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From Air and Water... you can get Gasoline..........?

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  • From Air and Water... you can get Gasoline..........?

    (Phys.org)—Petrol from air at first glance from this week's headlines, claiming scientists have turned fresh air into petrol, looked as if this was yet another over the top claim about a killer solution to solve the environmental crisis and specter of global warming. Still, engineers in the UK believe a small UK company may be on to something real, a synthetic replacement for fossil fuel. A small company in the north of England, Air Fuel Synthesis (AFS), has developed air capture technology to create synthetic petrol. The company has been running a demonstration plant in Stockton-on-Tees where it has produced five liters of petrol since August, manufacturing gasoline from carbon dioxide and water vapor.






    So............ We have too much CO2 in our air. Lets filter it out, react it with Hydrogen and make gasoline, which we burn in our cars putting the CO2 back into the air.......

    is this really 'green'?
    is it better than making batteries and charging them like we use gas now?
    is simply pumping oil from the ground a better way than this way?
    if they can pull out more CO2 than they put back, maybe it could be good for us...?

    wonder what else they can make from thin air?
    Mike in Southwest Ohio

  • #2
    some cars can do that by accident.
    old solid lifter pointy cam v8s,
    old boxer engines..

    ricer'd four cyls from the 80s (pre v-tech and gadgets)

    always in sprites..but it is there. Especially alloy..

    harnessing the sun. (similar reaction) ..
    make a new explosive temporary bond, and go back at it again.
    Previously boxer3main
    the death rate and fairy tales cannot kill the nature left behind.

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    • #3
      Originally posted by oldsman496 View Post
      is simply pumping oil from the ground a better way than this way?
      if they can pull out more CO2 than they put back, maybe it could be good for us...?
      If the goal is to keep carbon in the ground, rather than in the atmosphere, then this is a good thing. Gasoline is better than batteries, if you have to drive a ways. It's so easy to refill the tank in a few minutes, and the pipes and tanks and gas stations and vehicles to use this process are already here, and work well.

      Any time we pump oil or dig coal or get natural gas out of the ground, we are putting carbon back into the atmosphere. Using fuel that comes from somewhere other than underground, such as burning trees or making fuel out of corn or algae, does not put CO2 from underground back into the atmosphere.
      My fabulous web page

      "If it don't go, chrome it!" --Stroker McGurk

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      • #4
        Sounds like one of those things that there's no technical reason it can't be done, but the price tag's got to be insane.

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        • #5
          where does the hydrogen come from? the only cost effective way to get hydrogen would be to use fossil fuels
          Doing it all wrong since 1966

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          • #6
            Water has hydrogen in it.

            see the windmills providing engergy to the hydroliser? that's where the hydrogen comes from
            Last edited by squirrel; December 11, 2012, 12:24 PM.
            My fabulous web page

            "If it don't go, chrome it!" --Stroker McGurk

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            • #7
              I figured if you are using electroysis to pull hydrogen out of the air, what is the point in pulling the carbon out of the air? Why not just burn the hydrogen (or fuel cell it)? It takes more energy to get the carbon back onto the hydrogen then you'll get out of it, and straight carbon won't burn, but the hydrogen will. You might not be pulling the carbon from the air, but effectively you won't likely be putting much carbon from the ground into the air at that point either, unless you are burning fossil fuels for the electrolysis. You'd simply be creating a water cycle. And the way mankind mass produces stuff would probably increase the O2 level in the atmosphere, which can be good and bad.

              That and anyone have any idea how much electricity it would take to make commercial volumes of hydrogen from water?

              IMO, replace most gas refineries with mini-nuclear plants and generate hydrogen on a commercial scale via fission generated electricty (off grid). And recycle and reprocess the nuclear to minimize waste. The carbon will eventually start reducing itself if the fossil fuel use is greatly reduced globally.
              Last edited by TheSilverBuick; December 11, 2012, 12:35 PM.
              Escaped on a technicality.

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              • #8
                Cost effective? Who ever said this was to be cost effective? Bringing logic into an energy discussion, honestly....

                Everyone knows that warm fuzzy feeling from saving the planet is priceless.
                Of all the paths you take in life - make sure a few of them are dirt.

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                • #9
                  A good reason for making gasoline instead of just storing hydrogen is that hydrogen requires high pressures to keep it liquid at room temp. Imagine getting in a wreck with a H tank on board. That is what has stopped hydrogen from being used as a fuel so far. Gasoline or another hydrocarbon would be a good stable method of storing energy. Plus the conversion methods from chemical to mechanical energy are already in wide spread use. Not a bad solution.
                  Why think when you can be doing something fruitful?

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                  • #10
                    Still wondering why there is so much focus on making gasoline, which is a crappy fuel that requires low compression heat shedding engines and has abysmal efficiency. If it is making something else with CO2 and hydrogen, then its interesting, but still far more complex than other methods to make fuels that are superior to gasoline. Gas just isnt that great when you consider all the requirements needed to limit emissions and how fast it wears out engines, then factor in the power loss due to decreased efficiency and the only reason anyone uses it is because it has been cheap for so long.

                    That entire system would be vastly more expensive to make gasoline, producing hydrogen takes far more electricity than it produces in hydrogen form. Getting it from wind would just limit the amount of wind energy we could use for the power grid, unless someone decided to go on a building spree and good luck with all the NIMBY types out there.

                    If you have a small populace, and massive geothermal it works, just look at Iceland where hydrogen is gaining ground. Why would you want to make gasoline out of it with two more steps? It makes no damn sense other than people still think the only thing that will run in an engine is gasoline made from crude oil, and people want to profit from that as long as they possibly can. They dont want to change the model, they dont want to make things better, they only want profits so they come up with stuff like this. You want $20 gas, this will get it for you.

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                    • #11
                      Originally posted by Orange65 View Post
                      A good reason for making gasoline instead of just storing hydrogen is that hydrogen requires high pressures to keep it liquid at room temp. Imagine getting in a wreck with a H tank on board. That is what has stopped hydrogen from being used as a fuel so far. Gasoline or another hydrocarbon would be a good stable method of storing energy. Plus the conversion methods from chemical to mechanical energy are already in wide spread use. Not a bad solution.
                      Production and distribution are the limiting factors, not a pressure tank. There is a push for compressed natural gas (CNG) to replace diesel, and I haven't heard anything about the tanks, it's all been about distribution. I agree liquid is far easier transferring from one vessel to another, but that isn't what is limiting it's use currently.
                      Escaped on a technicality.

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                      • #12
                        Originally posted by oldsman496 View Post
                        http://phys.org/news/2012-10-air-fue...ol-future.html

                        is this really 'green'?
                        is it better than making batteries and charging them like we use gas now?
                        is simply pumping oil from the ground a better way than this way?
                        if they can pull out more CO2 than they put back, maybe it could be good for us...?

                        wonder what else they can make from thin air?
                        As your questions are asked:
                        Green- yes as shown in the graphic.
                        The gasoline created would be another energy storage media like a battery. Better would be relative and depend on the efficiency of the energy transfer in the reaction that creates the gasoline. It would definitely cost you energy.
                        Better? This is just another energy storage method for green energy (if you use wind or solar to generate it). It does prevent more carbon from oil that is in the ground from being liberated into the air.
                        Removing CO2 is probably a good thing for humans and animals, bad for plants.
                        Why think when you can be doing something fruitful?

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                        • #13
                          Last reply- SilverBuick got me looking- per Wikipedia:

                          "The drawbacks of hydrogen use are low energy content per unit volume, high tankage weights, very high storage vessel pressures, the storage, transportation and filling of gaseous or liquid hydrogen in vehicles, the large investment in infrastructure that would be required to fuel vehicles, and the inefficiency of production processes."

                          From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_vehicle

                          The way I read it, we are both right.
                          Why think when you can be doing something fruitful?

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                          • #14
                            Originally posted by Orange65 View Post
                            A good reason for making gasoline instead of just storing hydrogen is that hydrogen requires high pressures to keep it liquid at room temp. Imagine getting in a wreck with a H tank on board. That is what has stopped hydrogen from being used as a fuel so far. Gasoline or another hydrocarbon would be a good stable method of storing energy. Plus the conversion methods from chemical to mechanical energy are already in wide spread use. Not a bad solution.
                            The high pressure and accident issues are small compared to the limited range, even with liquid hydrogen, and the complexity of turning it from liquid back to vapor so an engine can use it. Also the cost of production is quite high for hydrogen. If you have an extremely cheap source of electricity then hydrogen is workable, such as geothermal. Wind can be sporadic, but geothermal is always on. If you have to use fossil fuels to produce hydrogen, it gets very expensive very fast. Couple the expense with limited range and you have the reason why it hasnt taken off here yet.

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                            • #15
                              I don't see us ever needing to do this, but it's an interesting idea. It will probably stay in the "idea" phase for a long time.
                              My fabulous web page

                              "If it don't go, chrome it!" --Stroker McGurk

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