Synthetic gasoline

[Katz]

Say you have your own personal renewable energy system. Expensive but all paid for. Are you ok with devoting energy to capture Co2, generate hydrogen and synthetize hydrocarbons in a small reactor?

The US navy is into it.

[freeyourmind]

WAAAAAYYYY more energy loss compared to battery storage.

[spacecase0]

I would consider it,
but if there were a better way to do it,
then I would be using something else.

[anarchyale]

Say you have your own personal renewable energy system. Expensive but all paid for. Are you ok with devoting energy to capture Co2, generate hydrogen and synthetize hydrocarbons in a small reactor?

The US navy is into it.

What's the EROEI?

I'd love to ask how much we paid for it, but my guess is that this is one of those things where you have to ask the price, you can't afford it.

If true, this is probably bad news, it shows that hydrocarbons are really it for us in terms of energy density and ease of use/storage. If this has a really bad (negative) return on energy invested, and they are cool with that, it shows we are really coming up with nothing to replace liquid hydrocarbon fuels on a useful, large scale. 

[Phildo]

It makes some sense for the US Navy.

1.  The US Navy has aircraft carriers.  Albeit, they are large floating targets, akin to the Battleships at Pearl Harbor, but they have them. 

2.  While the ships may be nukes, the aircraft on board burn Oil.  It is at the end of a long supply chain and must be stored in bulk for remote use

3.  The Nuke generators on board have a large surplus power capacity. 

4.  There is water all around them.

5.  The only other alternates for Oil are Butanol and/or other Bios -- which are at the end of an even longer supply chain.

6.  So adding up  Free Electric Power + Free Water - Expensive and Needed Oil = a Total Win if they can pull this off.

However, this method makes absolutely no sense for the common small or medium size generator/producer.

[rdocr]

Jet aircraft consume their fuel in great quantities, I assume you are talking about making hydrogen fuel.
The hydrogen would have to be liquified to store enough of it on an airplane to make it feasable as a fuel. That means a high pressure storage tank. Bad news for the weight-conscious engineers who design aircraft.

Second, Hydrogen is a very, very touchy gas- far more volatile than oil fuel. In addition, it reacts violently with nearly everything.

Even with all your tax dollars that would be spent to achieve a working system- if the Navy ever achieved one, I can't see it getting off the ground.-Pun_

I am working on a conversion for my car to use hydrogen as a suppliment. It is used as it is generated, so there is no storage problem.

There are several kits on the market so the idea is not original.

Conclusion:
Hydrogen MAY become a substitute fuel, BUT it is not likely for aircraft.

BTW
Did you know that it takes 16 gallons of gas per day to keep a soldier in the field? Do some calculations and see what those Afgan bound troops will really cost. Any troops for that matter.

L:ATOC? OH YEAH.

Ralph

[Phildo]

Jet aircraft consume their fuel in great quantities, I assume you are talking about making hydrogen fuel.

Nope.

See the C in the CO2 part of this. 

Carbon.

Talking about pulling that from the air.

Plus Hydrogen from seawater.

Put the C + the H = Hydrocarbon chain.  They are creating Hydrocarbon fuels via electrical power and heat from the Nuke power plant on board the ship. 

If they chain it out to Butane/Butanol (4 C) length or longer it performs similar to conventional fuels. 

[freeyourmind]

still, the problem is not the ability to make synthetic gasoline, its the MASSIVE QUANTITIES of energy that are recovered from FFs. Replacing them in this way would required us to go into a wartime economy. i.e government controlled manufacture of wind and other renewable energy sources, as well as processing plants to synthesize the fuel, will all of america's available labor and resources. And we would have needed to start that, uh... 5 years ago? 10 years ago?

Remember. MASSIVE QUANITITES. Thats the problem.

[Phildo]

Remember. MASSIVE QUANITITES. Thats the problem.

Or not following the problem statement is the problem?

Not dogging you, but I see a lot of folks do that around here. 

I track you are talking about re-sourcing all US gasoline, etc.   That is not what the US Navy is talking about.

The Navy is ONLY talking about aircraft fuel, when out from port, and it is time to re-fill the reserve tanks on board.  Entire different scope and application. 

[freeyourmind]

Actually the question in the poll was,

Is synthetic gasoline, made from water and air, an answer for Latoc?

[Grumalg]

You'd need fairly deep pockets to do this.  Probably not practical at an individual scale, might be workable at a community scale.  Between biomass, water and air as feedstocks a number of processes provide various pathways...

If you read all the below links, you'll start seeing possible paths depending on what you have available.  The direct subject of some links won't seem to apply, but there is potentially applicable info in each...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_production
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methanol
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_fuel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syngas
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood_gas

A number of the various chemical reactions need high heat to get started and release heat as they take place.  Concentrated solar could provide that heat, eliminating the need for fossil fuel driven reactions.   You'd also need electricity to run stuff like motors (pumps, compressors), control systems, etc.  A community with engineering skills might make a workable small scale system for limited uses.  To keep it running you'd need the skills to repair stuff like motors, pumps, compressors, and a good stock of the catalyst materials.

Easier to do if you have natural gas or coal feedstocks to work with, but possible with biomass...

[Phildo]

Actually the question in the poll was,

Is synthetic gasoline, made from water and air, an answer for Latoc?

True enough but the only folks even considering this is the Navy and Sandia, which is what Katz was talking about  . . . .

Say you have your own personal renewable energy system. Expensive but all paid for. Are you ok with devoting energy to capture Co2, generate hydrogen and synthetize hydrocarbons in a small reactor?

The US navy is into it.

No one else is proposing this for any other purpose.

For land transport (non Naval and non Aircraft) it is easier and much less lossy to just use that level of energy directly for transportation and forgo the conversion to gasoline, or whatever lesser carbon chains were to be created. 

[Brennus]

Say you have your own personal renewable energy system. Expensive but all paid for. Are you ok with devoting energy to capture Co2, generate hydrogen and synthetize hydrocarbons in a small reactor?

The US navy is into it.

What is the rate of production?

[Brennus]

Nope.

See the C in the CO2 part of this. 

Carbon.

CO₂  has relatively strong covalent bonds, Sigma and Pi bonds,they would be better off using CO.

[Phildo]

Nope.

See the C in the CO2 part of this. 

Carbon.

CO₂  has relatively strong covalent bonds, Sigma and Pi bonds,they would be better off using CO.

Very Good.

A step in the process . . . .

http://www.physorg.com/news178203219.html