Power to gas - the next step

tahanson43206 · 2019-12-04 11:43:25

For Calliban re #25

Thanks for confirming my (hope/expectation) for the suitability of methane to make cement.

To the question of competitive market opportunity for Louis (should he decide to pursue it) ...

We (he and his associates, I mean) would be making methane in the wind belt around Antarctica. That methane would be competing for customers with suppliers in land based locations where fossil fuels are still available.

The ** desired ** customers are those who refuse to use fossil derived methane, and who are willing to pay more for the privilege of non-fossil fuel use.

It appears there is a large and growing customer base who are willing to forgo fossil fuels, and take whatever hit may be coming.

(th)

tahanson43206 · 2019-12-04 13:51:52

This is for oldfart1939 (if you are willing) ...

Given Louis' interest in making "green" methane and ...
given a growing refusal by people who are potential flyers to use fossil fuel and ...
given the industry preference for jp4 fuel,
is it possible to make jp4 from methane?

This article from 2009 seems to suggest that the US Navy was investigating related subjects at that time:
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn … -jet-fuel/

The article (as I read it) appears to suggest that a by-product of the procedure used to make methane was a set of molecules which (apparently) could be further processed to make jet fuel.

The worry about inefficiency of the process should (for this discussion) be set aside, on the strength of Louis' argument that the wind to be harnessed is currently going 100% to waste.

Edit: This article appears to show that methane can be a feed stock for jet fuel. In this case, the source is biological.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/flying-c … ael-jensen

If you decide to take this up, Thanks!

(th)

Last edited by tahanson43206 (2019-12-04 14:47:55)

SpaceNut · 2019-12-04 17:58:01

There has been a sythentic oil for vehicle use that indicates that making it from methane is with less impurities and that makes for a cleaner synthetic. The most common method of conversion includes reforming the feedstocks through heat and catalytic reactions to create syngas (CO and H2) followed by conversion of the syngas into synthetic crude or oils via the Fischer-Tropsch (FT) process. The synthetic crude is further hydrofractured to synthesize paraffins with a small percentage of non-paraffins.

https://www.chevron.com/-/media/chevron … -fuels.pdf
Alternative Jet Fuels

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/7ca2/8 … a0f9b7.pdf
Alternate Fuels for use in Commercial Aircraft

http://icas.org/ICAS_ARCHIVE/ICAS2006/PAPERS/762.PDF
ALTERNATIVE FUELS AND THEIR POTENTIAL IMPACT ON AVIATION

https://www.fzt.haw-hamburg.de/pers/Sch … andran.pdf
The Aviation Fuel and the Passenger Aircraft for the Future - Bio Fuel, Synthetic Fuel

This is a false view of the co2 concerns that of not burning a fosil fuel but its the increase burning of a carbon containing fuel while not doing active capture of the exhaust that allows for the continual rise in atmospheric content of CO2.

The wind contracts must be very badly written to not be selling the energy that is created by them sure it not as predictable but there are ways to correct that. One would be to use a solar chimney turbine as that would be creating the energy when a windmill might not be as a pairing of differences to balance out the outputing levels.

SpaceNut · 2019-12-04 18:56:28

Now lets play devils advocate and say that Louis has a 500kw array sitting around idle as the powerlines can not get hooked up to it with a 1mw windmill doing nothing.
The dream to contruct a methane creating plant is just what a company is doing with its waste heat from power generation and capture of its waste co2 to make the selling of fuel a possibility.

http://www.climeworks.com/our-technology/

Our plants capture atmospheric carbon with a filter. Air is drawn into the plant and the CO2 within the air is chemically bound to the filter. Once the filter is saturated with CO2 it is heated (using mainly low-grade heat as an energy source) to around 100 °C (212 °F). The CO2 is then released from the filter and collected as concentrated CO2 gas to supply to customers or for negative emissions technologies. CO2-free air is released back into the atmosphere.

http://www.climeworks.com/our-customers … materials/

https://climeon.com/gensets/

More than 50% of energy in the world is wasted as this heat, with a majority at a relatively low temperature in the range of 70-120°C. The Climeon system can be connected to any heat source, and comes as a complete product. It consists of only three moving parts per module: a turbine and two pumps.

https://climeon.com/wp-content/uploads/ … -Sheet.pdf
150kw
https://climeon.com/recovering-waste-he … er-plants/

So what would stop the model from working is the mortage for the construction and the sellable units of methane pricing to the limits of available resource in co2 and water to power that can be used to make the process work at a desired rate of syngas manufacturing.

louis · 2019-12-04 21:57:34

I think you are over-complicating the maths here. If wind and solar (plus any other renewables and plus any continental size grid transfers) can produce 80% of your annual demand directly at x-20% of x cost, then the only question is, can the energy storage cost come in at less than 20% of x if x is the cheapest available energy cost.

SpaceNut wrote:

Now lets play devils advocate and say that Louis has a 500kw array sitting around idle as the powerlines can not get hooked up to it with a 1mw windmill doing nothing.
The dream to contruct a methane creating plant is just what a company is doing with its waste heat from power generation and capture of its waste co2 to make the selling of fuel a possibility.
http://www.climeworks.com/our-technology/
Our plants capture atmospheric carbon with a filter. Air is drawn into the plant and the CO2 within the air is chemically bound to the filter. Once the filter is saturated with CO2 it is heated (using mainly low-grade heat as an energy source) to around 100 °C (212 °F). The CO2 is then released from the filter and collected as concentrated CO2 gas to supply to customers or for negative emissions technologies. CO2-free air is released back into the atmosphere.
https://www.climeworks.com/wp-content/u … ngcopy.svg
http://www.climeworks.com/our-customers … materials/
https://climeon.com/gensets/
More than 50% of energy in the world is wasted as this heat, with a majority at a relatively low temperature in the range of 70-120°C. The Climeon system can be connected to any heat source, and comes as a complete product. It consists of only three moving parts per module: a turbine and two pumps.
https://climeon.com/wp-content/uploads/ … -Sheet.pdf
150kw
https://climeon.com/recovering-waste-he … er-plants/
So what would stop the model from working is the mortage for the construction and the sellable units of methane pricing to the limits of available resource in co2 and water to power that can be used to make the process work at a desired rate of syngas manufacturing.

Last edited by louis (2019-12-04 21:58:23)

tahanson43206 · 2019-12-05 09:14:41

For Louis re topic ...

There are examples from history of the industrial revolution of success achieving technological breakthroughs using the incentive of a prize.

I asked Mr. Google about this, and near the top of the result list was an academic study of the effectiveness of prizes (and other financial inducements) to stimulate invention.

http://www.law.nyu.edu/sites/default/fi … 0Paper.pdf

I scanned the document, and found a quotation that made sense .... in the case of the famous "Longitude" prize, which ultimately resulted in the clock mechanism which worked accurately despite movement of the ship, there were numerous attempts by other nations than Britain, but they all failed because the right combination of circumstances did not exist.

However, in the case of a windmill to make methane, it appears to me that all the technology needed already exists. What does NOT exist is a well engineered package that can survive conditions in the region of ocean around Antarctica where strong winds blow year round.

it seems to me (at this moment at least) that a well designed prize offer should yield multiple designs for a robust system able to collect wind energy and perform the chemical processes needed to "manufacture" methane.

The X-Prize folks have been successful in at least one venture, which led to the development of a non-governmental "space" craft.

Ansari X Prize - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Ansari_X_Prize
The Ansari X Prize was a space competition in which the X Prize Foundation offered a US$10,000,000 prize for the first non-government organization to launch a reusable manned spacecraft into space twice within two weeks.

Sir Richard Branson is a potential sponsor of a prize to make methane from wind, because (among other things) he has already sponsored development of a kind of "low carbon" jet fuel:

Google search string:

sir richard branson green jet fuel

I'm hoping someone in the forum might be the source of inspiration for a prize for design and construction of a working model of a sea borne wind energy system able to deliver some measurable quantity of methane in a measurable period of time such as a day or a week.

(th)

tahanson43206 · 2019-12-05 18:36:33

For Louis re topic ...

Apparently Scotland is a focus for successful floating wind generator deployment.

When asked: "who makes floating wind generators" Mr. Google came back with citations within which the

Hywind Scotland Pilot Park Offshore Wind Farm

had a prominent place.

This citation was first in the results:

Hywind Scotland makes floating wind farms a serious ... - Quartz
https://qz.com › hywind-scotland-makes-floating-wind-farms-a-serious-bus...
Jun 22, 2019 - Norwegian oil firm Equinor (formerly Statoil) pivoted its drilling expertise into offshore wind. It spent eight years testing a floating turbine prototype off Norway, and is now one of the world's largest offshore wind companies, as well as the primary backer of Hywind.

(th)

SpaceNut · 2019-12-05 20:02:35

Back to working on the plant to produce fuel on mars has a company here on earth to do a bit of comparison to in Swiss company Climeworks. Where back a bit ago I ran the co2 levels for earth in a m^3 to that of Mars and they were almost exact to what we would be working with for input into the fuel creation process.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/10 … ing-plant/

The air inlets are large as a result of how much air must go in to collect the co2 content that is in our air and while mars has the higher content its the lower pressure that is the issue that forces multiple smaller inlets to do the same function on mars. The remaining plant shows just how large we will need to be for mars insitu processing to methane.

https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable … osynthesis

https://news.slashdot.org/story/18/10/0 … cing-plant

The plant consists of three air collectors that are more energy efficient than Climeworks' first ambient air collector. "The plant will filter up to 150 tons of CO2 from ambient air per year," Climeworks said in a press statement. "Simultaneously, an alkaline electrolyser (1.2 MW) locally generates 240 cubic meters of renewable hydrogen per hour by making use of excess on-site photovoltaic energy." A catalyst then combines the CO2 and the hydrogen into methane gas in a reactor built by a French company called Atmostat. The methane "is then liquified and used to fuel natural gas lorries," Climeworks says.

https://www.greencarcongress.com/2018/0 … hagen.html

SpaceNut · 2019-12-05 20:02:47

The co2 extraction from air is also done by https://www.climateworks.org/carbon-dioxide-removal/
The removal of other bad stuff can occur at the same time https://www.climateworks.org/non-co2-mitigation/

https://energyinnovation.org/wp-content … Delay1.pdf
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a … 2114005450

The capture of co2 to become pure carbon comes with the extra energy penalty
Why not split harmful carbon dioxide into harmless carbon and oxygen?

So unless you are using nuclear, solar, wind or water created energy then you are not going to win as the law of thermodynamics tells us that the net result will be more CO2 than you started with.

Other forums that are talking about co2 as well
https://www.thenakedscientists.com/foru … ic=53177.0
https://www.quora.com/Is-there-any-devi … ure-carbon

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/5407 … f-from-it/

Carbon fibers are increasingly being used as a structural material on the aerospace, automotive, and other industries, which value its strength and light weight.

SpaceNut · 2019-12-05 21:05:17

https://www.peakoil.com/forums/co2-h2o- … 6-120.html

https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable … osynthesis

Capturing CO2 at a factory chimney could cost up to $80 per ton, according to research from the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions. Extracting from thin air is pricier still. Climeworks says it currently costs around $600 to extract a ton of CO2, although it expects that price to halve in its second-generation plant.

Numbers for what its going to cost from the power which is unpaid for....are not yet found but in time we may get that piece of information.

https://www.c2es.org/technology/factsheet/CCS

For young companies like Catalytic Innovations, that means seeking out every source of funding. Sheehan’s start-up has made it
to the semi-finals of the NRG Cosia Carbon XPrize, a $20m competition to recycle waste carbon dioxide from power plants into valuable fuel or building materials. He is now looking for money to build a larger prototype in the hope of making it to the final round – which would come with half a million dollars seed money.

http://carbon.xprize.org/

Photoconversion of CO2 over Fe-N-Ti@xSBA nanocomposite to produce hydrocarbon fuels

https://phys.org/news/2017-07-carbon-di … light.html

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/06 … oxide-fuel

https://www.chemengonline.com/new-catal … ne-co2-h2/

The Sabatier reaction, in which H2 and CO2 react at temperatures of 300–400°C in the presence of a nickel catalyst, or an alumina-supported ruthenium catalyst, is one way to reduce CO2 into methane.

http://www.itcp.kit.edu/deutschmann/dow … _final.pdf

tahanson43206 · 2019-12-06 05:32:27

For SpaceNut re three posts immediately above...

Thank you for the links you found, and particularly for the climeworks reports!

Here is a report that matches more closely with Calliban's call for production of hydrogen:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles … mate-goals

Climate Changed
A $39 Billion Wind Company Bets Hydrogen Is Key to Climate Goals
Orsted in Denmark is seeking to decarbonize industry by combining offshore wind farms with green hydrogen plants.
By Will Mathis
December 6, 2019, 12:00 AM EST

Edit: This article includes discussion of challenges to achieve costs competitive with other sources of hydrogen. Much of that discussion would seem likely to apply to production of methane, since hydrogen is a feed stock for methane production.

(th)

Last edited by tahanson43206 (2019-12-06 05:43:53)

louis · 2019-12-06 08:13:02

I guess that would come down to economics. But one of the advantages of methane manufacture is you don't have to build tankers and ports to transport it half way around the world, so I would have assumed it's unlikely to be a more economic proposition. Also, wind turbines don't like too strong winds - they wouldn't be able to operate in major storms - so that might be a disadvantage given how stormy it can be down there.

tahanson43206 wrote:

For Calliban re #25
Thanks for confirming my (hope/expectation) for the suitability of methane to make cement.
To the question of competitive market opportunity for Louis (should he decide to pursue it) ...
We (he and his associates, I mean) would be making methane in the wind belt around Antarctica. That methane would be competing for customers with suppliers in land based locations where fossil fuels are still available.
The ** desired ** customers are those who refuse to use fossil derived methane, and who are willing to pay more for the privilege of non-fossil fuel use.
It appears there is a large and growing customer base who are willing to forgo fossil fuels, and take whatever hit may be coming.
(th)

louis · 2019-12-06 08:19:11

It could certainly be the next step but I think creating a "hydrogen economy" is much more problematic. But it could solve the storage problem in terms of electricity generation.

tahanson43206 wrote:

For SpaceNut re three posts immediately above...
Thank you for the links you found, and particularly for the climeworks reports!
Here is a report that matches more closely with Calliban's call for production of hydrogen:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles … mate-goals
Climate Changed
A $39 Billion Wind Company Bets Hydrogen Is Key to Climate Goals
Orsted in Denmark is seeking to decarbonize industry by combining offshore wind farms with green hydrogen plants.
By Will Mathis
December 6, 2019, 12:00 AM EST
Edit: This article includes discussion of challenges to achieve costs competitive with other sources of hydrogen. Much of that discussion would seem likely to apply to production of methane, since hydrogen is a feed stock for methane production.
(th)

louis · 2019-12-06 08:29:15

Your reminder of just how big the intakes have to be was a salutory one. I would be looking for a technological breakthrough there. It's a surface area problem as well as a flow problem. Are there no ways we can increase take by using something more like our lungs or a tree to make contact with the atmosphere? Cost will not be an issue on Mars, whereas it clearly is for developers on Earth.

SpaceNut wrote:

https://www.peakoil.com/forums/co2-h2o- … 6-120.html
https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable … osynthesis
Capturing CO2 at a factory chimney could cost up to $80 per ton, according to research from the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions. Extracting from thin air is pricier still. Climeworks says it currently costs around $600 to extract a ton of CO2, although it expects that price to halve in its second-generation plant.
Numbers for what its going to cost from the power which is unpaid for....are not yet found but in time we may get that piece of information.
https://www.c2es.org/technology/factsheet/CCS
For young companies like Catalytic Innovations, that means seeking out every source of funding. Sheehan’s start-up has made it
to the semi-finals of the NRG Cosia Carbon XPrize, a $20m competition to recycle waste carbon dioxide from power plants into valuable fuel or building materials. He is now looking for money to build a larger prototype in the hope of making it to the final round – which would come with half a million dollars seed money.
http://carbon.xprize.org/
Photoconversion of CO2 over Fe-N-Ti@xSBA nanocomposite to produce hydrocarbon fuels
https://phys.org/news/2017-07-carbon-di … light.html
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/06 … oxide-fuel
https://www.chemengonline.com/new-catal … ne-co2-h2/
The Sabatier reaction, in which H2 and CO2 react at temperatures of 300–400°C in the presence of a nickel catalyst, or an alumina-supported ruthenium catalyst, is one way to reduce CO2 into methane.
http://www.itcp.kit.edu/deutschmann/dow … _final.pdf

tahanson43206 · 2019-12-06 14:10:02

Rolls Royce is the latest company to announce intentions to jump on the "make your own jet fuel" band wagon.

Their take is the first I've seen that would make sensible use of Nuclear Power to provide electricity for the various stages of the process.

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/roll … 50214.html

(th)

Calliban · 2019-12-06 17:37:11

tahanson43206 wrote:

Rolls Royce is the latest company to announce intentions to jump on the "make your own jet fuel" band wagon.
Their take is the first I've seen that would make sensible use of Nuclear Power to provide electricity for the various stages of the process.
https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/roll … 50214.html
(th)

The easiest way of doing this would be to begin with biogenic materials containing carbon. These could be dehydrated using waste heat and vacuum. The dehydrated material could then be subject to destructive distillation by heating. The products would be methane, methanol, hydrogen, CO2, CO and residual carbon. The methane and methanol are finished products. The carbon residue, CO and CO2 could be reacted with the hydrogen and additional electrolytic hydrogen under anaerobic conditions to yield other hydrocarbons.

By starting with biogenic material you can at least begin with a concentrated and reduced form of carbon. This greatly reduces the energy input needed. If you start with CO2, you must first capture it, release it in concentrated form and then reduce it to CO using hot hydrogen gas. Skipping that step greatly improves energy efficiency.

The biogenic material could be virtually anything containing carbon - sewage, refuse, crop residues, marine biomass, carbon rich sediment, etc. For wet wastes, anaerobic digestion would probably be a cheaper way of producing methane than reacting the waste with hydrogen. The waste should be carefully blended to provide the optimum carbon-nitrogen ratio and kept at 36C, which is about optimum for anaerobic digestion. Electricity could be used to compress or liquefy the resultant methane. Waste heat from a powerplant condenser would be at about the right temperature for the bacteria.

Last edited by Calliban (2019-12-06 17:58:22)

tahanson43206 · 2019-12-06 18:26:25

For Calliban re #41

Thanks for your encouraging summary of the process to make useful molecules from biological feedstock.

While I would have to do some lookups to be certain, I'm ** pretty ** sure I watched a recent video about farm operators somewhere in the US who are doing something that (as I recall) seemed similar to what you described.

In the case I am trying to remember, output from livestock facilities is fed/shoveled into "lagoons" which are covered with rubberized fabric domes. Biological processes generate gas (pretty much as you described it) and that gas is drawn off for use in operating the farm. Any that is left over is sold.

The farmers in the study are thus reducing their expenditures on fuel for their operations (including electricity - they generate their own) and (occasionally) earning a spare dollar when they have excess capacity.

***
Because this is the NewMars forum, I'll try to extrapolate to a future farming operation on that planet ...

It seems to me that recovery of valuable molecules from farm operations would be built into planning from the beginning, so that as little as possible is wasted. It may even turn out that with proper management, ** nothing ** will be wasted, because the last dregs of whatever processes are used can (presumably) be added to Mars regolith to make more growing "soil".

(th)

Last edited by tahanson43206 (2019-12-06 18:27:10)

SpaceNut · 2019-12-06 19:32:56

Wood gas is alive and still in use even today and got a resurgence during the wars when petrol was scarce. The burning at high temperature burning with a oxygen blower will cause the exhaust to contain as Calliban indicated of which the gases was plumbed into the intake and the vehicle would run.

tahanson43206 biology is where the free energy to live will come from for mars but it will come once we can protect it from the elements of mars.

density of Earth's atmosphere is 1.217 kg/m3 .
Earth's atmosphere is 0.038% carbon dioxide.
1,013 millibars (at sea level) 101,325 Pa 14.7 psi
That makes co2 .38494 millibars for the 1 cubic meter of earth air.

density of Mars's atmosphere is 0.02 kg/m3
Mars's atmosphere is 95.3% carbon dioxide.
Average surface pressure: 7.5 millibars 610 Pa 0.088 psi
which makes mars co2 just 7.1475 millibars for 1 cubic meter

that said setting up the same plant on mars will get there for co2 to make methane sooner for open air intake to capture co2.

https://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2018/11/2 … te-change/

At a coal plant exhaust gas is CO2, but CO2 in the atmosphere is less concentrated. Only one in 2,500 molecules is CO2, so the process for removing CO2 is more expensive compared to capturing carbon from fossil fuel plants. Direct air capture started out at $600 per ton of carbon; currently it costs $100-$200 a ton from the chimney of the coal fired power plants. It projects that at large scale, it could remove CO2 for $100 to $150 per ton. Its goal is to use the CO2 to make carbon-neutral synthetic hydrocarbon fuels, which would further lower its cost. The company maintains that a facility using this “Air to Fuels” process, once scaled up, could produce fuel at less than $1 dollar a liter.

Thats with free energy to make the fuel...

tahanson43206 · 2019-12-07 18:07:07

Louis, re topic ...

I understand and realize you are not in a position to bring about design and manufacture of a wind generator able to make methane.

However, that does not prevent me (or anyone) from wishing you were!

Here is another demonstration of the need for a cost effective implementation of the idea you've been advocating:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/cities-no-na … 31281.html

Gas stoves and furnaces are on the way out. Cities across the U.S. are banning gas appliances in new buildings as they try to cut down on climate-warming emissions.

This is a shame (to the extent it is happening). We should be moving rapidly as a global community to replace fossil fuels with renewable versions able to deliver the same energy content, and your concept is part of the solution set. I still like the ammonia version of an energy carrier for hydrogen, and hope that solution receives investment, but the potential of the methane solution is so great I wish more than just the small number of folks who follow your posts were aware of it.

(th)

SpaceNut · 2019-12-07 20:17:37

The first step to reclaiming and reuse rather than burning fresh gas would be to have a commercialy available sabetier reactor for the purpose of not allowing the co2 to continue to rise to use the exhaust gas over and over again. Only via the carbon soot that you need to add in a little gas to bump the co3 or exhaust from wood burning to restock the co2 for the process.

I have an artisian well that is mars water full of iron rust, magnesium, hydrogensulfurdioxode and such and its already killed an iron removal filter. The processing of the water for fuel would create me clean water in the process of making fuel to heat my home in winter, make power from the readily available resource.

So it becomes an equation of how much energy in to run the equipment for the amount of fuel to make use of for cost once you are set up.

Many of the parts can be made by the average consumer or repurposed from existing equipment such as the exhaust fan can come from a gas water heater that have them for recirculating the co2 from burning the fuel to keep the co2 for the next cycle. The egr value from a cars exhaust system and the smog pump to move the co2 into a tank...

Terraformer · 2019-12-08 02:20:40

Gas stoves and furnaces are on the way out. Cities across the U.S. are banning gas appliances in new buildings as they try to cut down on climate-warming emissions.

Politicians, like most people, cannot do math. Unless they have a nuclear reactor for power, this will increase fossil fuel use, not reduce it.

tahanson43206 · 2019-12-08 08:50:00

For Terraformer re #46

Thank you for your comment, which inspired me to follow up a bit on the original report shown above. It turns out that Berkeley, California is (as is often the case) at the vanguard of trying to address climate change by reducing fossil fuel emissions. As you guessed, the intention is to encourage production of electricity from renewable sources, although in my first scan of articles I did not see mention of specific clean energy sources.

What I DID find was outrage on the part of just about everyone interviewed on the subject. The objections of restaurant chefs seemed particularly likely to influence the argument, since the folks who can afford to visit their facilities are likely to be those who are most likely to be able to shape community policy.

As I wrote to Louis, this would appear to be a PERFECT time for an enterprising visionary to "reveal" the ideal solutions, which include a wind or solar powered manufacturing capability for natural gas.

What we do NOT yet have is a well-designed plan for a facility that can operate in the challenging conditions of the deep ocean around Antarctica for 30 years without failure and is able to deliver a steady supply of well formed methane, or other hydrocarbon that might be more attractive in the marketplace.

The economics of the situation would seem to require sufficient value delivered by the facility to pay for its replacement after 30 years, AND a small dividend to the shareholders of the investor community who took the risk of building and deploying the facility.

A customer base willing to pay a premium price for non-fossil methane would help!

(th)

Last edited by tahanson43206 (2019-12-08 08:50:55)

kbd512 · 2019-12-08 13:46:21

Terraformer,

Our politicians will tell you that climate change demands new math. In our brave new "green energy" world, 2 plus 2 equals 5. Employment is bad when it comes to nuclear reactors, but good when it comes to solar panels, wind turbines, and burning more fossil fuels to stop climate change. Yes, you read that correctly. We need to burn more coal and gas to stop climate change. If we produce gas from CO2 in the atmosphere, which will only put it back in the atmosphere unless we remove it entirely, that will only require more energy that we currently can't provide, that we would have to provide for this scheme to work, using wind and solar energy that's 50 to 100 times more resource-consumptive than nuclear power. Yet somehow we're going to "economize" on resource and energy usage and emissions from all that increased consumption of concrete and steel and brand new infrastructure to deliver the power. Just ask Louis. He'll tell ya. He believes technology runs the economy, but he's terrified of using the most powerful energy producing technology we actually know how to use.

They always seem to neglect the part where they spend so much of our green and provide so little energy in return. Like I said before, it's a "new math" thing. I don't claim to understand their ideology, so your guess is as good as mine. Anyway, this is primarily a way to help make ideologues and the people they've brainwashed feel good about their decisions. After all, they're "saving the planet"... by destroying our environment through a massive increase in resource consumption. How else are people who are indoctrinated to hate themselves in universities supposed to feel good about doing anything at all? It's something of a minor miracle that many more of them aren't manic depressives after having the propaganda pounded into their soft heads for 4 years or more.

This was never about "saving the planet", though. This is about making energy so expensive that only rich people can afford to use it. It's yet another way for our Ivory Tower types to take from poor people with less money. The French pay $0.16/kWh for their energy while the Germans pay $0.30/kWh. The French get nearly all of their energy from nuclear while the Germans get a paltry 40% from "renewable energy". If we extrapolate out in a way that doesn't work in the real world (it'll be even more expensive than this due to the unsolved intermittency problem), then they'd pay $0.75/kWh for a 100% renewable energy solution. Meanwhile, Louis can't figure out why those extremely expensive nuclear reactors still cost less than a third as much as "much cheaper" (or not, obviously) renewable energy.

louis · 2019-12-08 16:44:08

I'm coming round to a two stage development - probably makes sense to store energy as hydrogen to begin with at central electricity generating facilities.

But with technological innovation we will get to the point where we are able to produce methane in large quantities. This is an interesting development... Israeli scientists have engineered bacteria that feed on CO2...this might, I am thinking, be a more efficient way of grabbing CO2 (or even carbon) from the atmosphere compared with huge intake fans. There's really no limit with bacteria is there? If they can really feed on CO2, then you can quickly generate billion-trillions of them.

https://www.haaretz.com/science-and-hea … -1.8193085

tahanson43206 wrote:

Louis, re topic ...
I understand and realize you are not in a position to bring about design and manufacture of a wind generator able to make methane.
However, that does not prevent me (or anyone) from wishing you were!
Here is another demonstration of the need for a cost effective implementation of the idea you've been advocating:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/cities-no-na … 31281.html
Gas stoves and furnaces are on the way out. Cities across the U.S. are banning gas appliances in new buildings as they try to cut down on climate-warming emissions.
This is a shame (to the extent it is happening). We should be moving rapidly as a global community to replace fossil fuels with renewable versions able to deliver the same energy content, and your concept is part of the solution set. I still like the ammonia version of an energy carrier for hydrogen, and hope that solution receives investment, but the potential of the methane solution is so great I wish more than just the small number of folks who follow your posts were aware of it.
(th)

SpaceNut · 2019-12-08 16:59:43

And I was complaining about a 9 cent for kwhr up to the 800 kwhr before they rise the rate to 11 cents on the next 300 kwhr before rising again.
Its been a while since I have propane for my hot water and gas dryer so will need to researh that value to place here later.

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