processes. That suggests the new process is more energy efficient than the old one. Obviously, the laws of thermodynamics prevent this technology from being anything more than a way to store energy. However, it seems like they have made the process more efficient by discovering a new type of catalyst.

More efficient than what? More efficient than hopelessly inefficient isn't saying much.

Re:Energy in?

[Anonymous Coward]

OTOH, many model aircraft used to use methanol for fuel, so it not totally unreasonable as a drone fuel.

Plus then you can put a tiny windmill under the propellor, so that you can use the windmill energy to power the process to create the methanol used by the drone! You won't even need a fuel tank to keep it in the air that way!

TRUMP 2016! MAKE America Great again! He'll repeal the laws of thermodynamics and make Mexico pay for it!

Re:Energy in?

[dbIII]

I can guarantee you that it takes a lot more energy input than you can get out of the methanol.

Show your working.

Re:Energy in?

[Obfuscant]

you'd need a facility with a total volume of 18,600,000 m^3

No, you'd need to process that much air. The facility could be much smaller, but you'd need to move so much air through it you'd be expending much more energy moving the air than you'd get back from the methanol.

Even if you contain all the air in the one facility, you won't be using 18 million cubic meters of water and catalyst, so you still have to move the air.

But it is a beautiful thought experiment to think about such a CO2 to methanol recovery device on the output of the burner of a hot air balloon. Maybe you could make enough methanol from it that you could replace the tank of propane and burn only methanol. And with thermal electric generation, you could install wireless networking in the balloon and have permanent access points in the sky...

Re:Energy in?

[dbIII]

Again, no way this makes sense... At least not for carbon sequestration.

It may make sense if waste heat can drive the reaction, or solar thermal or whatever. I heard something along those lines when it hit the press a few months back
Also the possible military, agricultural and mining exploration implications are interesting if it can be done on a small scale anywhere with a heat source. Shipping fuel into remote areas has diminishing returns - hence bizzare stuff like using solar at Dome A in the Antarctic where the panels are mounted vertically on poles to catch the summer sun - just about the least sunshine on the planet but it saves shipping in a bit of fuel.

Re:Energy in?

[dbIII]

The soil magic thing was debunked but people in politics still like it.

Re:Energy in?

[dbIII]

Only if (like with fusion research) little is done over those 5-10 years.
For example synroc was a year away from production for twenty years since there was no funding for a years worth of work for that time.

Re: Energy in?

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhh ... He said residence time. If his assumption of one hour is anywhere near close then his estimates are reasonable.

Re:Energy in?

[gstoddart]

Trust me, it makes no sense... I can guarantee you that it takes a lot more energy input than you can get out of the methanol.

And which is then going to just ... release all of that carbon dioxide.

It isn't magic.

But, in case you really needed to know:

but they admit that such a system may be five to 10 years away and will probably be still more expensive than ordinary fuel production.

Which over the years I have taken to mean "it kind works in the lab, we need to publish now, but there will never be any applications of this technology on a meaningful scale".

An awful lot of things which are 5-10 years away are really never going to happen. In fact, most such things are pretty much doomed to never be useful.

Not saying basic research isn't cool, but I don't think we'll expect to see this any time soon.

Now, if you can make ethanol, we're listening. Why no, officer, that's not a still ... ;-)

Re:Energy in?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why are you assuming a residence time of a day, or even an hour? Chemical reactions typically occur much faster than that, and it should be possible to funnel large volumes of air through a relatively compact system. Your example amounts to processing a 6 meter cube of air per second over the course of a day, which while not small, doesn't seem an insurmountable task.

Re:Energy in?

[Anonymous Coward]

I see no mention of the energy put into the process vs the methanol output. Unless they are close, this would make no sense.

Trust me, it makes no sense... I can guarantee you that it takes a lot more energy input than you can get out of the methanol.

To fully replace internal combustion engines we need refills to be fast and ideally not be a battery swap.

This is extremely difficult with any kind of fast charging.Gasoline has a very high energy density. Wikipedia tells me it is 33.4kWH per gallon. Assuming ten gallons you get 334kWH. We want to fill the tank in say 6 minutes, so 1/10th of an hour, which multiplies by ten so brings us to 3340kW. Assume the electric car is 5x more efficient in energy usage (again wikipedia), that reduces to 668kW. Using another internet calculator that appears to be around 2000V Line to Neutral for 3 phase with 110 amps of current, which is kind of crazy talk. As a check on my math, it seems charging stations may get you, on average, around 60miles in around 20 minutes, so assume 2 gallons of gas equivalent or 66.8kWH, with a third of an hour you multiply by 3 to get 200kW. Through in the 5x efficiency assumption, and your down to 40kW, which is in the ball park for a fast charging station.

The overall point being, I can't see the physics allowing any kind of fast charging compared to gas, so either we have to give up the fast refill, or we need a way to dump that energy in as a somewhat stable liquid that we can produce unlimited amounts of. At the very least if there is a charging station that has 2000V line to neutral 3 phase at 110+ amps, I'm going to go inside while it charges. I want a time delay too, and maybe a hazard light.

Re: Energy in?

[penguinoid]

He said that he thinks it will take a day for the air that was bubbled through the solution, to reach the top and be ejected. Pardon me if I think that it would be more like 10 seconds (~8,000 times less than a day, 360 times less than an hour). Yes, a huge volume of air would need to be processed, but after that we're talking about CO2 in solution, which will be a much smaller volume.

Re: Energy in?

[Hussman32]

My estimates on total system volume are way off, I need the solution concentration, but it will be a massive system.

Re:Energy in?

[Anonymous Coward]

My guess is it would be cheaper to let a tree reduce the CO2, chop it down, and make the wood alcohol from that.

Cheaper, yes. Anywhere near as fast, no. The time scale involved is the critical difference in these processes.

And because trees are so much slower, you need a lot more trees doing it to achieve the same throughput. You see the problem there.

[A/C to preserve mods]

Re: Energy in?

[Hussman32]

If you had a 10m^2 column and a superficial velocity of 1m^3/sec, you could process about 36,000 m3 of air an hour per column, so you'd need 50 columns to process the 10 second residence times. That's a lot of columns. Then you'd need dozens of distillation columns to separate the methanol. And amines degrade at higher temperatures, so that would need to be replenished.

Re:Energy in?

[Anonymous Coward]

I see no mention of the energy put into the process vs the methanol output. Unless they are close, this would make no sense.

Trust me, it makes no sense... I can guarantee you that it takes a lot more energy input than you can get out of the methanol.

Yes, but anyone who isn't a giant tool realized that the point of this was to bind carbon dioxide already in the air, not to create methanol.
In fact, any byproduct would do. It doesn't have to be methanol, even if this method leads to it.

Re:Energy in?

[Reemi]

But why would you process 'normal' air? I'd capture at a point where the CO2 levels are the highest: at the end of a combustion engine.

Re: Energy in?

[Anonymous Coward]

Making methanol from air is a great idea. Now if they can make ethanol in addition we'd have storable energy, and we can have cheap liquor and give the regulators and moralizers a stroke at the same time. Big win all around.

Re:Energy in?

[Anonymous Coward]

I see no mention of the energy put into the process vs the methanol output. Unless they are close, this would make no sense.

Trust me, it makes no sense... I can guarantee you that it takes a lot more energy input than you can get out of the methanol.

Maybe, being a liquid fuel that can be burned in internal combustion engines it makes sense as an energy storage medium, but if you wan to produce methanol, just produce it the normal ways. It will be cheaper and more efficient.

The main point made about this process is that it allows us to remove carbon dioxide from the air less expensively than other processes, due to being a lower temperature process (higher temperature requires more energy :-) ).

And if you can reclaim some energy used by burning the methanol, that's a bonus, rather than the primary point.

It could be argued that the conventional ways of producing methanol (say, from corn) are more expensive if you have to cart the raw material from the farm to the plant. Not really necessary to cart carbon dioxide to the plant :-)

Re:Energy in?

[Anonymous Coward]

>Trust me, it makes no sense... I can guarantee you that it takes a lot more energy input than you can get out of the methanol.

Why does net energy matter in this case?

I believe if we can slow down, and possibly eventually reverse, the greenhouse effect caused by atmospheric CO2 the process would be worthwhile until a better method is developed. You have to start somewhere, and I'm pretty sure once we start down this path that incremental tweaks to the process would diminish the energy loss.

Re:Energy in?

[rickb928]

"This means that sometimes energy costs become negative"

Didn't you mean 'revenue'? Costs don't change much if a nuclear plant is idling, but the revenue plummets.

Re:Energy in?

[rickb928]

And why doesn't this make sense for carbon 'sequestration'? Even though it isn't sequestration.

Creating a somewhat closed loop of CO2->CH3OH->(2CH3OH(l) + 3O2(g) --> 2CO2(g) + 4H2O(g)) seems, superficially, like a win. The inputs, probably the required energy, make you question the economics of the process. So let's think.

Carbon sequestration is always expensive. Paying credits and such is a game that really doesn't reduce carbon anything but makes us^H^Hthem feel better. Costs to change processes etc are all reflected in pricing of products and services.

But while a CO2-Methanol loop still might cost, it may mitigate that cost enough to be viable.

And if it is implemented cleverly, at the source of the CO2, even better than extracting it from the atmosphere, probably.

Now to make ti actually work.

Re:Energy in?

[rickb928]

Don;t forget that internal combustion engines are terribly inefficient, returning maybe 40% of the energy input in work output.

You only, for my car, need to fill with 16 gallons, so that 534+/-kW only results in 213+/-kW of useful work.

Note the Tesla Model S battery is rated at 85kW, and range is estimated at 265 miles. My Impala would seem to be half as efficient as a Model S. I can see that.

So a 40kW charger can recharge my car to full capacity in what, 5 hours? And that 16 gallon equivalent gets me at least 360 miles, as my car is terribly inefficient beyond even the IC engine limitations?

No, the limitation is the battery. It doubles the cost of the car in small, 'affordable' vehicles. The premium for higher-priced vehicles is tolerable even without subsidies.

Fix batteries, or more correctly the storage, and things make sense. If I could get 100 mile range for a 5 hour charge, and do so with a mechanism that is safe to use in hard rain, disconnects automatically, prevents theft, and is reliable in the 5 year term, I'm in. And that's my home charger. At work they could, maybe, build those covered spaces we love in Arizona and the tops are solar cells harvesting the fusion reactor (Sun) output we largely fail to leverage now.

Dorman is selling Prius packs for just shy of $3k ($1.9K-$900 core). I should be toting up the cost of a motor, drive train, controller, charger, and accessory drive, and buy an '04- Ralliart with a blown motor/trans and a good blend door. Or a Saab with a good convertible top, the subframe just screams for an electric conversion. Delete the exhaust, ECU wiring, fuel piping, etc, and this is pretty doable. Finding a spot for the battery pack

Conversions are possible. Even better platforms exist, though I'm not interested in a Metro or Echo.

Re:Energy in?

[Anonymous Coward]

You are exhibiting a fundamental misunderstanding of nuclear power plant operation. The reliability of nuclear maintaining base load and operating at 100% consistently does not mean they are "inflexible". They are not designed with the aim of load following currently, but could be, just as US Navy nuke plants are. Don't you think it is important for a submarine to vary in power production quickly? In fact, I recently heard from an industry meeting that several Southern power plants are now operating as load following plants.

Re:Energy in?

[MooseTick]

Or you could use a fan to blow/suck air into a smaller apparatus and not have a facility the size of a monster aircraft hanger.

Re:Energy in?

[blue9steel]

If it were economical, that would be great. I did have a different thought though, perhaps the methanol could be used to solve the energy storage problem for renewable generating stations instead. Produce methanol when you have excess power, then burn it when things are slow. Might be more efficient than large battery banks.

Re:Energy in?

[jfengel]

Could it be useful in powering cars? Power density has been an issue for mobile power plants. It's only half the energy density of gasoline, and a bit less than ethanol, though perhaps it would be a good feedstock for making one or the other? (I'm not a chemist; I've never entirely understood why making fuel out of low-energy carbon compounds requires so much more than just the energy input.)

Re: Energy in?

[Cinnamon Beige]

The short answer is that energy is gotten by breaking bonds and required to form bonds, if we're talking stable structures in organic chemistry. Going from there... Short chain carbons have less bonds to break for power, long chain have more. Converting a short chain to a long chain is a PITA as it's not favorable because of something called 'thermodynamics,' almost always requires energy input,* and even then may just ignite instead unless you're using enzymes.

And sometimes you will never know why your reaction decided to fail. Maybe that cute undergrad who is supposed to scrub the glassware screwed up? Maybe the air system came on and changed the pressure just enough at just the wrong time? Maybe the reaction just hates you, even to the point of apparently violating the laws of physics? I've heard of or personally experienced all of these...

* If you managed to have the chains end just right and are connecting them to each other, you can get polymers at room temperature without using an enzyme. In theory. How is being left as an exercise for the reader.

Re:Energy in?

[metaforest]

OTOH, many model aircraft used to use methanol for fuel, so it not totally unreasonable as a drone fuel.

Mixed with a fairly significant proportion of Nitromethane. Methanol is not good enough, by itself, for even model engines. The stuff I use has about 16% Nitromethane in it.

Re:Energy in?

[ebvwfbw]

They reject our reality and substitute their own?

Re:Energy in?

[HiThere]

Thanks.

Someone please mod parent informative.

Re:Energy in?

[angel'o'sphere]

Every energy storage process takes more energy to store it than you get back out.
Uh? Bad in Physics? Ever heard about the law of conservation of energy?

Perhaps you mean: Every energy storage technology, implemented/run by humans takes more energy to store it than you get back out.

Key word is "technology". Just think about magnetic mounted flywheels. The storage and retrieval "process" is so close to 100% the loss is meaningless for any practical purpose.

Re: Energy in?

[angel'o'sphere]

Short chain carbons have less bonds to break for power, long chain have more. Converting a short chain to a long chain is a PITA as it's not favorable because of something called 'thermodynamics,' almost always requires energy input
That is wrong, like 99% of all posts on /. containing the term thermodynamics.
For starters: the laws of thermodynamics have absolutely nothing to do with "breaking" chemical bonds and/or "creating" them.

If you get stuff like this already wrong, I wonder what that pun "is being left as an exercise for the reader" regarding your explanations to enzyme is supposed to mean.

Re: Energy in?

[Cinnamon Beige]

Short chain carbons have less bonds to break for power, long chain have more. Converting a short chain to a long chain is a PITA as it's not favorable because of something called 'thermodynamics,' almost always requires energy input That is wrong, like 99% of all posts on /. containing the term thermodynamics. For starters: the laws of thermodynamics have absolutely nothing to do with "breaking" chemical bonds and/or "creating" them.

What you think enthalpy is? What do you think it means when somebody says that the enthalpy of formation or of reaction is a given number of joules? What do you think is going on when a chemical reaction produces heat or when one needs heat in order to take place?

Given that enthalpy is defined as "a thermodynamic quantity equivalent to the total heat content of a system," and you can easily find tables of bond enthalpies for covalent bonds like you get in hydrocarbons, I'm sure there's a lot of recognition to be gotten if you can explain how something that is by definition a thermodynamic quantity could have nothing to do with the laws of thermodynamics.

If you get stuff like this already wrong, I wonder what that pun "is being left as an exercise for the reader" regarding your explanations to enzyme is supposed to mean.

That wasn't a pun. If you can find something that forms polymers without having to have energy added to the system in any way, shape, or form--that does it entirely under standard conditions--and give me a citation from a peer-reviewed journal to verify it, I'll be impressed. I am not, however, going to do the search for you. It's not anywhere near the area of chemistry I chose to specialize in.

Re: Energy in?

[angel'o'sphere]

can explain how something that is by definition a thermodynamic quantity could have nothing to do with the laws of thermodynamics
That is easy: simply read up the laws of thermodynamics.
Joule is a measure for energy. It does not matter what kind of energy.

The enthalpy you get is for the whole "mass" participating in the reaction, not for single bonds. If you want to calculate the enthalpy per bond, that does not make the single bond a thing which is covered by thermodynamics.

The fact that you either have to add heat (endothermic) or gain heat (exothermic) does not make anything covered by "laws of thermodynamics", just because the dreaded term "thermo" is in it.

That wasn't a pun. If you can find something that forms polymers without having to have energy added to the system in any way, shape, Who said this? I did not. I only said: this is not thermodynamics. Which it is not.

and give me a citation from a peer-reviewed journal to verify it, I'll be impressed. I am not, however, going to do the search for you. search your self, no one claimed such nonsense.

It's not anywhere near the area of chemistry I chose to specialize in. No problem: thermodynamics is pure physics (not chemistry) and has nothing to do below or above of molecule level of idealized gases, oops! It has nothing to do with breaking up any molecules, or the forming of any, oops again!

The laws of thermodynamics come into account e.g. if you burn gasoline in an engine. The enthalpy of the reaction results in heated H2O and CO2 (this was chemistry) and unburned nitrogen and oxygen. The total _heat_ produced will _expand_ the gas mixture, or in other words, in the confined chamber of the engine, the heat of the gas mixture will correspond to a certain _pressure_, which will lead to expansion and pushing the piston (this was physics): this is what thermodynamics is about: heat, pressure, volume of gases and the usefulness of either of them in heat engines.

A bond consists in its simplest cases of electron pairs (or simply an ionic bond): they neither have heat, nor pressure nor any conceivable volume, hence: they are not covered by "the laws of thermodynamics".

Re: Energy in?

[Cinnamon Beige]

A bond consists in its simplest cases of electron pairs (or simply an ionic bond): they neither have heat, nor pressure nor any conceivable volume, hence: they are not covered by "the laws of thermodynamics".

Even ionic bonds require or produce some energy to form or break and you can even look up exactly what the enthalpy of doing so is in standard references such as the CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, but it's beyond obvious that you didn't even bother reading your original post, nor any attention whatsoever to any effort ever to actually cover the physics involved here that has ever happened around you.

I can't even begin to figure out where to start on the whole idea that physics has nothing to do with chemistry that is inherit though unstated in your argument--what the fucking hell do you think physical chemistry is? Chemistry is as much applied physics as engineering, merely at a slightly different level.

The bottom line is every single thing in chemistry requires physics, and thermodynamics--primarily entropy--pretty much dictates if any reaction is likely to happen and under what conditions. You can even calculate enthalpy as a function of entropy...and, since you need the extra help, you do so using a calculation derived using the first and second laws of thermodynamics. (It's so basic Wikipedia doesn't demand a citation when doing just that when giving the formal definition. You can also find the equation elsewhere, such as here.)

I'm not going to bother reading another reply from you, because I doubt you'll bother actually checking your claims, no less actually reading my posts, reading your own previous post(s), or coming up with a coherent explanation of how a goddamn function of thermodynamics is not, in fact, thermodynamics. Thermodynamics hasn't been about only "heat, pressure, volume of gases and the usefulness of either of them in heat engines" (as you put it) for well over a century--and even then it was about energy because heat is thermal energy and engines are machines that convert other types of energy into mechanical energy. Chemical thermodynamics has been around since the 19th century, and it's is what you use to explain the physics of how energy of any sort--including thermal--can be gotten from or needed for a chemical reaction, as well as for explaining the physics involved of how energy can stored in a chemical form.

To put it bluntly? If thermodynamics wasn't involved here, the whole question of how much energy is required to turn CO2 into anything else would be like asking how much beef is in a cup of black coffee. Also, all fuels of any kind would simply not function as such--the very concept of fuel would be meaningless, and not merely because that alone would render life itself impossible. I think we'd kinda notice that one.

Re: Energy in?

[angel'o'sphere]

Even ionic bonds require or produce some energy to form or break and you can even look up exactly what the enthalpy of doing so is in standard references such as the CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics,

And this has nothing to do with "the laws of thermodynamics".

Why don't you do us both a favour and simply read a book about thermodynamics instead of spreading your wrongness over and over again and making a fool about yourself?

Taking CO2 from the atmosphere??

[NotInHere]

What about not putting it there in the first place? It takes far more energy to extract the CO2 from the atmosphere than to build an energy chain that doesn't burn fossil sources. And if you really are keen on removing CO2, then just stop deforestation in south america.

Re:Taking CO2 from the atmosphere??

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm... five chemists sort out chemical reaction, or chemists turn around basis of world economy. Or chemists turn around economy of Brazil. I wonder what is more likely.

Re:Taking CO2 from the atmosphere??

[Anonymous Coward]

So I just have to stop your airway then.

Re:Taking CO2 from the atmosphere??

[Gojira Shipi-Taro]

Really? What's your end to end solution achievable with today's technology at a price that populations and governments will accept, and which doesn't immediately make transportation people and governments already own useless?

As important as both the issues you raise are (and the deforestation one may be the more achievable), the reality of it is that "that's it, no more fossil fuel" without a reasonable alternative will never happen, even if it kills us, because without a reasonable alternative, many of us will likely die anyhow.

Re:Taking CO2 from the atmosphere??

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? What's your end to end solution achievable with today's technology at a price that populations and governments will accept, and which doesn't immediately make transportation people and governments already own useless?

Famine, disease and war. They all have proven track records. What's yours?

without a reasonable alternative, many of us will likely die anyhow.

I'm pretty sure we'll all die no matter how clean the energy gets.

Cthulu/Trump 2016!

Re:Taking CO2 from the atmosphere??

[dbIII]

I'm keen on a way to make methanol without needing to pipe in oil, gas or the reasonably involved process to make it out of vegetation. If all you need is heat and a relatively small supply of a precursor that could cut the capital costs down significantly and allow it to be produced in a lot of places.
It's not about reducing carbon, it's more about energy independance.

Re:Taking CO2 from the atmosphere??

[penguinoid]

It's an important step if you want to eg make jet fuel on a nuclear powered aircraft carrier, or food in space, or plastics on Mars. Of course, I'd like to know how this compares to an algae + light process.

At long last...

[Austerity Empowers]

A way in which Donald Trump can be useful to all of us! Let's hook him up and see if his hot air can make things go.

Let's see if I've got this right...

[Ann O'Nymous-Coward]

1: Install intake funnels over party caucuses, presidential debates etc etc.
2: Intake hot air > lower temperature > less global warming
3: Intake CO2 > methanol > less fossil fuel burning
4: PROFIT!

Re:Let's see if I've got this right...

[bobbied]

1: Install intake funnels over party caucuses, presidential debates etc etc. 2: Intake hot air > lower temperature > less global warming 3: Intake CO2 > methanol > less fossil fuel burning 4: PROFIT!

Just take their campaign cash from them, it will be easier, more efficient and might actually help the political process....

Pray for Timothy

[sexconker]

timothy are you okay? Post if you are okay.

Re:Pray for Timothy

[Irate Engineer]

He was busy training his replacement, yaelk.

Re:Pray for Timothy

[Anonymous Coward]

TIMMMAAAAY!!

how about growing lots of trees & plants?

[sittingnut]

how about growing and developing trees & plants that capture co2 more efficiently and can grow in places where there weren't any? why is there not much attention to this method? too easy? less news worthy? less grants?

Re:how about growing lots of trees & plants?

[Tablizer]

Or similarly, breed plants to make the necessary conversions efficiently. Find plants that kind of do it now, and tweak them via breeding and/or gene splicing.

Re:how about growing lots of trees & plants?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because GMOs!
Evil!!!!1!!!!1!!

Re:how about growing lots of trees & plants?

[ChunderDownunder]

Sounds like it needs a shitload of water.

January notwithstanding, my local region has had below average rainfall for several decades and soil moisture is at 100 year record lows.

Convincing city-dwelling politicians to spend money on infrastructure to drought-proof a continent by building pipelines to carry water from high rain areas to low ones is futile. Rural constituents continue to vote against their own self interest by electing conservative denialist nest-featherers.

Re:how about growing lots of trees & plants?

[thegarbz]

The problem is that it only happens during growth and isn't efficient enough to solve our problems. I've read somewhere that a growing forest would capture 200 tonnes of CO2 per year per hectare. The problem is CO2 is capture during the day, but is partially released during the night, furthermore in a mature forest where growth has effectively stopped the CO2 absorption is very low as capture due to new growth of leaves is offset by decay of old plant matter.

Basically, plants are a good thing. We should have more of them, but we can't plant our way CO2 neutral. We really need to stop putting that shit in the air in the first place.

fischer tropsch process

[Verdatum]

The process to convert CO2 into long-chain hydrocarbons has been in use since the 1930s. It's not inefficient because it requires high heat. On the contrary, it produces excess heat, and must be actively cooled with water flowing through an internal heat-exchanger. The inefficiency lies in the need to create-and supply hydrogen, which requires some process such as electrolysis of water. Oh, and it does require high pressure, which costs energy. Oh and it does take energy to raise the concentration of CO2 to sufficient levels from the atmosphere while filtering out the nitrogen and oxygen. So it mostly makes more sense to start with a product like wood-gas, coal-gas or natural-gas, and then turn that into diesel. Not as interesting as pulling it from the air, but it does give you a carbon-neutral source of portable fuel, when you use plant material. It also ends up being similar to that whole "anything into oil" idea that Scientific American used to be crazy about, but turned out not to be price-competetive, and the smell of rotting turkey guys upset the neighbors.

Re:fischer tropsch process

[thegarbz]

The inefficiency lies in the need to create-and supply hydrogen, which requires some process such as electrolysis of water.

The first part of your post was good, but no industrial plant produces hydrogen by electrolysis. Rather it is produced by Gassification + water-gas shift reactions (which produce pure CO2 as a byproduct) which is a modern way of doing it and the number one choice for new designs, or Steam Methane reforming which produces CO as a byproduct and is sometimes then combined with another water-gas shift reaction to again churn out hydrogen + CO2.

Both processes are massively inefficient, burn hydrocarbons, and produce CO2, but neither is as bad as electrolysis.

Re: yaelk, are timothy, Soulskill and samzenpus go

[Anonymous Coward]

yaelk has consumed their brains - expect posting of dupes soon

Re: yaelk, are timothy, Soulskill and samzenpus go

[Anonymous Coward]

soulskill was fired, his profile here says "former editor". samzenpus probably the same. he has not posted once since the acquisition. not gonna look for the comment to link it here but when asked, mr. whipslash "timothy is still here"

Hmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Howabout taking CO2 from the air and converting it to glucose?

Re:Hmmm

[LesFerg]

I think they should genetically engineer watermelon plants to perform this conversion using the sun for energy input.
They we could scatter the plants all over the planet and whenever you need some fuel just go pick a few watermelons offa the roadside.

yay! go team operation save the earth asap!

[Anonymous Coward]

then we burn the methanol into what??? hope we get water and something else (fingers crossed).

Plant a tree

[ozduo]

And let nature do it for you

Energy Negative? So what.

[Lodlaiden]

What are the odds that one can power whatever this methane generating device is with solar or wind, so that you can store energy for use later? Many of the comments complained that it that it's X+ energy consumption for the generation of X methane energy. If the storage is stable, it's solved one of the big problems with renewable energy.

Re:Energy Negative? So what.

[dbIII]

What are the odds that one can power whatever this methane generating device is with solar or wind, so that you can store energy for use later?

Heat is heat, so definitely. An ideal would be a solar thermal thing out on a farm steadily dripping enough methanol over time to drive a tractor - you'd still need to ship in the precursor but not really a lot per unit of fuel. In some areas it wouldn't have to be especially cheap and would still beat local fuel costs over the long term.

good for for remote locations

[pz]

My guess is it would be cheaper to let a tree reduce the CO2, chop it down, and make the wood alcohol from that.

Sure. Perhaps. Certainly it would make things lots nicer here to have lots of trees. I'm a big proponent of reforestation, so even if the process isn't perfect through growing trees, I like the idea of more trees.

But the low-temperature catalyst-driven system has a MUCH BETTER application: fuel generation in places where you can't grow trees, like, say, Mars.

Re:good for for remote locations

[aliquis]

But the low-temperature catalyst-driven system has a MUCH BETTER application: fuel generation in places where you can't grow trees, like, say, Mars.

Would it also work within Uranus? I was going to ask whatever a liquid or gas source was preferred but it seems like whatever one prefer or use methanol or methane Uranus would contain them both in all forms from solids to gas. Hot gases seem to be leaking from Uranus.

The blurb is plagiarised - this has to stop!

[Dr. Spork]

Unless user Zothecula is actually Colin Jeffery, the author of the article, then it is disgracefully misleading to represent the content of the blurb as something that "Zothecula writes". Those words were instead lifted directly from the Jeffery's article, and no indication was made that this was done. Where I teach, anyone who shows this little regard for proper attribution gets a failing grade for plagiarism, and a second offense gets you expelled. It's depressing that a for-profit journalistic outlet could be so indifferent to plagiarism. If the article must be quoted in the blurb, then fucking quote it. You have a tag for that, and you also have the power to use quotation marks.

PUH-LEASE!

[Anonymous Coward]

Debunk of Air-Plastic

Air-Methanol has the same problems as Air-Plastic:

1. The amount (by volume) of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is so small, one cannot extract it in any feasible way. Think removing pee from the ocean. At 400ppm, you have to process 1000 tons of air to extract less than half a ton of carbon dioxide.

2. It takes at least as much energy to reverse combustion as you get when you burn something. There is no free ride; where is the energy coming from?

Add in the energy of processing large quantities of air and the inefficiency of extracting carbon dioxide from the air to get a process that is circling the drain from day 1.

Even if you magically made the problems go away, what do you do with the methanol? Burn it as a fuel and put the carbon dioxide right back into the atmosphere. Sequester it somewhere so that the carbon dioxide never finds it's way back into the atmosphere. Sounds like a lose-lose to me.

Wake up sheeple! If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. These 'scientific hucksters' are peddling B.S. and dressing it up as science. We've seen things like Solar Roadways and Back to the Future style magnetic hoverboards; and now, yet another 'Extract Carbon Dioxide from the Air' scam.

Real scientists know about things like conservation of energy and laws of thermodynamics. If it were that easy to put the carbon dioxide genie back in the bottle...

Re:PUH-LEASE!

[PPH]

1. The amount (by volume) of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is so small,

So this process might work best if installed at a major CO2 point source. Like a power plant.

2. It takes at least as much energy to reverse combustion as you get when you burn something.

This is true. So if you produced that additional heat energy needed to convert that CO2 (ideally from a non CO2 producing heat source) then why not just replace the CO2 emitting process with that heat source in the first place.

I think the people that came up with this idea would be the ones who would build the Eiffel Tower to put a flashing red light on top of it so planes won't hit it.

It is still a net energy loser

[EmagGeek]

Because, you know, thermodynamics.

Methanol has more chemical potential energy than CO2, and that energy must come from somewhere. This is the same unicorn fantasy that the "water as fuel" people constantly buy into.

Sure, you can sequester CO2 from the atmosphere and turn it into combustible fuel, but you're going to spend a lot of energy to do it when there is a perfectly natural process for doing so, called "planting trees."

Re:It is still a net energy loser

[dbIII]

Methanol has more chemical potential energy than CO2, and that energy must come from somewhere.

Heat.

This is the same unicorn fantasy that the "water as fuel" people constantly buy into.

Only because you jumped to a conclusion and had that fantasy of it not being a net energy loser. If you take a look at the other comments you will notice that others are a bit more rooted in reality and are discussing the implications of making methanol this way instead of other ways (which are also net energy losers but we do them anyway if the end product is useful enough).

Re:It is still a net energy loser

[Culture20]

The point is to make methanol itself for industrial use or to use it in a chain to make more energy dense fuels. Some energy use-cases require being unplugged from the grid.

CO2 to ETHANOL, not Methanol!

[Irate Engineer]

If some one could invent a cocktail machine, powered by wind and solar, that could take in atmospheric CO2 and spit out a daiquiri (no, wait, a Hurricane), how long would it take to get everyone behind the solution to global warming?

Do I have to come up with all the great ideas around here? Come on, let's get some people on this, stat!

Re:CO2 to ETHANOL, not Methanol!

[apoc.famine]

But Methanol is delicious! It tastes like blindness.

if "flexible" means uncontrollable 100X variation

[raymorris]

> The next thing you need to know is that renewable, whilst mostly very flexible

"Flexible" is an interesting word choice. Consider wind, for example. A 20 mph wind has 8 times as much power as a 10 mph wind, at 30 mph it's 27 times as much power. You can't control how much wind there is. Similarly, we might not realize it since our eyes measure brightness on logarithmic scale, but a cloudy day has 95% less solar energy than a sunny day. Most people would probably call this "unpredictable" or "unreliable" rather than "flexible".

On the other hand, the operators of a typical small natural gas plant with 4 generators can choose to run anywhere from full throttle on all four to just one at half throttle.

Sabatier Reaction - Methane from CO2 and H2O

[Irate Engineer]

The Sabatier reaction is being used to convert exhaled CO2 and hydrogen produced by electrolytic decomposition of water into methane and water on the ISS. It is a means to produce fuel on the surface of Mars (copious amounts of CO2 and water ice, and solar power to run the cycle).

The fact that it is a net energy sink doesn't matter here - it saves having to haul a whole lot of fuel to Mars.

Re:if "flexible" means uncontrollable 100X variati

[dbIII]

Yes but windmills have tiny unit sizes as far as electricity generation goes so they are brought on and offline as needed. Need another 15MW, bring a few windmills online. They are spread around national grids so the wind is always blowing on some somewhere.
Tricky to control? Not since about 1970. Your phone probably has the CPU power.

Re:if "flexible" means uncontrollable 100X variati

[crimson tsunami]

So why not turn the others on and make use of the free energy???

that would be nice, but weather systems are big

[raymorris]

First I want to be clear - wind is a great supplemental power source in some areas. Having said that ...

> they are spread around national grids so the wind is always blowing on some somewhere.

It would be nice if any of those three things were true. In fact, weather systems are generally larger than most countries. Here's the current weather map for a very large country, the United States:
http://sirocco.accuweather.com...

You'll notice there's very little weather in the US today. Next week, a storm system may cover most of the population of the US.

Regarding "national electric grid" - you may recall a few years ago a blackout left the northeast without power for several days, while the nine other power regional grids including had plenty of power. The California grid had a chronic power shortage for decades, while the neighboring grid for Texas was fine. There are 10 regional power grids in the US. There's no such thing as "the national grid", and can't without save a complete redesign of the technology and replacing billions in infrastructure.

Lastly, wind farms are NOT spread evenly around the country. They are located in specific areas where it makes sense to have them. You need steady, predictable wind (the cube power law means high winds destroy them), near population centers, but with cheap real estate. The last two requirements are of course contradictory, so a limited number of locations fit all of the criteria.

In those places where it DOES make sense, wind power allows producers to reduce fuel usage on the natural gas generators whenever the wind happens to be right, and that's a good thing.

Re:that would be nice, but weather systems are big

[dbIII]

FFS look up how little wind velocity it takes to turn these things before posting something based on an assumption that it takes a lot more.

Re:that would be nice, but weather systems are big

[dbIII]

As for the "no grid" comment - bullshit. Just because the weakest links, the interconnectors, failed to avoid the entire lot going down does not mean that the regional grids are not connected. Do you really think there is an air gap? What do you think? did you think before writing? Maybe read what you've written again and ponder the meaning of it and how it contradicts itself, then perhaps try again with increased understanding.
To dumb things down maybe you can pretend it's DC and consider Ohms law to get a bit of an idea about a badly designed grid and a badly designed interconnector 15 years ago can mean that you can't feed it as well from the area next door as well as you can today.

Re:that would be nice, but weather systems are big

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a huge difference between turning them on, and running them at full capacity.

Re:that would be nice, but weather systems are big

[angel'o'sphere]

It would be nice if any of those three things were true. In fact, weather systems are generally larger than most countries. Here's the current weather map for a very large country, the United States:
That is not a weather map. No idea what it is supposed to be.

if you think "weather systems" are bigger than countries, then "define weather system". Most certainly there was no weather system in the recent years that covered the whole USA.

If you are stuck in your argumentation like this, your country obviously will never have a national grid, nor much wind energy nor anything else a modern grid needs or offers.

Re:that would be nice, but weather systems are big

[dbIII]

Lastly, wind farms are NOT spread evenly around the country. They are located in specific areas where it makes sense to have them.

Specific areas spread around the country then.

and can't without save a complete redesign of the technology and replacing billions in infrastructure

That has already been happening incrementally ever since electricity transmission became popular, and it will continue to happen incrementally short of disaster. Also major clue that I'm somewhat amazed you don't know - if grids don't match you don't throw one away, you do something with the interconnection. Exactly what is beyond me because I was never that sort of engineer but I have worked with several. Apparently transistors made a lot of the problems go away.

No more plants

[p51d007]

Why no one brings up the argument about removing Co2 from the atmosphere will mean LESS oxygen for us because plants use it to create O2 for us...unbelievable

Fuck it, let's convert CO2 to diamonds and oxygen

[elrous0]

Everyone loves those.

We could also start a massive nuclear war, which would have the benefits of greatly reducing the population and offsetting global warming with nuclear winter. It's a win-win.

Re:if "flexible" means uncontrollable 100X variati

[dbIII]

Demand varies over time.

lack of science knowledge disturbing

[Anonymous Coward]

plant a tree fucking morons! trees like CO2!

Don't forget the oxidizer

[Anonymous Coward]

On Mars, you'd have to hold onto all the O2 you produced by decomposition of water too. Otherwise, no way to "burn" your methane (or other hydrocarbon). Because you sure aren't going to burn methane with atmospheric CO2. Unless you mine perchlorate from the soil and use *that* as an oxidizer.

Incidentally, perchlorate is toxic and would make Mars a chemically hostile planet for humans, in addition to the higher radiation, lack of oxygen, lack of pressure, lack of water, lack of food, and horribly cold temperatures.

here's an idea: grow FOOD

[ihtoit]

Crops turn CO2 into things like grain and fruit. Some crops can be grazed, such as spring onions, chives, and other herbs, some only take three months or so to mature. They all do the same thing: lock carbon into a stable and USABLE and USEFUL form.

And it costs fuck-all except a little time and patience.

Re:here's an idea: grow FOOD

[Chas]

That's just it though. Everyone wants a solution "RIGHT NAO!!!!"

Instead of planting more trees than we remove (as a species) and increasing our long-term carbon sink

As for growing crops, while yes, it does bind SOME carbon, the short growth span of modern plants actually limits the amount of actual carbon that's sequestered in the process.

But no, we continue to clear-cut areas, and then pave/build them over.

Re:here's an idea: grow FOOD

[dave420]

The long-term carbon sink you mentioned isn't quite as long-term or sink-y as you imagine. Your lack of understanding of this topic is now very apparent.

Re:if "flexible" means uncontrollable 100X variati

[Chas]

Yes but windmills have tiny unit sizes as far as electricity generation goes so they are brought on and offline as needed. Need another 15MW, bring a few windmills online. They are spread around national grids so the wind is always blowing on some somewhere.
Tricky to control? Not since about 1970. Your phone probably has the CPU power.

I'd actually MUCH rather have a bunch of 500MW nuclear units. And if it means there's times when we just pump power to ground? C'est la vie!

The fact is the "national grids" such as you're talking about simply aren't as unified OR as smart as they'd need to be.

Sure, nuclear overspec introduces some problems. But the national appetite for energy continues to grow. And if electric cars are EVER going to become a reality, it REALLY wouldn't hurt to start building CO2-free capacity like nuclear NOW.

Instead of trying to ad-hoc our way to power requirements with various unreliable renewables.

It also ensures that areas that aren't ideal candidates for wind or solar can still provide power without becoming permanent clients/serfs to the areas where large scale deployment of wind/solar makes more sense. Not to mention that it'll cut down on transmission losses.

Re:if "flexible" means uncontrollable 100X variati

[dbIII]

I'd actually MUCH rather have a bunch of 500MW nuclear units

Yes but demand fluctuates over time while those atoms keep on decaying faster than the heat can be used.

And if it means there's times when we just pump power to ground? C'est la vie!

Yes, let those greasy Moorlocks work it out while the coder boys play in the garden.

There's an energy mix for a variety of reasons. If you want to ignore that and bring the dicussion down to a grade school level, fair enough, but then it's best to stick to what you know instead of shouting into the darkness just because someone has mentioned something you don't know about.

Unlikely unless you go nuclear

[Anonymous Coward]

Good thing If the energy involved in production and transportation of raw materials is polluting less then the co2 you take out. I will remain sceptical.

Not for me

[nospam007]

I'll wait until they sell a machine that can turn air into ethanol, thanks.

Re:Not for me

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't worry. You're a poorly written summary and a dupe away. There's a pretty good probability you won't have to wait too long.

CO2-sugar

[Phil Karn]

Well, I've recently developed a machine to convert atmospheric CO2 into various simple organic molecules known as "sugars", which have the significant advantage over methanol of being relatively nontoxic. My design has been successfully tested for some time and it only requires sunlight, water and a few miscellaneous other inexpensive materials. And best of all, my machine is self-replicating!

Re:CO2-sugar

[Anonymous Coward]

But Dwight, what if your beet farm is attacked by bears?

Re:CO2-sugar

[Anonymous Coward]

According to most slashdotters, that would violate the laws of thermodynamics!

the point about wind: power = speed CUBED

[raymorris]

You're missing the main point about wind power, the fundamental law of physics that controls everything with wind power. The power of wind is the speed CUBED. Not squared, but CUBED.

  If a 10 mph wind has 1,000 units of energy, a 20 mph wind has 8,000, and 40 mph has 64,000. That's right, 10 mph wind has less than 1.5% as much power as 40 mph. At 10 mph, it might, maybe have just enough power to overcome bearing friction, but there's no power left to harvest as electricity. You -might- see it turning, but it's freewheeling, there's no power generation occurring.

Use lighter components that spin more easily, you say? If 10 mph is 1,000 units, the cube power law means 60 mph imparts 216,000 units of force to that lightweight structure, destroying it.

The cube power law is a law of physics, it can't be repealed by your favorite politician, and it mercilessly ensures that wind power comes only when nature chooses, in the amount that nature chooses.

Re:the point about wind: power = speed CUBED

[jbengt]

Use lighter components that spin more easily, you say? If 10 mph is 1,000 units, the cube power law means 60 mph imparts 216,000 units of force to that lightweight structure, destroying it.

A cube power law is not a cube force law.
Wind has a velocity pressure that is proportional to the square of the speed. This pressure over an area gives you force. Adjusting the angle of the blades can change the force vectors and apparent area enough to withstand the wind. (In high enough winds, at the expense of shutting down power production)
Not that it's easy to make a big blade both strong enough for normal operation and light enough to start rotating at low wind speeds. I believe, however, that once you get one going, it can keep rotating in pretty low winds and produce at least some power.

Re:the point about wind: power = speed CUBED

[dbIII]

Not that it's easy to make a big blade both strong enough for normal operation and light enough to start rotating at low wind speeds

Carbon fibre reinforced plastic - maybe not easy but now done on an industrial scale and in operation in thousands of windmills all over the world.

Re:the point about wind: power = speed CUBED

[dbIII]

So? The obvious answer turned out to be a lot of windmills turning slowly instead of just one spinning really fast.

At 10 mph, it might, maybe have just enough power to overcome bearing friction

What exactly do you base that guess on coder boy? Your understanding of Visual Basic, Pascal, Java or maybe even C? If a wind at four metres per second is not moving a windmill then it's obviously a pretty fucked up design isn't it?

clean coal is a dead end. Re:Energy in?

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Dirty coal is more expensive than natural gas. Clean coal will be even more expensive and not at all competitive with natural gas. What is killing the coal industry is simple free market economics. Not EPA, not tree hugging enviro nazis, not government waging war on coal.

Remote energy storage

[MooseTick]

With some work, you could put solar cells in the desert, use them to create Methanol (slowly but surely), and occasionally come by to pick up your fuel. The economics may not be there yet, but something like this could be the future. It would basically take advantage of free energy and convert that into a more dense portable energy like Methanol. That said, fre

Take your idea a bit further.

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the big complaints about windmills is that there is no energy storage in the electric grid. By using their power to create synthetic hydrocarbon fuels, we can eliminate that issue.
Then use those fuels to power internal combustion engine generators and automobiles.
This give you a closed loop system where the amount of CO2 will stop increasing (from cars and electricity generation.)

**iRoll**

[Anonymous Coward]

They have to obey the laws of thermodynamics and conservation of energy? You don't say.

Preach to the choir much?

Re: if "flexible" means uncontrollable 100X variat

[Anonymous Coward]

Why has not anyone mentioned planting trees here as a viable alternative?

CO2 into Methanol is old tech over 100 years old

[DannyGowin]

Lady's and Gentlemen is called "Water Gas Technology". Back in the turn of the Century, 1890's the public Utilities used to convert Coal into "Water Gas", using steam. "Water Gas consist of Carbon Monoxide and Hydrogen, that was used in the old street lamps. Carbon Monoxide or Carbon Dioxide, combined with Hydrogen and passed over a catalyst to form Methane. And eventually converted in to Methyl Alcohol. They're are several books on the subject called the Methanol Economy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... . Sorry UCLA didn't invent anything new.

seawater to jey fuel sounds better

[blindseer]

The US Navy has been working on a process that derives hydrogen and CO2 from seawater as feedstock for synthesis of hydrocarbons. Methanol is nice but hydrocarbons are better. We know how to store, transport, and efficiently burn hydrocarbons. We don't know as much about methanol.

Also, it sounds like the seawater to jet fuel process is in its final stages of development, needing only enough funding to prove its viability. This air to methanol process sounds like its purely theoretical now.

Re: if "flexible" means uncontrollable 100X varia

[Cinnamon Beige]

Perhaps because it would mean going outside? Algae does pretty well, too, and the problem really is more than anything else a failure to keep the carbon cycle's capacity up.

Re: that would be nice, but weather systems are bi

[Anonymous Coward]

The natural carbon cycle releases enough carbon dioxide into the air for plant life. We don't need to dump 3 orders of magnitude *more* in to 'help'.

Re:CO2 into Methanol is old tech over 100 years ol

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, as a matter of fact, they did. They invented a method of producing methane that requires less energy than other, older methods.

My understanding of cubed. Your journal entry is s

[raymorris]

Your journal entry and some of your other posts indicate that you're an intelligent person.

I'm intrigued why it's hard for you to understand that Y = X^3 means that as X changes, Y changes a LOT. That when Y equals X cubed, a large value X means a VERY large Y, and conversely a small value for X means a comparatively tiny value for Y.

Really, your other posts seem like this arithmetic shouldn't be hard for you. A strong wind has a LOT of power. A light wind has almost no power in comparison. It makes wind farm design a bit tricky. It also means that wind can be a really good way to reduce natural gas generation when the wind is good, and doesn't provide significant power when it's not windy. I'm really surprised you're having trouble with this, you're definitely not stupid.

Energy mix indeed

[raymorris]

> There's an energy mix for a variety of reasons.

Exactly. One big reason is that some of the stable, reliable sources aren't as clean as we'd like (coal, natural gas, nuclear), while the clean sources are either not as reliable (wind, solar) or available only in very limited locations and amounts (hydro, geothermal).

The mix allows us to use the cleanest stuff when and where it's available, then throttle the slightly less-clean stuff like natural gas to meet demand, with something very steady like nuclear providing a base level that meets minimum demand.

If you're interested in the mix, here's a paper that may interest you. Of course all figures in the paper are cited to reliable sources. It seems like _maybe_ you don't care for math at all, and if that's the case this paper isn't for you. If you don't mind just a little math, this paper goes over many different sources in the mix, discussing the costs and benefits of each, and how they can be combined.

The figures for solar-electric have improved a bit in the last 2-5 years, so the solar-electric number in the paper are very slightly outdated. The conclusion hasn't changed though - solar electric is a good supplemental source, not a reliable inexpensive source capable of providing the bulk of of energy needs.

The paper, if you're interested and don't mind some fairly easy math:
https://docs.google.com/docume...

Re:Energy mix indeed

[dbIII]

With respect variable demand is a pretty huge reason for a mixture of small unit sizes and large before you go anywhere near the features of energy types.

It seems like _maybe_ you don't care for math

I used to work with applied mathematicians for the extremely nasty stuff and have had to resort to numerical solutions instead of analytical for some stuff, but I think you are getting the wrong idea maybe due to some things I have written about extremely simple concepts. After an argument erupted here over braindead simple orbital mechanics that any kid over ten paying attention to the space program would have been able to work out I've been trying to dumb things down as much as possible without changing meaning.
The paper looks interesting at a quick glance. A very old transmission engineer put it to me very simply years ago however. If you have lots of mountains and snow hydro solves everything, if you don't it's a tradeoff with whatever you have lying around. Civilian nuclear fits the description of what is lying around because the infrastructure and training costs can be offset by military expenditure. No military nukes? Then starting from zero requires insane effort. I have not worked directly in electricity generation and transmission since 1997 but things have changed depressingly slowly in those fields since then. Take a look at the Westinghouse AP1000 for an example - what is there about it that would look new in 1988?

Re:Energy mix indeed

[dbIII]

Interesting review paper.
A polite minor suggestion is to perhaps remove the reference to the "China Syndrome" movie and describe opposition to nuclear more generally because specific references to fiction, no matter how apt, greatly undermine credibility.
For the item on nuclear waste disposal I suggest you read about Synroc and for reprocessing I suggest you read about recent work at Harford. Things have changed since the 1970s and it's getting interesting.
There is a minor typo of a misplaced decimal with what you've written about France's nuclear industry and you have not defined if it is available capacity (GW) or generated electricity (GW/h). Of course if it's nukes the fuel decays all the time if it's used or not so you want to run them as much as possible and let other things take up the slack. However some research reactors that run intermittently sometimes get included in capacity figures to pad the numbers so the latter figure is considered more credible and a better depiction of reality even if it may not be as impressive.
What is the target audience of this review paper?
It looks like it's dumbed down enough for political "think tanks", but if it's aimed at them you'll need to say something about expected popularity of items or it will be ignored.

Re:if "flexible" means uncontrollable 100X variati

[angel'o'sphere]

The fact is the "national grids" such as you're talking about simply aren't as unified OR as smart as they'd need to be.

In gods own country, perhaps. In the rest of the world they are.

Not to mention that it'll cut down on transmission losses.
Transmission losses are neglectible and in a third world grid like yours you have far more pressing concerns than transmission losses of a new wind plant. E.g. placing the wind plant at a place where it yields 5% more already covers the losses of transport into any conceivable corner of north america.

Re:My understanding of cubed. Your journal entry i

[dbIII]

Yes you can do high school mathematics and more wind is better - but if a windmill can't get it's bearings moving with an airspeed of four metres per second it's a pretty fucked up design and is never going to be built. There's still a serious amount of energy to be gained when the air is moving at that speed especially considering the length of the vanes.
That's the difference between high school level and possibly first year undergraduate engineering, but definitely by second year - a bit of awareness about what bearings actually do.

I'm intrigued why it's hard for you to understand that Y = X^3

Suggesting that I'm answering a different question to the one that I am answering is either the act of someone confused or pretending to be for nefarious reasons - so no - I do not find it hard to understand at all.

Re:if "flexible" means uncontrollable 100X variati

[dbIII]

To put things in perspective they had fires due to hurricane Sandy wetting some gear where local transmission lines were nailed directly into wood! No insulators! "Third world" doesn't cover how bad some stuff that has been "grandfathered" in and there are transmission losses in some bits of the US network that defy reason.
However, if they stick wind power units out on a remote and rocky cost they can run lines that lose hardly anything over 100km.

Re:if "flexible" means uncontrollable 100X variati

[crimson tsunami]

So the free energy also varies over time. Whats the problem?

thanks. I may do some of that

[raymorris]

Thanks for those ideas, and for reading it. I'll cross-reference your comments and probably make some changes.

I think I came across evidence that public opposition to nuclear power did in fact jump dramatically (as in triple or quadruple) upon the release of China Syndrome (as measured via polls). I'll check that. Based on what I remember, the anti-nuclear power movement is in fact borne of that fictional movie. That does shed some light on the underlying fear and whether it's based on credible facts, or indeed it's based on a work of fiction. I'll see if I can find the numbers and reword or remove that part.

> What is the target audience of this review paper?

The grader for my sophomore English class. :) And the occasional Slashdot reader. After founding and running IT companies for 20 years, I went back to finish college a couple of years ago. School is a piece of cake now; I had some test questions about open source software that I wrote, and IETF standards that I helped develop. School is easy when the names of historical figures you havw to memorize are people you've worked with. I'm definitely going to get my masters next.

Found the poll numbers on the China Syndrome movie

[raymorris]

After a few more minutes of research I see what I wrote the China Syndrome part the way I did. I DID see that the percentage of Americans opposed to nuclear power tripled in the month after China Syndrome was released. I didn't include that fact because I read it in a biased source and I needed to find a reliable source.

It turns out that IS true. The major opposition to nuclear power really started in earnest right after China Syndrome was released in theaters. However, also 12 days after the movie was released, the Three Mile Island scare happened. So you can't legitimately say the movie caused the poll numbers to change - Three Mile Island happened at the same time.

I'm glad I didn't include cite that source.