Synthetic fuel.

[john stones 1 - Moderator]

https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/raf-flight-synthetic-fuel-first-b1958989.html?fbclid=IwAR3JPBl5vusOqSDGNDGtIKRjkwWiq2xsTzgI6UYwZcN5fJwAJ7d-Wy4-tVU

[Martin Harris - Moderator]

Sounds too good to be true.  I'm no chemist but I can see the idea behind it of creating a hydrocarbon. Perhaps Don Fry or John Stainforth might have a view on the feasibility and how different products to simulate petroleum spirit (as has apparently been done) and kerosene (which the RAF would require) would be created?

[i12fly]

Takes lots of electric using water and CO2 -where are we going to get it from in the near future? At the moment about 40% is from burning gas.... 

The new electric cable from Norway isn't enough or constant, the idea is to use it both ways, to UK when the hydro electric dams are adequate, then back to Norway to pump up the water when we have excess wind power. We're going to need lots more investment in wind... +electronic components and magnets from China and where are we going to bury the currently un-recyclable blades that need replacing.

This country has too many scientists (with good research ideas) and sadly not enough engineers (to develop workable practical solutions that take all factors into consideration)

[Martin Harris - Moderator]

I do wonder how much effect extracting energy from natural circulating forces such as wind and tide and capturing solar energy rather than letting it reflect might have in the long run.  The elephant in the room seems to be the sheer number of human beings, demanding ever higher living standards with consequent demands on limited resources and growing exponentially.  I feel that this, rather than climate change, whether man made or naturally occurring will lead to catastrophe, whether war, weather or pestilence related.

[Don Fry]

8 hours ago, Martin Harris - Moderator said:

Sounds too good to be true.  I'm no chemist but I can see the idea behind it of creating a hydrocarbon. Perhaps Don Fry or John Stainforth might have a view on the feasibility and how different products to simulate petroleum spirit (as has apparently been done) and kerosene (which the RAF would require) would be created?

Sounds too be good to be true, then it probably isn’t. It requires energy to produce fuel, and the laws of physics ( thermodynamics) require that the energy you get from the fuel is less than what the fuel costs to make. 

[Don Fry]

7 hours ago, Martin Harris - Moderator said:

I do wonder how much effect extracting energy from natural circulating forces such as wind and tide and capturing solar energy rather than letting it reflect might have in the long run.  The elephant in the room seems to be the sheer number of human beings, demanding ever higher living standards with consequent demands on limited resources and growing exponentially.  I feel that this, rather than climate change, whether man made or naturally occurring will lead to catastrophe, whether war, weather or pestilence related.

I also wonder that. Now when we produce energy, and use it, we get heat. And the world is heating up, because we use fuels that produce carbon dioxide, which insulates the earth from cold outer space (duvet effect).

So give us a clean cheap energy source, and it’s party time, we all get a 3 ton SUV,  which bangs a load more heat into the system. And the carbon dioxide we have already discharged and intend to discharge will still be there for ever.

And is it fair to deny everyone in China that SUV, when the good folk of Chelsea have one.

[EarlyBird]

9 minutes ago, Don Fry said:

And the carbon dioxide we have already discharged and intend to discharge will still be there for ever.

Here in the industrial north east carbon capture will collect and pump the carbon dioxide into the depleted north sea oil fields. I wonder how much greenwashing is going on with these ideas, synthetic fuels and hydrogen as a fuel included. 

[Don Fry]

8 hours ago, EarlyBird said:

Here in the industrial north east carbon capture will collect and pump the carbon dioxide into the depleted north sea oil fields. I wonder how much greenwashing is going on with these ideas, synthetic fuels and hydrogen as a fuel included. 

So this idea uses shed loads of steel, a load of energy to separate out carbon dioxide, cool and compress it, pump it underground. See above comments re energy use.

I read the other day, the queen owns the seabed, and she’s ( not personally no doubt) leased the same bit to the carbon capture boys, who need the bottom, and the wind farm lads who need the top, and it seems the top user’s anchor cables will interfere with the seismic sensors the carbon capture boys need to monitor escapes from their underground stores. This is an ongoing chore, that is needed forever. So joined together thinking is perhaps suboptimal.

Now, at the risk of a cynical thought passing through this pure mind of mind of mine;

These carbon capture units are privately funded. I wonder how you enforce a forever clause in a contract to a limited liability company.

What your ancestors might say if untested, untried technology goes wrong, I dread to think about, as the rubbish we bury gets back into their overheated world.

Japan, fine engineers, are currently pumping radioactive water into the sea, because they have run out of space, and still need to cool their melted nuclear power station, which melted after they forgot to put the emergency power generators on the roof, in an area known for tsunami waves. Tsunami is after all a Japanese word. 
In other words, I think it is a mechanism to make money. It allows us to pretend we can burn whatever energy we want, and kick the can down the road.

I don’t have children. A source of sadness, I like them, and I am old enough for grandchildren. So I live with knowledge the great grand children have a real problem, and I have not read a single concrete step taken to alleviate their misery.

 

[Gary Manuel]

I can't read the full independent article so I may be missing something, but isn't creating a synthetic fuel in order to burn it just adding to the global warming problem?

 

Surely we should be looking at alternatives to burning fuel.

[Mike Blandford]

As I understand it:

1. You use electrical energy from a renewable source (wind, tide solar, as mentioned in the article).

2. This energy is then used to extract CO2 from the atmosphere and combine it with water to produce a hydro-carbon fuel, releasing Oxygen to the atmosphere.

3. This fuel is then burnt in an engine, combining with the Oxygen released in (2) to produce CO2 and water.

 

Result: The renewable energy used in (2) was converted to fuel, then mechanical energy in the engine. The water and CO2 used in (2) ends up being released in (3). It is a "closed loop", the amount of CO2 remains unchanged, so this is referred to as "carbon neutral".

 

Mike

[Don Fry]

But it still an inefficient use of electric power, less power is available in the fuel than it cost in electrical power to make it. That is the laws of physics. No such thing as a perpetual motion machine. All loops use energy.

It advocated by the airline industry, so they can meet their “target” while, by the way projecting something like a 400% growth in passenger numbers in coming years. 

No mention is made, furthermore, that the renewable infrastructure, tied up in this project has itself got a carbon  cost to make it. Carbon neutral therefore as only a paper exercise, not in the warmer world.

Edited November 18, 2021 by Don Fry
Last sentence added.

[Gary Manuel]

1 hour ago, Mike Blandford said:

As I understand it:

1. You use electrical energy from a renewable source (wind, tide solar, as mentioned in the article).

2. This energy is then used to extract CO2 from the atmosphere and combine it with water to produce a hydro-carbon fuel, releasing Oxygen to the atmosphere.

3. This fuel is then burnt in an engine, combining with the Oxygen released in (2) to produce CO2 and water.

 

Result: The renewable energy used in (2) was converted to fuel, then mechanical energy in the engine. The water and CO2 used in (2) ends up being released in (3). It is a "closed loop", the amount of CO2 remains unchanged, so this is referred to as "carbon neutral".

 

Mike

So steps 1 and 2 are good for "the planet" and are effectively a cure to global warming? Why not stop there then rather than undoing all the hard work by burning the bi-product? No need to answer my hypothetical question. I already know the answer.

[john stones 1 - Moderator]

I just thought it was a cute Aeroplane.

[i12fly]

One thing of note on here is that there are more 'engineers' than scientists. i.e. more consideration of consequences rather than a narrow view which satisfies only politics and personal ego

[Nigel R]

Has to be better than digging up more crude oil.

 

Incremental improvements, etc.

[Nigel R]

13 hours ago, Don Fry said:

it still an inefficient use of electric power, less power is available in the fuel than it cost in electrical power to make it.

 

For sure, but if you can do this thing in a very hot sunny place, you have lots of sun / heat available to convert to electric, which comes at low cost, and it might be used to produce easily transportable liquid fuel... vis-a-vis say, producing and trying to distribute hydrogen, which seems rather less viable.

 

I expect it will be expensive. Who knows. That in turn might slow down the advance of Chelsea Tractors.

[Don Fry]

Easy way to sort out Chelsea tractors, government doing their job, and tax new cars according to energy use per mile. 
Low energy gets a subsidy.
High energy gets a tax. Not a couple of quid, but as much as it takes to remove them.

Then slow it down, then you don’t need crash proof cars. 

 

You might be right that deserts, and indeed new deserts, can become fuel producers, California and Madagascar spring to mind. Might even provide shelter under the solar panels for the inhabitants.

[Nigel R]

Agreed. Government do have to do their job though, often a sticking point.

 

This sort of thing has far more promise than trying to make electricity in the desert and then export it directly by big cables, those big cables are a proper non starter, the size and expense would be astronomical. Solar panels in the polar regions would be cheaper and easier.