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9 comments

1 Prononymous, rogue demon hunter  Mon, Oct 22, 2012 11:37:34am

Republicans in 50 years:

We should cut down all the forests because they compete with the synthetic fuel industry for atmospheric carbon.

2 palmerskiss  Mon, Oct 22, 2012 12:09:23pm

nice work!

3 calochortus  Mon, Oct 22, 2012 12:26:47pm

Will the cost be reasonable? Will all the energy it takes to produce it come from carbon-neutral sources? Time will tell.

4 researchok  Mon, Oct 22, 2012 1:29:31pm
Engineers in London said this week that they’ve developed a new type of synthetic vehicle fuel that’s created out of water and thin air, literally by pulling carbon molecules out of the atmosphere and recycling them.

Rule Britannia!
Britannia rule the waves...

Really.

Great story

5 lostlakehiker  Mon, Oct 22, 2012 2:39:55pm

re: #3 calochortus

Will the cost be reasonable? Will all the energy it takes to produce it come from carbon-neutral sources? Time will tell.

No, it won't be. There are good green ideas, and there are green ideas that are good clean fun and of some theoretical interest, but are practically hopeless. This comes into the second category. Once you have, say, solar energy, it's more efficient to just run your economy on the electricity than it is to laboriously capture CO2 from the atmosphere and hammer it with enough electricity that you can run the reaction backwards and get fuel.

6 Locker  Mon, Oct 22, 2012 2:49:44pm

re: #5 lostlakehiker

No, it won't be. There are good green ideas, and there are green ideas that are good clean fun and of some theoretical interest, but are practically hopeless. This comes into the second category. Once you have, say, solar energy, it's more efficient to just run your economy on the electricity than it is to laboriously capture CO2 from the atmosphere and hammer it with enough electricity that you can run the reaction backwards and get fuel.

I'm glad you aren't in charge of our research efforts with such a clear yet negative ability to predict the future. Tomorrow we could find out that boiled mosquito vomit makes this process incredibly efficient. Who knows. Gotta try shit out.

7 researchok  Mon, Oct 22, 2012 3:06:23pm

re: #6 Locker

I have to agree- until we research, test, try, fail, try again and again, we don't know. More importantly, regardless of the outcome, the research and trials have all added to the body of knowledge.

Someday, there will be an announcement the cure to cancer has been found. A scientist will win the Nobel Prize and be on the cover of every magazine and featured on every website and in every journal.

The truth is that scientist didn't find anything on his own. The years of research, trial and error all came about of the work- the successes and failures of others. They did the groundbreaking work, made all the mistakes and went down the wrong road so our now famous scientist did not have to.

Each of the unnamed and unheralded scientists who spent a lifetime of work in the search for the cure for cancer added to the body of knowledge.

They are no less deserving of that Nobel Prize and fame than the scientist who because of their work, gets to stand in the spotlight.

We will find our new energy source- in no small part because of those working on the project now. If the process is viable but too expensive now, others will find a way to make the idea more affordable.

Man's achievements in making necessary innovation affordable is remarkable.

My two cents.

8 Douchecanoe and Ryan Too  Mon, Oct 22, 2012 3:07:19pm

See, this is why I live my life by the motto, "Better living through technology." One complaint I have about the environmental movement is that many tend to have a bit of a Luddite complex and would prefer we regress to the Stone Age. Me, I firmly believe that there isn't a problem we create that can't be solved through the use of sufficiently advanced technology.

9 lostlakehiker  Mon, Oct 22, 2012 10:11:12pm

re: #6 Locker

I'm glad you aren't in charge of our research efforts with such a clear yet negative ability to predict the future. Tomorrow we could find out that boiled mosquito vomit makes this process incredibly efficient. Who knows. Gotta try shit out.

Well, I've done my bit of research. This is good research, as I wrote in my first remark. But it really isn't going to turn into anything practical for large scale applications. If you're in the middle of Antarctica or something, this could be a way to make fuel and it might be cheaper than flying fuel in. But did you read the story? They're talking of a "large commercial plant" that can make "up to a ton a day". There's surely a use for ultra-pure fuels, and this looks like it would serve that purpose. But tons a day is not meaningful in the larger scheme of things.

We already have a way to make fuel from sunlight. Plant corn, convert to ethanol. It's crude and expensive. The problem is that CO2 in the air is present in trace amounts, and it's bound to oxygen. And the hydrogen is also bound to oxygen. You're trying to run chemical reactions uphill and there's bound to be a lot of waste motion in that.

The economical way to use energy that comes to you as electricity in the first place, as solar photovoltaic does, is to use the electricity directly.


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