Posted on 10/18/2012 8:36:34 PM PDT by Steelfish
British Engineers Produce Amazing 'Petrol From Air' Technology Revolutionary new technology that produces “petrol from air” is being produced by a British firm, it emerged tonight.
Andrew Hough 18 Oct 2012 A small company in the north of England has developed the “air capture” technology to create synthetic petrol using only air and electricity.
Experts tonight hailed the astonishing breakthrough as a potential “game-changer” in the battle against climate change and a saviour for the world’s energy crisis.
The technology, presented to a London engineering conference this week, removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The “petrol from air” technology involves taking sodium hydroxide and mixing it with carbon dioxide before "electrolysing" the sodium carbonate that it produces to form pure carbon dioxide. Hydrogen is then produced by electrolysing water vapour captured with a dehumidifier.
The company, Air Fuel Syndication, then uses the carbon dioxide and hydrogen to produce methanol which in turn is passed through a gasoline fuel reactor, creating petrol.
Company officials say they had produced five litres of petrol in less than three months from a small refinery in Stockton-on-Tees, Teesside. The fuel that is produced can be used in any regular petrol tank and, if renewable energy is used to provide the electricity it could become “completely carbon neutral”.
The £1.1m project, in development for the past two years, is being funded by a group of unnamed philanthropists who believe the technology could prove to be a lucrative way of creating renewable energy.
While the technology has the backing of Britain’s Institution of Mechanical Engineers, it has yet to capture the interest of major oil companies.
But company executives hope to build a large plant, which could produce more than a tonne of petrol every day, within two years and a refinery size operation within the...
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Well, He passed that law so I suppose He can amend it.
Yep, me too. Too bad it's nearly impossible to store.
I know you’re being facetious, but *IF* this process is reasonably efficient then it is a far more effective means of storing energy. Consider the fact that the bulky, heavy, state-of-the-art battery in the Chevy Volt only holds the energy equivalent of one gallon of gasoline. Ultimately all fossil fuels are the storage medium for solar & geothermal energy from prehistoric times.
“It will probably take more energy input than what you get out of it.”
Ya think? :)
“While the technology has the backing of Britain’s Institution of Mechanical Engineers, it has yet to capture the interest of major oil companies”.
Possibly because they need more than a few tons of petrol.
Yeh -- as long as the air is over a dairy farm or a Mexican burrito wagon at lunchtime.
Produced 6 liters of petrol in 3 months? And I apparently missed the part where they mentioned how many thousand pounds it cost per liter to produce! Right up there with Solyndra, et al!
not to mention that removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere would be harmful to plants and crops ... doh!
Sure it’s a scam
It’s a scam to get tax dollars to develop a completely useless process.
No, since burning the fuel will release the CO2 back into the air.
Their comments suggest that they failed all their science classes in high school, but were "socially promoted" anyway ... and that they have exactly zero real world exposure to real science and engineering. They probably think that "The Big Bang Theory" accurately depicts science and engineering students.
WOW! That could power my nephew's moped for a whole....week.
A red XKE Jag is a very practical car. It attracts Blondes.
>>All these stupid “breakthroughs” and “holy grails” are bunk every time we find out you have to feed more energy in than you get out.
Well of course you do. The First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics see to that. It is a given.
One of our biggest problems with energy policy is that we seem to have politicians who think otherwise running it.
How long before global warming fanatics start blaming this technology for causing global cooling because the atmosphere is being depleted of carbon dioxide.
Actually, if we re-elect Obama, he plans to repeal this law during his second term. It's far too restrictive on his energy plans for renewables. You might also expect to see him set pi to an even 3.0. It's part of an affirmative action plan to simplify math so that more will get passing grades.
Hydrogen is actually very easy to store. Just combine it with oxygen and store it as dihydrogen monoxide.
Of course, you have to be really careful when handling dihydrogen monixide because it is really dangerous stuff.
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