Synthetic fuels

[Grumpycat]

Many years ago I was involved in a project to convert landfill methane into diesel fuel, the idea was sound and it proved out but it was not economically feasible.
Also the paraffin produced was hard to cleanup it held much of the catalyst in it, the fuel was excellent just quite expensive to produce.

There has been a lot of discussion elsewhere about producing synthetic diesel from natural gas. Fracking is producing an excess of natural gas, sometimes frackers pay someone to take the excess away or flame it on-site.

Natural gas is very difficult to transport if one doesn't have sufficient pipeline. Must be compressed to be practical and compressing consumes energy.

Synthetic motor oils are made from natural gas. Similar processes produce a very high quality diesel which has never had sulfur therefore no need for expensive processes to remove sulfur. Said to be cost effective when NG is less than $6/MBTU, but the source didn't say what cost per barrel of crude they were comparing against. The hitch in the get-along is that a production plant of suitable scale for economic production is $1B.

 

[DEWFPO]

This is interesting as well. Another way to produce HC's.

Secretive energy startup backed by Bill Gates achieves solar breakthrough - CNN

DEWFPO

 

[AllByteNoBark]

Interesting. As Grumpy at says a lot of natural gas is flashed off near here. Drive through the Eagle Ford area and you see a lot of large flare stacks burning.

Always thought there should be a way to make use of that gas.

 

[LouNY]

The system that I was involved with ended up being run on natural gas when the landfill could not provide adequate methane.
It was basically a modified Fischer Tropsch Process using a different catalyst. This process works on many base gases the
Germans used it in WW2 with coal gas for much of their fuel production.

 

[RalphVa]

Synthetic Fuels: explained in a simple way! - YouTube

Good for showing H2 vs. battery. Doesn't help me regarding a CO2 fuel of some sort.

Ralph

 

[nova3930]

For all intents and purposes you reverse the combustion process via some form of catalyst with thermal energy input. Variations of the idea have been floating around forever but the ones that are the most near term feasible involve using a nuclear reactor to perform thermolysis of water into H2 and O2, then feed them along with CO2 from carbon capture through a catalyst with more heat from the nuclear reactor to produce liquid methanol....

ETA

Newly discovered catalyst could lead to cheap, clean methanol

 

[Grumpycat]

Interesting. As Grumpy at says a lot of natural gas is flashed off near here. Drive through the Eagle Ford area and you see a lot of large flare stacks burning.

Always thought there should be a way to make use of that gas.

Modern Luddites prevent construction of pipelines nominally for “environmental” reasons. Net result is the flaring of surplus gas.

 

[tyr382]

For all intents and purposes you reverse the combustion process via some form of catalyst with thermal energy input. Variations of the idea have been floating around forever but the ones that are the most near term feasible involve using a nuclear reactor to perform thermolysis of water into H2 and O2, then feed them along with CO2 from carbon capture through a catalyst with more heat from the nuclear reactor to produce liquid methanol....

ETA

Newly discovered catalyst could lead to cheap, clean methanol

Your right on the reactor part, I see a future for SMR technology where company’s can buy or lease a reactor small enough to run there business and have a swap and go system where ones the fuel is spent you just replace the whole reactor. Even nasa is in the development with there kilopower reactors that are so small you can hold in your hands.

 

[tyr382]

This is interesting as well. Another way to produce HC's.

Secretive energy startup backed by Bill Gates achieves solar breakthrough - CNN

DEWFPO

I don’t know the difference but it seems like the same idea with molten salt solar towers that collect and heat molten salt over 850c.
I’m very favourable to solar towers as to solar panels being that they use less space, very simple to use mirrors as to PV panels.

I saw a brilliant idea where you tether solar farms in space using carbon nanotubes that send the energy back to earth making non stop energy. Can’t remember the math but solar panels collect way more energy in space as to in our atmosphere.

 

[tyr382]

For all intents and purposes you reverse the combustion process via some form of catalyst with thermal energy input. Variations of the idea have been floating around forever but the ones that are the most near term feasible involve using a nuclear reactor to perform thermolysis of water into H2 and O2, then feed them along with CO2 from carbon capture through a catalyst with more heat from the nuclear reactor to produce liquid methanol....

ETA

Newly discovered catalyst could lead to cheap, clean methanol

I think carbon engineerings method is more adaptive to society. Not everyone can run or even convert there engines to methanol. Iv seen a lot of water/meth injection mods for Audi’s FIS but never seen a FSI or even ant direct injection system use e85 or any methanol systems

If carbon engineering claim that no modifications or tuning are required Then sign me up!!