From: Dickey, Michael F (michael_f_dickey@groton.pfizer.com)
Date: Tue Aug 06 2002 - 08:50:34 MDT
I have always suspected that an infrastructure based on recycling CO2 will
be the way things turn out, ever since reading about Robert Zubrins plan to
manufacture methane out of the mars CO2 atmosphere. The current hoopla
around CO2 gases and 'global warming' is pushing for 'greener' vehicles, but
these vehicles run on batteries that get their power from... nasty coal
burning power plants that produce C02. The electricity to charge these
batteries has to come from somewhere, and it will be some years before solar
cells are cheap enough to replace coal and nuclear as power generation
mechanisms. Considering that the average coal burning plant exposes near bye
residents with 10 - 100 times the amount of radioactivity than a nuclear
plant does, it does not seem reasonable to continue to depend on them.
We already have powerfull batteries that store vast amounts of energy and
the infrastructure to support it, its called gasoline. Since no battery can
match the power density of hydrocarbons it seams reasonable to use them as
'batteries' Fuel cells that seperate the hydrogen from the carbon backbone
and combine the hydrogen with oxygen with a near 100% effecient conversion
from chemical energy to electrical energy will replace the effecient ICE's
in hybrids to further increase range and performace, while decreasing CO2
emissions to zero (I would wager that the energy lost in not combusting the
Carbon atoms in the hydrocarbon chain is more than made up for in the
effeciency of the fuel cell hydrogen oxidation conversion to electricity)
The performance of electric vehicles is pathetic, due to the incredibly
small energy storage densities of batteries. Current car designs if
switched to a hybrid petrol vehicle will double their milege, switching to a
hybrid diesel vehicles will add another 20 - 40% in peformance (the current
Volkswagon TDI Diesel gets the same mileage as the Toyota Prius, and is not
a hybrid). Switching to a hydrogen seperating hydrocarbon based fuel cell
system would further increase effeciency, perhaps even doubling it.
I envision in the near future synthetic fuels being manufactured by applying
energy to CO2 and Hydrogen pulled out of the atmosphere and creating
Hydrocarbon fuels, using the synth fuels as high energy density batteries.
Cheap energy production will be required to do this, either as waste heat
from other manufacturing process (as noted in this article) or through an
infrastructure of fast throium breeder reactors (Id prefer to see the latter
option in the near future, completely relegating our reliance on imported
energy) or a little farther in the future, fusion reactors. A little
farther after that, solar power.
Michael Dickey
-----Original Message-----
From: Spudboy100@aol.com [mailto:Spudboy100@aol.com]
Sent: Monday, August 05, 2002 10:58 PM
To: extropians@extropy.org
Subject: Propane and Propane Accessories
or..."She don't lie, she don't lie, she don't lie...Propane!"
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992620
Carbon dioxide turned into hydrocarbon fuel
16:00 02 August 02
A way to turn carbon dioxide into hydrocarbons has caused a big stir at an
industrial chemistry conference in New Brunwick, New Jersey. Nakamichi
Yamasaki of the Tokushima Industrial Technology Center in Japan says he has
a process that makes propane and butane at relatively low temperatures and
pressures.
While his work still needs independent verification, if he can make even
heavier hydrocarbons, it might be possible to make petrol. It has carbon
chains that are between five and 12 atoms long - butane is four atoms long.
The work suggests the tantalising prospect that CO2, the main greenhouse
gas, could be recycled instead of being pumped into the atmosphere.
Many people have tried before to make hydrocarbons by mixing carbon with
hydrogen gas in a reaction chamber at very high temperatures, but yields
have always been pitiful. Yamasaki has used hydrochloric acid as his source
of hydrogen ions.
He bubbles the CO2 into a reaction vessel (see graphic) where it is heated
to about 300 °C at 100 times atmospheric pressure. The heat and pressure are
low enough, says Yamasaki, to make it feasible to scale up the reaction so
it can run on a power station's waste heat.
Iron powder
Using iron powder as a catalyst, Yamasaki says he has made substantial
amounts of methane, ethane, propane and butane, which he was able to vent
off as gases when the mixture cooled. If he can improve the catalyst's
performance he is hopeful of making heavier hydrocarbons such as petrol,
too.
William Siegfried, who has lead similar experiments at the University of
Minnesota in the twin cities of Minneapolis and St Paul, says his group was
only able to make methane at far higher temperatures. But his process also
used a nickel-based alloy as a catalyst, rather than iron.
Siegfried's group was investigating whether natural methane deposits might
have formed chemically with the metal in rocks acting as a catalyst rather
than forming from the decay of rotting biological material over aeons.
Unless Yamasaki's technology can make the more valuable heavier hydrocarbons
such as petroleum, which are liquid at room temperature, it will not be much
more use than present-day bioreactors, in which bacteria that like to feed
on CO2 are induced to produce methane. "Organisms have a special talent for
that kind of reaction," says Siegfried.
Eugenie Samuel, Boston
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