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Engineers are developing new ways to convert greenhouse gases to fuel

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Re: Engineers are developing new ways to convert greenhouse gases to fuel

#121

Post by diarrhea »

yholio wrote: post #104
colordrops wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not all or nothing, and further more the electricity from solar and wind is fungible and can be used for either fuel generation or direct usage by electric cars, so it would serve us either way, no matter how long it took. These things are not contradictory. We can build out more renewable electricity supply, replace with electric cars, and generate carbon neutral fuel all at the same time. You are underestimati…

In Europe, fosil fuel engines are already 2-4 times more expensive to run than electrics. In 11 years, which is the average age of a car in Europe, the majority of private vehicles will switch naturally for purely economic reasons. In 20 years, the same will be true for busses, trucks & tractors. And it will be driven solely by better economics.

And what do you get by replacing one ICE vehicle in Europe with an electric one?

You get two cars. A shiny new electric one running in (Central) Europe, and that same old stinky ICE one running in Eastern Europe, Asia or Africa.

The poorer countries will enjoy an influx and thus price decrease of valuable cars and happily drive them for decades to come.

The problem of course is that the planet doesn't care. Europe got cleaner but the planet got worse. Whereas Europe can outsource its dirty issues (waste, emissions, ...), the planet cannot. It stops there and we all lose.

I think the vast introduction of and blind focus on e-mobility is a mistake. Other areas are much more significant sources for GHG (industry, heating, A/C).

Re: Engineers are developing new ways to convert greenhouse gases to fuel

#122

Post by CodeGlitch »

diarrhea wrote: post #113
lmilcin wrote: post #99

Don't get your hopes too high if you think this can be used to scrub significant amount of CO2 from atmosphere. Don't get me wrong, producing fuel from atmospheric CO2 is still wonderful news. But you know what they produce? Methane. And methane is what? It is A FUEL . And what we do with fuel? We BURN it. Once you burn methane you get the CO2 back, for net ZERO effect on the atmosphere. The only way this works to he…

It's even worse than zero net effect, it's negative, owed to all the auxiliary inefficiencies. Add to that methane slip and it's infeasible by a long shot. The solution can never be to remedy surface-level GHG. The sources need to remain buried and replaced by true renewables. Anything else is just an afterthought, patching what's already too little too late. Almost all fossil-based material that made it to the surfa…

Do not forget market forces: there would be a strong incentive to improve upon the CO2 scrubbing technology, which can then be used in the tech to permanently remove CO2 from the atmosphere.

Re: Engineers are developing new ways to convert greenhouse gases to fuel

#123

Post by makeitrain »

fho wrote: post #111
gpm wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and sort of. The ISS is constantly losing gas, I believe that the primary source of new O2 is actually electrolysis of water, not pressurized tanks, but that they do also have pressurized tanks as a backup. A person breathes out roughly 1kg of CO2/day, and it follows you breathe in about the same amount of O2, not an impossible amount of mass to resupply.

> 1kg of CO2/day which is crazy low if you put it in perspective and see that (gas powered) cars release about 0.2 kg of CO2 ... per kilometer.

That's insane, I didn't realize it was that much. If we could see cars drop carbon turds on the road instead of venting it invisibly in the air we'd all be freaking out right now.

Re: Engineers are developing new ways to convert greenhouse gases to fuel

#124

Post by kf6nux »

mlindner wrote: post #80

Converting CO2 into fuell isn't the hard part. The hard part is getting the CO2 out of the atmosphere in the first place. We've known how to convert CO2 into fuel since the end of the 19th century. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabatier_reaction

One could say we've know how to convert CO2 into fuel from the time we first learned agriculture.

Re: Engineers are developing new ways to convert greenhouse gases to fuel

#125

Post by burnte »

generalizations wrote: post #115

The problem, in general, is obtaining the CO2. Ironically, in industries where massive amounts of CO2 is needed (including biodiesel production from algae), one of the cheapest ways to get it is to just make it. Pulling it out of the air isn't feasible.

https://singularityhub.com/2021/09/09/the-worlds-largest-dir...

The more we do it the cheaper it'll get.

Re: Engineers are developing new ways to convert greenhouse gases to fuel

#126

Post by wrycoder »

dTal wrote: post #83
dotancohen wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There still must be some input of energy. From what I understand, the Sabatier reaction is really only viable from an environmental perspective if it is powered by some other non-carbon energy, such as solar or wind.

And if you have that surplus clean energy, you should spend it powering things that would otherwise be powered with fossil fuels - not trying to offset someone else's emissions. Carbon removal only makes sense in a world where nobody is burning any fossil fuels, and we're trying to lower atmospheric carbon. Lower, not offset.

Which would only make sense if you were trying to initiate the currently deferred glacial epoch.

Re: Engineers are developing new ways to convert greenhouse gases to fuel

#127

Post by MauranKilom »

CodeGlitch wrote: post #118
mlindner wrote: post #80

Converting CO2 into fuell isn't the hard part. The hard part is getting the CO2 out of the atmosphere in the first place. We've known how to convert CO2 into fuel since the end of the 19th century. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabatier_reaction

This I do not understand... why do we not build a nuclear reactor out in the middle of no-where - easily accessible via shipping - that has the job of taking CO2 out of the atmosphere, and converting into liquid methane? It can run 24/7. Little running costs? No one complaining about NIMBYISM.

I am not exactly knowledgeable on the topic, but I believe you might be underestimating the running costs. It's not like you can just leave a nuclear reactor unattended and hope for the best...

Re: Engineers are developing new ways to convert greenhouse gases to fuel

#128

Post by diarrhea »

realusername wrote: post #21
wyager wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are several conceptual issues here, but one of them is that trees require energy from sunlight to turn CO2 into other things.

Yes but we don't have an energy problem, we have a CO2 problem and there's no law of physics preventing to absorb more CO2 than you emit.

That's true but assumes the captured CO2 remains that, captured. The article revolves around the idea of turning CO2 into fuel. Fuel which is burned, releasing that same CO2 again while having wasted a lot of intermediate energy. At best, that energy was renewable and would've been curtailed otherwise (hence wasted). Then you didn't "use energy" but it was still an utterly useless exercise.

Now, if the carbon remains captured and the energy for capturing is renewable, we are in business. I'm not aware that is done on a meaningful scale yet though.

Re: Engineers are developing new ways to convert greenhouse gases to fuel

#129

Post by [deleted] »

ncmncm wrote: post #105
lmilcin wrote: post #99

Don't get your hopes too high if you think this can be used to scrub significant amount of CO2 from atmosphere. Don't get me wrong, producing fuel from atmospheric CO2 is still wonderful news. But you know what they produce? Methane. And methane is what? It is A FUEL . And what we do with fuel? We BURN it. Once you burn methane you get the CO2 back, for net ZERO effect on the atmosphere. The only way this works to he…

24 times more. You are better off just pumping the CO2 down there, instead, and arranging for it to turn into rock.

[deleted]

Re: Engineers are developing new ways to convert greenhouse gases to fuel

#130

Post by ehsankia »

generalizations wrote: post #115

The problem, in general, is obtaining the CO2. Ironically, in industries where massive amounts of CO2 is needed (including biodiesel production from algae), one of the cheapest ways to get it is to just make it. Pulling it out of the air isn't feasible.

Pulling it out of the air isn't feasible.

What about pulling it right where it's mostly produced (heavy polluting factories or electricity generators).

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