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Company That Sucks CO2 From Air Announces a New Methane-Producing Plant (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Swiss company Climeworks has announced the opening of a new plant in Italy that will collect carbon dioxide (CO2) from ambient air and pair it with renewably-made hydrogen (H2) to make methane fuel that would add little or no CO2 to the atmosphere. The plant in Troia, Italy, was completed in July and went into operation this week as part of a research program funded by the European Union. The new Italian plant will be run for more than 4,000 hours over the next 17 months (that's just under eight hours a day) in order to demonstrate the viability of fuel production as a potential revenue source for carbon capture. Gebald said that pure, captured CO2 could even be processed into jet fuel. When that fuel is burned, he said, it would again create CO2 that could be captured at an arbitrary Direct Air Capture plant and turned back into jet fuel.
The plant consists of three air collectors that are more energy efficient than Climeworks' first ambient air collector. "The plant will filter up to 150 tons of CO2 from ambient air per year," Climeworks said in a press statement. "Simultaneously, an alkaline electrolyser (1.2 MW) locally generates 240 cubic meters of renewable hydrogen per hour by making use of excess on-site photovoltaic energy." A catalyst then combines the CO2 and the hydrogen into methane gas in a reactor built by a French company called Atmostat. The methane "is then liquified and used to fuel natural gas lorries," Climeworks says. As Ars notes, Climeworks' previous carbon-capture plant "captured carbon out of ambient air using a filter of base amines that would bind with more acidic CO2." The carbon that was captured was then sent to a greenhouse to speed plant growth.
"The second was based in Iceland at a geothermal plant that released some volcanic CO2," reports Ars. "Climeworks' small plant captures that carbon and injects it back into the ground, where mineral reactions help the CO2 bind with basalt, essentially storing the gas as a rock."
The plant consists of three air collectors that are more energy efficient than Climeworks' first ambient air collector. "The plant will filter up to 150 tons of CO2 from ambient air per year," Climeworks said in a press statement. "Simultaneously, an alkaline electrolyser (1.2 MW) locally generates 240 cubic meters of renewable hydrogen per hour by making use of excess on-site photovoltaic energy." A catalyst then combines the CO2 and the hydrogen into methane gas in a reactor built by a French company called Atmostat. The methane "is then liquified and used to fuel natural gas lorries," Climeworks says. As Ars notes, Climeworks' previous carbon-capture plant "captured carbon out of ambient air using a filter of base amines that would bind with more acidic CO2." The carbon that was captured was then sent to a greenhouse to speed plant growth.
"The second was based in Iceland at a geothermal plant that released some volcanic CO2," reports Ars. "Climeworks' small plant captures that carbon and injects it back into the ground, where mineral reactions help the CO2 bind with basalt, essentially storing the gas as a rock."
Would it not be more efficient to put the excess electricity into the grid, or even use the hydrogen in a fuel cell to power EVs? Burning fuel in an ICE is very inefficient.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Okay, that's a start.
All we need are about 15 million more of these plants and we'd be fine, right?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
If they then make methane out of the carbon, which is burned...
CO2 capture is taking carbon permanently out of the air - unburning the carbon that was burned in the first place. This scheme should be called RECYCLING carbon - which isn't nearly as bad as digging up coal, but it isn't "cleaning" the air if it is sold as methane. It should be buried as rock or coal to be environmentally friendly instead of environmentally neutral.
This is a research project. You shouldn't nitpick irrelevant details.
The point is to make CH4 from captured CO2. What they do with the CH4 after that is immaterial.
I think they mean for airplanes. Jet fuel can't be substituted for electricity yet, energy density and conversion rates are too low. You'd spend most of the energy lugging around the spent batteries anyway. Airplanes get more efficient as they run out of fuel, since it makes them lighter.
Fun fact: very large airplanes can not land once they take off, because the take off weight plus fuel exceeds max landing weight. If there is an emergency, airplanes have essentially carte Blanche authority to dump fuel to get to landing weight. This is also one reason why many flights don't fill tanks to the brim. If you made it to your destination having not burned enough fuel, not only have you spent extra lugging that fuel you didn't need, you'd also have to dump it before landing, since that is too much stress for landing gear.
is as far as I see this going.
Kerosene is the current oil supply chain bottleneck. Doesn't matter if we cut down use of other oil distillates. Planes need the kerosene, and you get a very specific amount of kerosene from oil that doesn't vary to a significant degree between various oils.
That means that even if we were to say cut our use of gasolene, we can't afford to refine less oil, because growing civil aviation needs more kerosene. If we can actually generate kerosene from this process with any kind of meaningful cost effectiveness, we stand to benefit tremendously from less need to refine oil.
Unless they put it back into the atmosphere.
In which case it's worse than literally doing nothing.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Cost is massive, as this is a proof of concept prototype. Cost efficiency is not a concern at this stage.
Target for methane is irrelevant (but electricity generating CCGTs would obviously love to have it, especially since this one is going to be of extremely high purity) because this is a proof of concept.
So it's a CO2 capture and release program ;D.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
The "serious money going into researching electric battery" is pointless on aircraft. The only thing we theoretically know of that could potentially, maybe, perhaps, in ideal scenario meet the energy density needs of commercial aircraft is lithium air.
Lithium air batteries are like fusion power, except that where fusion power is perpetually "50 years away", lithium air batteries are perpetually "20 years away". This hasn't changed in last 30 years or so, and it's unlikely to change for foreseeable future, as just like with fusion power, every breakthrough brings understanding of significant additional problems. Modern electric aircraft prototyping is overwhelmingly done with various lithium ion battery variants, which cannot meet the requirements even in theory. Energy density is simply far too low.
No, I'm not involved in the project. This is the first time I hear about it.
As for the rest, I have no idea why you think that pure methane is not a wanted raw material in Europe. Availability of affordable natgas is one of the greatest geopolitical threats to European powers in next few decades, as many of European majors either have switched or are in process of switching their electricity generation to CCGTs. Guess what they overwhelmingly burn?
So yeah, if these things actually become cost effective, "who will buy the natgas" is going to be literally the last of the relevant questions on the list, because there will be a long queue of buyers, salivating at the potential of reliable source of methane sourced in Europe.
I think he means turning CO2 into methane and then releasing the methane.
Carte blanc---unless the problem that's causing you to land also prevents your from dumping fuel. I got the not-recommended experience of cutting donuts in the sky in a military (i.e., no windows to even sight-see out of) plane for 8+ hours getting down to a weight we could land at. Oh, and the problem also affected the brakes. Thankfully we had a very, very long runway to land on. Landing was uneventful thankfully. That was almost as bad as getting stuck in a middle seat in the middle section on a packed flight from Chicago to Hawaii. Nah, not even close.
FC Cars are nothing like you describe. Range is 300+ miles. Fueling is under 5 minutes from empty and generally un-eventful. The H2 supply chain breaks down far more often than the cars or the fueling stations (and the supply chain is getting better).
H2 tanks are extensively tested including such items as shooting them with 50 cal bullets. It takes two bullets to the same location to pierce the tank, and then it is a leak and the H2 gas that goes straight up. If it ignites, all the flame goes straight up as well. It is very hard to create an explosive mixture, and even then the explosive over-pressure is not really an explosion (a refinery in Wilmington, CA had a very large H2 tank explode a number of years ago. I felt the pressure wave 15 miles away. Even though many people were on site, no one was even injured.) I always wondered if H2 was a greenhouse gas. The answer is no as it actually escapes into space and literally leaves the planet (Helium does this as well). There are design differences, but generally H2 is far safer than gasoline car. Even a BEV car has real safety issues. Did you know the fire department needs to "saw" two spots on a Tesla Model 3 to break the high voltage "loop".
Reliability is also very good with 100K miles warranty and almost no required maintenance. Even the breaks last forever. I drive my FC car every day and it is an excellent car that gets me where I want to go in safety and comfort. My closest H2 station is about 4 miles away with 2 others within 15 miles. I see other FC cars on the road most days. 5100+ in California. http://www.cafcp.org./
You merely need to explain where the chemistry messes up, and the reaction becomes something other than carbon dioxide plus hydrogen equals methane and water (? can't remember where oxygen molecules went). Remember that modern physics modelling combined with modern automation allows for remarkably precise reaction control, one of the main reasons why we no longer get acid rain from modern coal burners for example.
The news here appears to be that the process is workable on large scale in sustainable fashion. Note that sustainable is not the same thing as economical.
You won't be flying across the Atlantic on an electric airplane any time soon. But much like EVs vs ICEs there's a lot of ~1 hour short hop routes that could possibly - if jet fuel prices and emission regulations demand it - be done electrically.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Did we get this energy from solar panel or wind turbine excess energy, where we turn on the devices only when the price of energy craters due to oversupply, or is this intended to run 24/7/365? Or do they (as many processes do) use electricity generated from fossil fuels to run the machines?
They currently use renewable energy.
But the point you're making here is irrelevant; If this moves from the current experimental/proof-of-concept to commercial production, you'd still use renewable energy to run it 24/7 because the product itself has value as a fuel and chemical feedstock that displaces fossil fuel.
Pulling CO2 from the air is not a solution, but producing hydrocarbons that are carbon neutral and renewable is a very, very important piece of the puzzle.
=Smidge=
Your comparison with nuclear waste is as off-point as the rest of your post. If anything, a hydrogen leak is the least destructive event of any fuel leak. Gas and diesel are famous for pollution. Your example of nuclear waste is obvious. BEV battery fires produce all sorts of toxic gasses and hazardous left overs. A hydrogen fire/explosion produces water. If it does not burn, it heads into space. There is zero environmental impact.
Your analysis of hydrogen safety ignores a lot of research. The most important point is that at STP, hydrogen while flammable and even explosive if mixed with air, has a very low energy content. The energy content is low because because the gas is so light. 1/16 the weight of oxygen. About 78 W/hours per cu feet (not kw/hours).
The second point you miss is that hydrogen aggressively goes straight up when there is a leak. Gasoline and diesel pool. Even worse for gasoline, the vapors can pool and ignite. Hydrogen just heads for the sky. There is an on-line video of a two cars, one hydrogen and one gasoline. Both are set on fire with a fuel leak. The gasoline car is melted down. The hydrogen car is basically intact and can even roll on it's own tires at the end.
If you look at hydrogen fueling stations, they either do not have roofs, or they are designed to vent up. Air Products had a leak from about 30 kg of hydrogen tanks on a delivery truck. The damage was minor. The over-reaction was the biggest issue. Even the truck drove away. Also, the other 170 kg of hydrogen, on the same truck, never burned. The accident itself was caused by a pressure release "burst disk", in this case the wrong pressure disk was installed.
Issues about metal embrittlement are interesting, but not on point. A hydrogen leak will not "attack metals". If you build a tank out of the wrong stuff, it will fail. Don't build the tank out of the wrong stuff. Gasoline attacks a lot of different rubber seals. It is the same for diesel. You have to build the hardware with appropriate materials. In the case of automobile hydrogen tanks, this is fiberglass, plastic, and Kevlar. Hydrogen cars, and hydrogen filling stations are a lot safer than gasoline. A purely compression explosion is an interesting thought experiment, but even in a major crash, it is not that much energy (compared to the crash). In such a case, the hydrogen will only make it a few feet sideways before heading skyward.
And you never withdrew your 100 mile range and fueling a BITCH comment. There are issues of cost, available supply, and round trip energy efficiency. Then again, for some applications, hydrogen FC vehicles work really well. Long haul trains where caternary wires are too expensive. Long haul trucks. For passenger cars, Toyota believes that FC tech will be cheaper to build than batteries. Not sure if they are right or not, but they have a lot of experience, so betting against them is dubious. And I would much rather have a FC car in Lake Tahoe in the winter at -10F that a BEV Bolt or Tesla.
The future is a plug-in hybrid. Hydrogen and a FC for range, and a small-ish battery. With 50 miles of BEV range and 300+ miles of FC range, you have a Chevy Volt that does not pollute at all. Hydrogen cost and round trip efficiency are not all that important as the plug-in battery does most of the miles for most people. This also mitigates the hydrogen round trip efficiency and cost. With a bigger battery, the FC can be smaller, so this combo costs less to build. The battery is still small enough to not need a "super charger", so the grid is not impacted as much. Mercedes has one of these in tests now. The reason they are not building this is that there needs to be demand for H2 stations first. This hybrid design is no more complicated that the stock FC design, it just has a bigger regen battery and the charging electronics. Plug in FCs is what will win for all but NEV applications (Neighborhood Electric Vehicle).
This is not new. The US Navy has been working on this technology for what I'm guessing is at least a decade. What I'm guessing are the most notable differences are that they intend to get power from nuclear reactors, and perform this process at sea.
But we can't celebrate the US Navy working on this because to many in the "save the planet" group they see nuclear power as worse than global warming. Such people also tend to overlap with those that believe that no nation should have a military.
This gets a big yawn from me as it shows nothing that hasn't already been done. It does nothing to solve the real problems on where this energy comes from. Wind and solar power are inherently expensive and unreliable, nuclear power is not. Powering this process with any kind of carbon based fuel is simply nonsensical. Powering this with hydroelectric means we simply run out of hydro capacity more quickly, assuming that we haven't crossed that line decades ago. Thinking we can power this process with fusion reactors or some other not yet developed energy is just wishful thinking.
This process must get it's power from nuclear fission or it will not be successful any time soon.
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The terms "biofuel" and "sustainable" are contradictory. There are no biofuels that are sustainable now and the laws of physics prevent biofuels from ever being sustainable.
The reason that airlines are interested in biofuels is "greenwashing", they can advertise being "green" even if they know as a fact that such efforts are futile. Aircraft manufacturers and the military are interested in biofuels because in a fight for our lives against a suitably determined and capable adversary we might have to resort to means of self defense that under any other situation might be considered self destructive. Fueling airliners with biofuels would require so much land area, water, and so on, to produce that it could threaten the food supply of any nation that tried it. In a war the number of planes would be far smaller, and hopefully for such a short duration, that it would be of a greater threat to not turn cropland to producing fuel.
There's "big bucks" in research for defense because not investing in defense of the riches we have means the possibility of losing such riches to war. If you seek peace then prepare for war. Showing one is unable or unwilling to fight means being a big target for someone to come along and take over. We need this research done before it might be needed or risk losing everything.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.