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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

#141

Post by admax88qqq »

orthecreedence wrote: post #138
jl6 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if we consume the fuel byproduct, presumably we just end up with co2 in the atmosphere? The process would still be great news if true, as it could be a carbon-neutral source of hydrocarbon fuel for applications that are hard to electrify, like aviation.

From what I know, it's electricity intensive to make the fuels. Now, if only we had a very scalable way to make immense amounts of electricity that didn't depend on weather in a world where the climate is now in disarray. Hmm...

You're being unnecessarily negative IMO.

The biggest challenge with renewables always cited is storage. Cabrin neutral feul like this could potentially be a good storage medium.

There's more than enough solar energy hitting the Earth's surface to supply all our power needs, the challenge is capturing, storing, and distributing this power.

After all, fossil fuels are just captured solar energy.

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

#142

Post by fnord77 »

anamax wrote: post #120
makeitrain wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you invent the internet but forget to register your own domain... oops.

The University of California schools think of themselves as independent entities, independent entities that just happened to all pick the same school colors. berkeley.edu (where "University of CA" is a subtitle), ucla.edu, ucdavis.edu, etc.

sometime later:

https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/

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

#143

Post by Synaesthesia »

jandrese wrote: post #89
bialpio wrote: post #12

I wish they addressed the fact that methane that they will be producing is said to be an even more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Are there any worries about the leakage for example?

Starting a greenhouse effect on Mars would help it become more livable by humans.

Do you realize the amount of effort we would have to put in to make it habitable? And the time scales involved?

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

#144

Post by adamtheclayman »

There's a company in Israel that's recently patented and is commercializing this process described of using transiently cheap or free renewable energy surplus to methylate captured/scrubbed CO2 with the Sabatier reaction, then burning it at the time and place of their choosing as "renewable" natural gas.

Standard Carbon: https://www.standardcarbon.com/

Standard Carbon Patent: https://patents.google.com/patent/US11091408B2/en?oq=11%2c09...

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

#145

Post by orthecreedence »

president wrote: post #46
invisible wrote: post #42

It's been seemingly impossible to motivate the world to switch to alternatives to fuel. We're between a rock and a hard place with society and the environment. It seems like there isn't even a conspiracy, it's just a combination of poor choices, greed, and new technology. Solar is great, but often it's more expensive than just consuming grid power or has unpredictable payoffs. Wind has a lot of upfront costs. Massive…

If it was really an issue, wouldn't free market forces have paved the way to widespread fuel alternative consumption a long time ago? Sure you can force everyone to stop using gasoline and buy an electric car but there are costs to that. I think most people believe there are more dire issues that need fixing and funding.

The capitalist solution to climate change is building condos in Antarctica. Capitalist markets are probably the most short-term problem solving mechanism you could ever find for an economy.

> I think most people believe there are more dire issues that need fixing and funding.

No, they're stuck in a shitty system that doesn't allow them to price resources according to their externalities. People aren't going to opt to pay more for fossil fuels than they have to because it would require a critical mass of buy-in. The only solution is taxation, but that doesn't work either because the system offers no safety nets and gasoline suddenly jumping to $20/gallon (which is what it should cost now) would be financially devastating to citizens.

Markets work great at lower populations, and now we're beginning to see their failure modes when population has skyrocketed and rampant resource consumption causes existential damage. Everyone knows it's a problem, but there's no systemic way of solving it.

We're now at a point in humanity where supply and demand alone are insufficient mechanisms to organize an economy.

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

#146

Post by orthecreedence »

admax88qqq wrote: post #141
orthecreedence wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I know, it's electricity intensive to make the fuels. Now, if only we had a very scalable way to make immense amounts of electricity that didn't depend on weather in a world where the climate is now in disarray. Hmm...

You're being unnecessarily negative IMO. The biggest challenge with renewables always cited is storage. Cabrin neutral feul like this could potentially be a good storage medium. There's more than enough solar energy hitting the Earth's surface to supply all our power needs, the challenge is capturing, storing, and distributing this power. After all, fossil fuels are just captured solar energy.

Right, the operative keyword in my comment being scalable. How many solar panels does it take to generate the same amount of power in a full day that nuclear does in a full day? Now, are you assuming a sunny day? What about cloudy days? What about weeks of wildfire smoke blotting out the sun? Are you including the energy it takes to create your fuel battery? How much fossil fuels do we burn in manufacturing to cover the Earth's surface in enough solar panels to meet our collective needs?

Storage isn't the only problem, and I mentioned this in my comment: weather patterns are changing in unpredicable ways. Building more weather-dependent power sources is stupid when we already have a great solution.

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

#147

Post by Zababa »

gpm wrote: post #85
rolleiflex wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they’re not recycling CO2 into O2 and instead venting CO2 to space, does that mean ISS is constantly losing gas and it needs an ongoing resupply of oxygen all the time? I thought oxygen was used fast enough to make resupply impractical, but perhaps there are in fact gigantic tanks of O2 under immense pressure somewhere aboard the ISS.

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.

> A person breathes out roughly 1kg of CO2/day

I've heard that you mostly love weight by breath, and wondered what was the actual limit. Thanks for that info.

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

#148

Post by nielsole »

Zababa wrote: post #147
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.

> A person breathes out roughly 1kg of CO2/day I've heard that you mostly love weight by breath, and wondered what was the actual limit. Thanks for that info.

Just remember that only the C part makes you lighter as the O2 comes from the air. So based on that number it's 375g/day (edit: it's 273g)

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

#149

Post by myself248 »

FirstLvR wrote: post #132
robbrown451 wrote: post #108

Title on HN should probably read "University of Cincinnati" rather than UC. Even I, a graduate of University of Cincinnati now first thought "University of California." (Admittedly I live in California now)

Can you imagine us non Americans trying to remember this things...

I just refer to everything by its domain name minus the suffix. There is no "U of M", there is "UMich" and "Memphis" and "UMT".

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

#150

Post by gpm »

nielsole wrote: post #148
Zababa wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A person breathes out roughly 1kg of CO2/day I've heard that you mostly love weight by breath, and wondered what was the actual limit. Thanks for that info.

Just remember that only the C part makes you lighter as the O2 comes from the air. So based on that number it's 375g/day (edit: it's 273g)

I get 273g/day? C is lighter than O.

Also... this is a typical number for a typical lifestyle, I believe it can vary substantially if you exercise a lot.

Also... I know nothing about wait loss, but surely a lot of the mass is in water?

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