Making Fuel from Carbon Dioxide, the perfect answer??

[DaBear3428]

The limitation on Einsteins statement is that in classical thermodynamics, mass and energy are separately conserved and that works fine until you have a nuclear reaction, where mass is converted to energy. (The opposite, where is energy is converted to mass, should be theoretically possible, but that theory hasn't been developed yet. It will stay in Science Fiction for the time being.)

incorrect they have been able to create matter from energy for a long time. the process is to bombard lead with high energy cosmic rays that forms a matter antimatter pair of particles. it is just very inefficient just like this process.

 

[DGZRT]

It all comes back to using heaps of electricity...
Direct air capture of CO2 needs a heap of energy: In rough numbers, there's around 420ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere presently or 0.042%
So to get 1kg of CO2 out of the atmosphere you need to move around 2381kg (1977 cubic metres) of air through your "first machine" using a rather energy hungry compressor. (this doesn't separate the CO2 from that air mind you)

In order to then make synthetic hydrocarbons you need hydrogen gas as a feedstock. The only low or non carbon emitting method of making H2 is electrolysis of water again needing lots of electricity. Not super efficient either, 1kWh of electricity gives you around 0.75kWh equivalent of hydrogen and 0.25kWh of waste heat.

I've seen Porsche claiming that they are going to build a synthetic fuel plant that will be capable of selling at USD $2/litre but I'll believe it when I see it.

Transport wise, with maybe the exception of aviation it's going to be far more cost effective to use that electricity directly. Whether that be trains with overhead cables, battery electric vehicles, or even trucks with overhead wires.

I agree with everything your saying . As far as expense goes they are not telling us in how all if this is done I'm hoping they have discovered a new way to extract the H2 and combine it with the CO2 to make fuel.

In America I feel we lack the Infrastructure for a viable Electric transit system. The cost to upgrade would be massive and the time involved to change would be years .

In the US we travel great distances between destinations . CO2 Fuel would solve the Crisis for now with the infrastructure we have. Maybe a small Nuclear plant hooked onto the fuel plant ?

I'm all for electric cars but the Charging systems , Battery's and power grid makes this unachievable for now .

Viable, for some people yes but not for the masses. I look at just the People living in Apartments around my area and there is no way they could install enough charging stations to satisfy everyone . There would be mass hysteria to get a charge . I can't imagine What a large inner city would have to do .

 

[MossRoad]

...

In the US we travel great distances between destinations . ...

As of 2015, the average daily distance driven in the U.S. was less than 30 miles per day.

Last year, the median range of EVs in the U.S. was over 250 miles.

 

[Eagle1]

Average means that 50% drive more, some much more to make up for people like me that never go anywhere in on road vehicle if it can be avoided. I do drive 20 to 30 a day on OHV vehicles

My parents always said " You are not average"

 

[DGZRT]

So with in a 1 mile radius of my subdivision I have very close to 1000 apartments . So figuring every apartment has only one vehicle. To service these People without total loss of civil obedience and mass Chaos you would need 250 chargers so People don't have to wait forever. Just think if you needed to be somewhere and needed a charge and the person charging there car is nowhere to be found. I'm guessing something would happen .

Then the apartment buildings had to install chargers. I'm guessing the cost of rent would go up to cover it .

From Tesla Website :

How Much Does a Tesla Charging Station Cost for Commercial Use?​

Business owners might consider adding Tesla chargers to their business' location for customer use. Installing a commercial-grade EV charging station usually costs about $6000 for the device and an additional $2,000 for installation costs. Keep in mind that installing higher-grade charges can also range anywhere from $10,000 to $13,000.

Installing a Supercharger at your business' location is a different story altogether because the cost of each station varies from $100,000 to $175,000, including the cost of installation, which varies greatly depending on numerous factors.


I recently was at a busy intersection in Boise Idaho with my daughter. I turned to her and said. How could you replace all of these cars with electric ?
She looked and said it would be an impossible feat .

I'm not against Electric cars in any way shape or form but the battery tech and the fast charging that would be economical to own would be 15-30 years away from reality.

 

[MossRoad]

Average means that 50% drive more, some much more to make up for people like me that never go anywhere in on road vehicle if it can be avoided. I do drive 20 to 30 a day on OHV vehicles

My parents always said " You are not average"

No. Average is add up all the trips and divide by the number of trips, like this.

Five 10 mile trips plus one 100 mile trip = 150 miles driven in 6 trips = an average of 25 miles per trip.

10 + 10+ 10+ 10+ 10+ 100 = 150.

150/6 = 25.

 

[MossRoad]

So with in a 1 mile radius of my subdivision I have very close to 1000 apartments . So figuring every apartment has only one vehicle. To service these People without total loss of civil obedience and mass Chaos you would need 250 chargers so People don't have to wait forever. Just think if you needed to be somewhere and needed a charge and the person charging there car is nowhere to be found. I'm guessing something would happen .

Then the apartment buildings had to install chargers. I'm guessing the cost of rent would go up to cover it .

From Tesla Website :

How Much Does a Tesla Charging Station Cost for Commercial Use?​

Business owners might consider adding Tesla chargers to their business' location for customer use. Installing a commercial-grade EV charging station usually costs about $6000 for the device and an additional $2,000 for installation costs. Keep in mind that installing higher-grade charges can also range anywhere from $10,000 to $13,000.

Installing a Supercharger at your business' location is a different story altogether because the cost of each station varies from $100,000 to $175,000, including the cost of installation, which varies greatly depending on numerous factors.


I recently was at a busy intersection in Boise Idaho with my daughter. I turned to her and said. How could you replace all of these cars with electric ?
She looked and said it would be an impossible feat .

I'm not against Electric cars in any way shape or form but the battery tech and the fast charging that would be economical to own would be 15-30 years away from reality.

That's the conundrum.

 

[Eagle1]

No. Average is add up all the trips and divide by the number of trips, like this.

Five 10 mile trips plus one 100 mile trip = 150 miles driven in 6 trips = an average of 25 miles per trip.

10 + 10+ 10+ 10+ 10+ 100 = 150.

150/6 = 25.

SO that is one persons average, how to you come up with the average miles per trip per person for 335 million?
Bottom line to get a tractor dealer it's a 3 to 5 hour round trip for me, depending on color 50-150 miles. I'm positive the average trip to a dealer for everyone on this forum would be much lower. And some would have much further and longer round trips.
Averages are useless to figure out what works for each person, My average ICE trip is less than a mile but then I'm not leaving my property 99.9% of the time. When do leave it's to get something with the trailer (Hay or vehicles) or head to the city 100+ miles away. Neither a good chore for an EV today, since nothing is flat around here.

 

[DaBear3428]

I agree with everything your saying . As far as expense goes they are not telling us in how all if this is done I'm hoping they have discovered a new way to extract the H2 and combine it with the CO2 to make fuel.

In America I feel we lack the Infrastructure for a viable Electric transit system. The cost to upgrade would be massive and the time involved to change would be years .

In the US we travel great distances between destinations . CO2 Fuel would solve the Crisis for now with the infrastructure we have. Maybe a small Nuclear plant hooked onto the fuel plant ?

I'm all for electric cars but the Charging systems , Battery's and power grid makes this unachievable for now .

Viable, for some people yes but not for the masses. I look at just the People living in Apartments around my area and there is no way they could install enough charging stations to satisfy everyone . There would be mass hysteria to get a charge . I can't imagine What a large inner city would have to do .

that is part of the problem the other part is that battery packs for EV range from 26kWh to 200kWh so average pack lets call it 100kWh the average home is serviced by a 200A service the is about a 48kW supply so even if you take all the power a home service is able to supply you are looking at over 2 hours to charge with no ability to run the ac or anything else in the home while charging. so say we add chargers to all homes and they only have 1 car at home and they charge at 1/2 the max rate we have established, that would mean that the electrical infrastructure would have to be increased by 50% across the US, there is also the issue that most homes do not use the full capacity of their services the actual increase could be 100%.

 

[CalG]

Wind and solar powered "liquid Air" conversion is the future! CO2 in in the mix, but just liquification
and then using the pressure of boil off will be enough.

That is, assuming the Sterling cycle heat transfer mechanisms can do the job ;-)