Posted on 10/20/2012 1:31:35 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
A British firm has produced the first 'petrol from air', it emerged today - in a pioneering scientific breakthrough that could end mankind's reliance on declining fossil fuels.
Air Fuel Synthesis in Stockton-on-Tees, Teesside, claims to have made five litres of petrol since August using a small refinery that synthesises the fuel from carbon dioxide and water vapour.
Experts have hailed the incredible breakthrough as a potential 'game-changer' in the battle against climate change and solution to the globe's escalating energy crisis.
While the company is still developing their process and still need to take electricity from the national grid, it believes it will eventually be possible to power the synthesis entirely from renewable sources.
Within two years it hopes to build a commercial-scale plant capable of making a ton of petrol a day and expand into producing green aviation fuel to make airline travel more eco-friendly.
The technology involves mixing air with sodium hydroxide, then electrolysing the resultant sodium carbonate to release pure carbon dioxide...
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
And evil...they sure were. We could see it their eyes telling us that if we fell down in the lot it was all over. Don't let’em fool you with “oink, oink” business, they know what's coming. Animal Farm and such, you know.
But how much energy does it take to make a gallon; does it come close to breaking even?
It still doesn't make economic sense. Capital is invested in the factory and equipment and in the windmills.
The wind may be unused but it ain't free to capture and release it's energy.
One must weigh the cost of lost opportunity to use that capital in a more efficient and cost effective way to produce the same product.
If it's a matter of just using excess power that means the oil produced still will cost more than other methods.
Wind power might be useful in a remote place that can use intermittent supply but the economics are against it as source otherwise. Using an inefficient source in an inefficient process to “store” energy makes no sense.
Use the same capital to install an efficient system and have power at a lower cost without the storage.
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