Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

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

Posted by yaelk on from the out-of-thin-air dept.

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.

5 of 158 comments (clear)

  1. Energy in? by Mr+D+from+63 · · Score: 4, Insightful

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

    1. Re:Energy in? by blue9steel · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

    2. Re:Energy in? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

  2. Taking CO2 from the atmosphere?? by NotInHere · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  3. Re:Let's see if I've got this right... by bobbied · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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....

    --
    "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101