Prometheus Fuels Lower Cost Than Fossil Fuels

SpaceNut · 2022-05-18 19:06:33

Coals not a bad starting point to grind to make use of for the source of carbon and I am sure its gotten dirt cheap.

We also know that there is no magic in the source power for reaction and electrolysis processes only the cost and output levels for the build of it.

We do know the catalysts required and operational temperatures of the reactors used to make short to long chains of fuel at a given rate.

Still in the end run the issue for some areas of the country is water to make use of for the source of hydrogen in the reaction. Of which location for building the plant near to a large sea or oceans would be suitable.

Calliban · 2022-05-19 05:59:43

Gasoline prices hit $9 per gallon in parts of Europe.
https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News … urope.html

With prices this high, synthetic fuel production may already be cost competitive, if electricity is relatively cheap. What will tend to disuade investors is: (1) Electricity prices in most parts of the world are increasing; (2) Such investments are long term.

No one wants to invest in a synthetic fuel plant and then have a recession that causes price to plummet to just a few dollars per gallon. The worst thing about an energy crisis is the volatility it introduces into energy prices. It makes them stubbornly difficult to mitigate with capital intensive investments. Sustained high prices are needed for most of the technological mitigations to energy shortages. That doesn't work if the price of energy is going up and down like a yoyo. You end up going broke at the bottom of the cycle and then not being around to cash in when energy prices skyrocket. We could develop solutions to the supply problem if volatility could be dampened.

Last edited by Calliban (2022-05-19 06:04:31)

tahanson43206 · 2022-05-19 06:51:30

For Calliban re post #102

Your observations about fluctuations of prices show (clearly) why an entity planning to offer synthetic fuel needs a confirmed market.

My guess (and of course that's all it can be) is that a large consumer of power would be willing to accept a higher price for fuel, if that price is locked in for an extended period, such as a decade or more. Inflation will reduce the relative burden of the cost, whatever it is, and the boom-bust cycle will not impact the planners for the entity.

Price locking is a common practice in the US, and it may well be popular elsewhere.

I see it at the consumer level, but have to believe it is operating at the major entity level as well.

A well designed solar powered fuel synthesis facility, operating in conjunction with an existing fossil fuel plant, would eliminate the market fluctuations of traditional out-of-the-ground supply, and the large entity involved might well trade a sustained (but reliable) high price for fluctuations.

It is regretable that nuclear power is out of the mix, but in the absence of leadership, there is where it will remain.

In the mean time, ** this ** topic has potential to develop into a viable concept that will come into existence in the Real Universe.

It would take inspired leadership to bring such a future into being.

Here is a snippet found by Google...
https://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=TX

QUICK FACTS
Texas is the top crude oil and natural gas producing state in the nation. In 2020, Texas accounted for 43% of the nation's crude oil production and 26% of its marketed natural gas production.
The 31 petroleum refineries in Texas can process almost 5.9 million barrels of crude oil per calendar day, which was 31% of the nation's refining capacity as of January 2020.
Texas leads the nation in wind-powered generation and produced about 28% of all U.S. wind-powered electricity in 2020. Wind power surpassed the state's nuclear generation for the first time in 2014 and produced more than twice as much electricity as the state's two nuclear power plants combined in 2020.
Texas produces more electricity than any other state, generating almost twice as much as Florida, the second-highest electricity-producing state.
Texas is the largest energy-producing and energy-consuming state in the nation. The industrial sector, including its refineries and petrochemical plants, accounts for half of the energy consumed in the state.
Last Updated: April 15, 2021

I had NO idea of the sheer magnitude of the Texas enterprise!

No wonder Elon Musk moved there, all the other issues aside.

(th)

SpaceNut · 2022-05-19 20:19:40

Was surprised at the level of pipelines and distribution of these resources as I panned the US map. Of course the solar maps show that the area is with the most day hours to produce power with not like here in NH.

So what is that line of cost to produce synthetic fuels where you are barely above break even for making them?

They estimated that the nationwide average cost of producing the synthetic equivalent of a barrel of crude oil would be $95.11, although the cost varies regionally. The cost in Kansas, where most production would occur, would average $83.58 for the equivalent of a barrel of crude oil

https://www.princeton.edu/news/2012/11/ … ew-economy

Some where along the line synthetic oils have done so at the near oil brand costs so doing other things should not be all that different.

Top-quality synthetic oil alone can cost between $20 and $30 for a five-quart bottle, so don't be surprised if an oil change with filter replacement runs $75.

https://www.caranddriver.com/shopping-a … il-change/

tahanson43206 · 2022-05-20 05:42:19

For SpaceNut re #104

Thanks for doing the lookups and reporting of costs to make synthetic oil... I note that the cost of a barrel of crude oil is given as $111-112 per barrel.

I'm not sure what the term "equivalent of a barrel" means ... A barrel is a barrel, except when it is "equivalent".

Crude oil has to be processed before it is refined into useful products, so the cost of whatever those products are will be greater than the price of the crude.

I asked Google for today's price of crude, and received back a lot of citations before the price showed up, from oilprice.com.

(th)

Calliban · 2022-05-20 09:48:54

TH, barrel of oil equivelent (BOE) is a measure of energy, which equates to about 6000MJ. When they say equivelent to 1 barrel of 'whatever', they are saying the same amount of energy as one barrel (159 litres) of whatever. But the actual volume of synthetic fuel that is equivelant to 1 barrel or 1 gallon of crude oil or diesel, won't neccesarily have the same volume.

Synthetic fuel production will almost certainly be cheaper starting with biomass or carbon rich fossil fuel when compared to reducing CO2 from seawater or the atmosphere. This is because carbon is already in a reduced state. You need add less hydrogen (and therefore less energy) to the syngas to form methanol or methane. So it is technologically much easier to produce synthetic fuels that are competitive with oil derived diesel.

Unfortunately, biomass is a dispersed resource and harvesting it has environmental impacts of its own. Heavy fossil fuels would put more fossil carbon into the atmosphere, which is precisely what we are trying to avoid. None the less, both options could be useful as mitigation against declining conventional oil derived diesel production. Biomass is the better option. But growing enough of it to produce a significant amount of synthetic fuel wouod cause other problems if it starts to interfer with food production.

One interesting option that I have referenced in the past is flash pyrolsis. This involves very rapid heating of biomass and captures around 60% of its embodied energy as combustible oil vapours. Such units are much simpler than the chemical reactors that we would need to produce methanol. Essentially, they would be steel tubes, heated by electrical resistance heaters. Biomass would drop down the tube from a hopper at the top. If we could use such pyrolsis units to consume crop residues, then ash and char could be returned to the soil, actually improving its fertility. The oils could be mixed with heavy oils coming from Canada or the Middle East and used to produce an input oil of the correct API to put into US refineries. This makes best use of existing infrastructure, because it not only provides a direct energy yield from biomass, but also allows refineries to process heavy oils and produce a fuel that is directly compatible with existing diesel engines.

Last edited by Calliban (2022-05-20 10:05:00)

kbd512 · 2022-05-20 10:55:52

Over time, there's only one direction that fuel prices have gone in, and that is up. So long as we're extracting a depleting resource, that's the only direction it can go in. Anyone who can interpret the line on the price graph, or simply look at the prices being charged at their gas stations, knows this full well. There is only one way to arrest these significant price increases over time, and that is to synthesize fuels from scratch. After the plant is built, the capital invested into it will be paid back over the useful service life of the plant, which is inordinately longer than any particular oil and gas well will last, and a vastly simpler logistics problem to solve that does not require the continual input of more materials and therefore energy, for a decreasing return on energy invested.

If new materials and new infrastructure has to be built continuously to maintain existing production rates, which also implies no net economic growth is possible, then you should accept that you're fighting a losing battle over time, and nothing will ever change that except a paradigm shift where fuels are produced using functionally limitless (relative to the total requirement) energy. That kind of energy only comes from the Sun, and only over a very large surface area. However, the effect is very real and solar insolation over time, in a desert, varies very little as a function of time.

Whatever we have to invest into the plant infrastructure will pale in comparison to the economic and environmental damage associated with not having any energy that synthetic fuel production would otherwise provide for us. This plant will absolutely be very costly to setup, and I've never tried to assert otherwise. However, it will have fixed operating costs, and the answer to the input energy requirement is a combination of finesse in the electro-chemical process and brute force.

The following document from Energy.gov explains why they're so interested in producing Ethanol:

Ethanol Conversion to Fungible Gasoline, Diesel, and Jet Fuel Blend Stocks and High Value Chemical Coproducts (BTEX)

Operating costs are $0.06 per gallon. Therefore, total plant operating costs to satisfy our 150 billion gallon per year requirement amount to $9 billion dollars. Capital costs for this new "VertiMass" technology are $0.28 per gallon or $42 billion dollars per yer. Therefore, total CapEx / OpEx costs to supply 100% of our gasoline from synthetic fuels amount to $51 billion dollars per year.

If we divide $52 billion by 285 million gasoline powered motor vehicles, then we arrive at a per-vehicle cost per year of $178.95. If we told the plant operators that they would be allowed to make 100% profit on their end products, then we arrive at a yearly cost approximately equal to 1 new car payment over a year ($357.90 per vehicle per year), which is less money than people spend per month at current gasoline prices.

At that average consumption rate, a $20,000 100kWh Lithium-ion battery would require almost 56 years of gasoline consumption to pay off in terms of dollars spent, which means battery power is utterly infeasible from an economic perspective even if sufficient material existed to electrify only the farming tractors and trucks, which is certainly not the case, and we also know that Lithium-ion only exacerbates over-consumption of strictly limited metal resources. If the Lithium-ion battery only cost half as much per kWh, it would still take longer to pay off the loan for the batteries, ignoring all other parts of the vehicle, than said vehicle could operate for in any capacity, prior to the time when the battery was rendered inoperative due to electronics failures or materials degradation within the battery itself.

Can those intractable battery problems be solved? I honestly don't know. Anything is possible, but I've seen no evidence that we can develop batteries that last as long as internal combustion engines because the batteries cannot be "rebuilt" without complete "re-manufacturing". Whatever the ultimate solution is, it won't be based upon Lithium because there's not enough economically recoverable Lithium without the fossil fuel production plant extracting Lithium from sea water. That's the other reason why we need this plant. We can't get to our all-electric future without abject poverty for most people or economically recovered Lithium from sea water. This fossil fuels synthesis plant is our only practical "bridge-to-the-all-electric-future".

If someone knows of a new battery technology that uses abundant materials that are not limited by known / available metal supplies that do not require sea water processing, please let me know. I am always open to possibilities, but I need to see some rock-solid evidence that we can use some other material, possibly Sulfur or other materials that are abundant enough to form the backbone of the vehicle energy storage solution that makes mass-transport of materials and finished goods possible.

For my part, I have been looking for such battery technologies. I spent the better part of a year trying to find indicators that some new technology was on its way. Thus far, all I've found are lab-scale experiments that "show great promise", like all other similar technologies that show great promise, but nothing even remotely ready for on-road testing- meaning fundamental technology issues haven't been worked out (unacceptable material degradation rates, limitations on charge / discharge rates that make them less usable than Lithium-ion, use of scarce materials like Lithium, etc). This is the classic case of "you go to war with the military you have, not the military you wished you had". Right now, we're still fighting a losing battle, hoping for a miracle.

Speaking of military applications, if we supply our national economy and our military with fuel that is totally independent of drilling activities anywhere in the world, even the ones here at home, then we will never encounter an enemy that we can't defeat, by virtue of having so much affordable and abundant stored energy to throw at the war effort that there is no hope of winning a war against us. We will then have zero interest in how much oil comes from other countries, whether friend or foe, because we won't use a drop of it. We can affordably build out our desert-based solar thermal production facilities to supply our allies as well, so that countries like Russia that were previously able to exert economic influence over Europe will have no recourse but to sue for peace and stop attacking their neighbors.

SpaceNut · 2022-05-20 17:16:25

That military system needs to be as portable as all other equipment that we use to make war with. It needs to be agile and flexible to being able to be hidden and masked from all sorts of sensors. It will need to be quiet and have a low thermal appearance.

tahanson43206 · 2022-05-20 21:32:28

For Calliban re #106

First, thank you for the reminder of the advantage of using biological material as a starting point to make synthetic fuel.

This next is not intended to be anything but appreciative of your reminder. It is my understanding that Ma Nature have followed exactly your prescription, in laying of stocks of fuel inputs, over millions of years.

However, I do have a question about your confidence in expense of various options...

My question has to do with the amount of mass to be moved to achieve a given quantity of synthetic fuel.

I don't know the answer, but it seems to me that the amount of mass to be moved should be included in the expense of a solution.

In the case of pulling CO2 from air, vast amounts of air must be passed through a collector to acquire the CO2 that is present.

In the case of pulling CO2 from sea water, vast amounts of water (with suspended material) must be passed through a collector to acquire the CO2.

In the case of pulling CO2 from biomass, there is the mass of the material to be moved from the source, prepared for processing, processed and the waste disposed of.

From my point of view, the collection of CO2 from an existing hydrocarbon burning power plant is surely the least energy costly.

My understanding is that biomass needs to be returned to the fields where it grew, if it grew on fields, to insure the fields remain healthy.

On the other hand, kelp might be harvested for this purpose, and the ocean would be able to rebuild the stock without human input, but in that case, harvesting would need to be done so that the ocean has time to rebuild the stock.

Harvesting of kelp would require input of energy, just as is the case with harvesting of biomass from fields.

On the other hand, air and sea water are readily available, and the exhaust from a hydrocarbon burning power plant is immediately available.

If you have time to compare and contrast these alternatives, ( and i do NOT assume you do) the result of your analysis ** should ** be helpful for those who might to plan for a future in which synthetic fuel becomes a common product on the global stage.

(th)

tahanson43206 · 2022-05-20 21:42:51

For kbd512 in the Prometheus topic ....

You have advocated for use of Trough Solar collection, and I am proceeding on the assumption this is indeed the best choice for a number of reasons...

By any chance, are you in a position to plan one of these facilities?

Your knowledge and experience may include what is needed to order supplies, to request the appropriate personnel, to specify the land requirements, and to build the system with assurance it will produce power reliably for 40 years.

I have no way of knowing. i am going with your expressed confidence in your recommendation.

I am asking because at the next Zoom meeting, if all goes well, we'll be able to make more progress in developing an outline for a proposal to install one or more synthesis plants based upon opportunities that may present themselves in the near future.

Off the top, here are some scenarios that seem feasible (based upon my limited knowledge)...

1) Recycle CO2 at existing gas turbine plant to provide "Green" operation using solar power to process exhaust

2) Make synthetic fuel using CO2 from the most convenient source (ref Calliban re options (air, water, biomass))

3) Pump sea water from ocean for delivery inland using solar power

This last is of interest because both Arizona and now Utah have floated the idea of importing water from the ocean.

(th)

tahanson43206 · 2022-05-20 21:52:58

This is primarily for Calliban regarding manufacture of components of a Solar Trough collection facility.

I am mindful of your frequent (and compelling) posts about the cost of renewable energy systems.

You have (of course quite rightly) pointed out that most if not all existing systems were built using fossil fuel. There may be a tiny fraction made using falling water as an energy source.

My question is: Can you think of any reason why a Solar Trough collection facility should not be able to make more Solar Trough facilities? In other words, is is feasible to break the connection to fossil fuels, and liberate the renewable energy systems to sustain themselves?

That would most certainly need to happen on Mars.

If it can happen on Mars, then I would like to think it could happen on Earth.

It would certainly require some creative engineering, at every stage of the process.

(th)

kbd512 · 2022-05-21 04:01:57

tahanson43206,

Solar trough collectors happen to produce process heat in the temperature range required to convert Ethanol into gasoline / diesel / kerosene using Zeolite-based catalysts.

I posted that document from Energy.gov because it illustrates how much energy input, CapEx, and OpEx is associated with making a gallon of fuel using Ethanol as the base stock. We have developed low-cost catalysts and catalyzers that are stable, not made from unobtanium (ZSM-5 Zeolite catalyst), and long-lasting.

From the paper:
1. Technology: successfully transferred from ORNL to TechnipFMC
2. Stoichiometric conversion: confirmed 100% conversion of ethanol to HCs and water from ORNL to TechnipFMC
3. High Yields: Increased liquid hydrocarbon yields (C5+) from 36% (initial validation) up to ~80% in 15 months
4. Scale-up: 150x scale-up in this time frame (ready for next scale)
5. No external hydrogen
6. Mild Conditions: Low temperature (350ºC) and pressure operations (60 psi) operations.
7. Wet ethanol feedstock: 5-100% ethanol concentrations on V-ZSM-5 & Ga-ZSM-5 have minimal effect.

Wikipedia - ZSM-5 Catalyst

From the article:

ZSM-5, Zeolite Socony Mobil–5 (framework type MFI from ZSM-5 (five)), is an aluminosilicate zeolite belonging to the pentasil family of zeolites. Its chemical formula is NanAlnSi96–nO192·16H2O (0<n<27). Patented by Mobil Oil Company in 1975, it is widely used in the petroleum industry as a heterogeneous catalyst for hydrocarbon isomerization reactions.
...
ZSM-5 is also used to convert alcohols directly into gasoline. One such process is known as the Methanol to Gasoline (MTG) process, patented by Mobil.

ORNL's process is Ethanol to Gasoline (ETG), but the important part is that when you have Ethanol or Methanol, you can make gasoline, diesel, and kerosene.

The Department of Energy Learned How to Turn Carbon Dioxide Into Liquid Fuel

From the article:

Carbon + copper = magic.
A new catalyst turns carbon dioxide into ethanol at over 90 percent efficiency.
Separating chemical elements can be complex and expensive because of strong bonds.
This catalyst is an electrified arrangement of copper on a structure of carbon.
Researchers at Argonne National Laboratory say they’ve found a breakthrough way to recycle carbon dioxide into energy-rich ethanol fuel. The secret is an electrified catalyst made from copper and carbon, which the researchers say can be powered using low-cost off-peak or renewable energy. What results is a process that’s more than 90 percent effective, which they say is far higher than any similar existing process.
Northern Illinois University professor and participating Argonne researcher Tao Xu says the new catalyst isn’t just a single stop that can produce ethanol—it’s the first step down a possible long list of ways to turn carbon dioxide into other useful chemicals. Despite the obvious plenitude of carbon dioxide, recycling it effectively into new things has been hard because of how stable and chemically stubborn the molecules are.
Once we have an efficient and plentiful catalyst, the difference is like counting your full piggy bank by hand versus dumping it into a Coinstar machine. Lowering the cost to begin breaking up the carbon dioxide means a variety of new processes could open up and become feasible. The most immediate opportunities are to turn carbon dioxide into other hydrocarbons. If the process is efficient enough, it could even exceed the energy cost of mitigation of carbon dioxide by depositing it in bedrock, for example.
So what is this magic catalyst? It’s a carefully arranged network of copper atoms on a supporting structure made of carbon. The reaction’s efficiency hinges on how well the copper atoms are spread out, in fact. “The FE of ethanol was highly sensitive to the initial dispersion of Cu atoms and decreased significantly when CuO and large Cu clusters become predominant species,” the researchers explain.
Basically, the copper filter begins to cluster up as it undergoes the chemical reaction that produces ethanol, meaning after a certain time it must be realigned and reset. “Operando X-ray absorption spectroscopy identified a reversible transformation from atomically dispersed Cu atoms to Cun clusters on application of electrochemical conditions,” the researchers continue. The energized copper atoms apply low voltage that breaks the carbon dioxide molecules apart. They then rebond, from CO₂ into C₂H₆O.
There are questions here: Does the reaction require absolutely pure carbon dioxide, which is unusual to find in nature? This is an obstacle with most kinds of recycling, from a pizza box or the wrong kind of plastic all the way down to the microscopic level. What’s the hydrogen source? Hydrogen is also costly to separate and, as it stands today, primarily separated using fossil fuels. The catalyst is exciting, but that doesn’t erase existing concerns about how this kind of reaction works.
Ethanol is blended into most American consumer gas products, and its source from waste corn is also an inefficient process. There’s an opportunity to lower the cost (and political subsidy cost) of ethanol used in these blends. All in all, this catalyst is an exciting tool that could have a domino effect on several different kinds of energy research.

Highly selective electrocatalytic CO2 reduction to ethanol by metallic clusters dynamically formed from atomically dispersed copper

Catalyst Study Advances Carbon-Dioxide-to-Ethanol Conversion

The exhaust effluent from natural gas plants may be recoverable, but not without increasing operating costs. I don't want a byzantine Rube Goldberg of a process that's dependent upon exhaust gases or any other silliness. Apart from chemistry and electro-chemistry, very few efficiency gains have ever resulted in night-and-day resource consumption reductions. Every instance where absolute efficiency is lusted after, the end result is higher energy consumption, higher total costs, and little to no economic benefit as a result.

Replacing cast iron engine blocks with Aluminum hasn't reduced vehicle energy demand by any appreciable amount after all concessions in other areas are taken into account, namely embodied energy cost when the lighter engine block technology is applied at a global scale, because the engine is a minor fraction of total vehicle weight. CGI engine blocks can come within about 25 pounds of the weight of Aluminum, without being triple the embodied energy cost, and Iron represents about 94% of all the metal that we mine. A grey cast iron engine block winds up about 100 pounds heavier than Aluminum. It's like saying, well if my daughter wasn't riding in the vehicle with me, then I save on fuel costs. I attribute this silliness to a religious obsession with technology that doesn't actually do whatever it purports to do, which is why the components cost more money. There's a lot more energy tied up in the making of the faddish "supergrade" material technology than what you could ever get back out of it in terms of vehicle fuel consumption reduction. Engineers of decades past were less enamored with marginal technology improvements than they were with finding a workable solution the "economized" on what were then quite expensive material inputs.

I want solar collectors made from the cheapest possible embodied energy materials that get the job done. If steel coated with Aluminum will produce the temperatures required for these processes to do what they do, then there's likely no practical benefit to Aluminum-coated glass, just because it might theoretically reduce the up-front capital costs through a couple of percentage points of efficiency improvement, despite requiring vastly more energy and scarce resources over time. There's no practical benefit to a bunch of thermal-to-electric energy conversions, either. The more that can be accomplished using simple process heat, the lower the total cost over time will be.

Minimum total energy cost over time at a global scale for the win. If the glass will crack easily or is so delicate that transport to the construction site becomes problematic, or it requires a lot more energy to recycle, then an Aluminum-coated sheet steel that will produce the required temperatures is the most appropriate option. I'm of the opinion that a simple machine that will still be around long after we're both dead, silently producing fuel using input heat energy from the Sun with CO2 in whatever form it happens to be naturally available in, is the way forward. Apart from the catalysts, this system must be so simple that a small army of skilled plumbers can maintain it. We're attempting to produce fixed-cost fuel here, not satisfying the complexity cravings of research scientists.

This document is very instructive on solar trough concentrator costs and technology if anyone else wants to know how I arrived at these conclusions (it wasn't wild guesses or personal preferences):

Parabolic trough solar collectors: A general overview of technology, industrial applications, energy market, modeling, and standards

What problem are we actually trying to solve?

What equipment do we need to do it?

How much does that equipment cost and is it commercially available?

Can we actually produce and deploy enough of that equipment for it to make a meaningful difference?

Do our materials and equipment selections contribute to or detract from our proposed solution?

Are there any non-technical or regulatory roadblocks that will be faced that preclude using our favored equipment?

I also favor the use of nuclear power for all the reasons that Calliban and others have gone through in excruciating detail. That doesn't mean I'm going to get what I want. However, I'm not willing to forego the important benefits provided by this concept (never running out of energy storage and having the power available to draw down atmospheric CO2 over time), merely because I can't get exactly what I want.

tahanson43206 · 2022-05-21 05:07:56

For kbd512 re #112

SearchTerm:Methanol from CO2

More search terms will be added as time permits.

Thank you for this thorough summary of the topic.

(th)

Calliban · 2022-05-21 07:41:35

Kbd512, Excellent work I think. I need to study this some more before I provide additional detailed comments on what is being proposed.

One of the benefits of relatively low temperatures that you are describing is that water or oil can serve as heat transfer fluid. Oil in fact is the better choice, because there are heavy mineral oils that are liquid with comparatively low vapour pressure at those temperatures. Oil is also non-corrosive, so the tubes running through the trough can be low alloy steel with an external coating to protect against corrosion and improve absorptivity.

Steel with aluminium coating sounds like a good low cost option for trough design. Steel surfaces can be galvanised or spray painted in the factory to reduce corrosion rate. For the aluminium surface, there are polymer coatings like Teflon that have good UV resistance and would cost a lot less than glass. Another option for trough manufacture that would reduce embodied energy, would be fine grain, high strength concrete. This can be reinforced with polymer fibres. The trough can then be cast in segments in an injection mould. The concrete surface could then be vacuum plated with aluminium with the polymer coating sprayed on afterward. Concrete has about 1/20th the embodied energy of steel per unit mass and only 1/80th per unit volume. The trough needs only one degree of freedom as it rotates to track the sun. So simple roller bearings can support sections in concrete spacers. A chain drive could link several rows of reflectors to a single electric motor.

Last edited by Calliban (2022-05-21 07:59:59)

tahanson43206 · 2022-05-21 08:07:14

For Calliban re #114 and support of kbd512's topic...

Thank you for helping to keep momentum going. There are certainly likely to be setbacks along the way, but I am hoping this topic grows and prospers, with encouragement such as yours.

It crossed my mind to suppose that research and development of glass may have progressed to the point it can be considered as a thin coating over silvered surfaces. What I'm thinking about is the flexible, strong glass now routinely placed over electronic screens.

Google came up with some snippets, and I chose this one for consideration:

Flexible glass and its application for electronic devices - IEEE Xplore
ieeexplore.ieee.org › abstract › document
Abstract: Ultra-thin flexible glass provides all the benefits of glass - thermo-mechanical stability at high temperature, transparency and the best barrier ...
Electronic ISBN: 978-4-9908753-2-9

The advantage that ** may ** be on offer is the ability to endure Texas weather in all it's variety.

(th)

Calliban · 2022-05-21 08:20:14

TH, maybe that is an option worth considering. Dust accumulation to non-conducting surfaces by static charge, would be a problem whichever kind of coating we use. It occurs to me that putting a flat sheet of glass over the trough surface would ease this problem. It would allow the trough to be sprayed down with water once per week. A flat surface woukd be much easier to keep clean.

Last edited by Calliban (2022-05-21 08:21:03)

tahanson43206 · 2022-05-21 08:48:08

For Calliban re #116

Thank you for adding the possibility of glass to your vision of how this system might work.

While this is a topic created and managed by kbd512, I am hoping it will continue to develop into Real Universe achievement.

I am ** particularly ** interested in the potential of Trough Solar for the Pacific Pipeline topic just opened here in the forum.

The impetus comes from an Internet report of a proposal floated in upper levels of leadership in the State of Utah (US). The report I saw recently was of the nature of a trial balloon, or raising a flag to see if anyone salutes.

It got **my** attention, without a doubt!

A successful venture to import Pacific ocean water to the Great Salt Lake via Interstate 80 would set the stage for a vigorous extension of the idea for distribution of Pacific ocean water to the interior of the American West.

The Arizona proposal to import desalinated water from the Sea of Cortez shows that considerable interest existed at the time the study was done, but I get the impression the difficulty of working with Mexico may be more than frail humans can manage.

I hasten to add that the people of Mexico are NOT the problem, as far as I can determine.

It would ** appear ** that the people of Arizona are more than capable of putting a stop to the proposal, without any help at all.

The border with Mexico is a convenient excuse for doing nothing.

On the ** other ** hand, I expect that dealing with Utah would be much easier, and the fact that water would flow down hill from Utah to Arizona is a nice additional incentive to enter into a consortium to pull water from the Pacific.

(th)

kbd512 · 2022-05-21 14:08:51

Calliban,

I'm unopposed to using cheaper materials and fabrication methods for producing the solar power collectors. Total embodied energy cost over time when applied at a global scale, as well as the ability to recycle the materials into new collectors, is what matters most, but recycling and maintenance schedules are a close second at this scale. Photon thermalization efficiency is also important, but should never be an overriding consideration if it drastically increases total cost. If it turns out that a mix of concrete and polymer can be precision cast and a highly reflective Mylar-like Aluminum coating applied over it for less embodied energy cost and maintenance and weight than steel, then that's what we're using. However, spending inordinately more money for the sake of satisfying intellectual curiosity is a different kind of project.

Flat panels are not particularly useful for trough-type solar concentrators. While potentially interesting for other applications, this is another unnecessary diversion away from the end goal. Only the ideas that contribute to the desired end result should be considered. We're not going to pump and consume water to clean these panels if a weekly pass with a feather duster cleans the panels acceptably well for less cost and resource consumption. Fresh water is a finite resource that requires lots of energy input.

If metallic panels have to be periodically re-polished or re-coated, then the question becomes, "How often?" Most attempts to reduce maintenance costs, no matter how well-intentioned, typically make other aspects of the solution more expensive. Maintenance cost are amortized over time, whereas more expensive materials and fabrication methods are paid up-front and in-full. If the hoped-for durability and maintenance reduction benefits are not realized, then the entire solution becomes more expensive for no actual benefit.

Aluminum engine parts such as cylinder heads are billed the same way to consumers. If Aluminum ever cracks, then it's supposedly easier to repair. The unspoken parts that are left out is the fact that most of the cracks occur in areas where a crack equates to junking the entire part and any significant welding repair to an Aluminum part is time consuming and costly. Some of these seemingly "minor repairs" are a significant portion of the replacement cost for the entire cylinder head casting. Aluminum cylinder heads are great solution in theory, provided you're doing your own welding and machining work and have the inspection equipment to identify any cracks, but in terms of what "better technology" has done for your average customer, it increases the total parts cost without providing much in the way of cost reduction benefits for typical applications.

Actual testing has proven that identically constructed Aluminum and Iron cylinder heads flow the same, and this should be completely obvious. Both types provide nearly indistinguishable margin for resistance to detonation under normal operating temperatures and engine loads, despite the fact that Aluminum conducts heat away from "hot spots" quite a bit faster. Heat dissipation becomes more important for engines under constant heavy load, but most engines are not used in racing or marine or aviation applications don't see such loads. If the heads were made from CGI, then there's also very little weight difference because the Iron castings can become much thinner. Unfortunately, there's a substantial increase in cost associated with using Aluminum heads, and although both materials will warp if overheated, Aluminum is more susceptible to that phenomenon because it significantly weakens at much lower temperatures. In the end, little to no money is saved and the seldom realized benefits do not outweigh the cost. The customer pays considerably more money for the manufacturer using an aerospace type material and its associated engineering job, while more energy is consumed producing Aluminum vs Iron, and at most 50 to 75 pounds per engine would be the maximum weight reduction benefit associated with using Aluminum as compared to stronger cast irons, such as CGI or ductile Iron. Whenever I "see what we did there", from my perspective the most significant "improvement" was the quantity of money paid to the engine manufacturer by their customers, for the same basic products.

As such, my questions about precision molded polymer-reinforced concrete with thin film cover glass (iPad screen protector) cover panels are thus:

1. How much does this cost to do?

I presume that you need heat to mix-and-melt the plastic and concrete together, create molds to form the reflector trough and injectors that pump a mix of concrete and plastic into the mold, possibly a curing oven, and dimensional tolerances have to be good enough to apply a thin reflector sheet over the top of the molded part. That may be possible to do and it may even be cheap, but it doesn't sound as if it would be easy to repeatably produce the very uniform surface required to apply a thin reflective coating, in contrast to glass or sheet steel.

I believe that the "Solar Trough Tech" document I posted indicates that the Rioglass solar trough-type concentrators (technology purchased from Siemens) uses a 3mm thick borosilicate glass with a Silver-based coating applied to the backside, and a protective paint applied over the top of the reflective coating. These mirrors are noted as being exceptionally hard and scratch-resistant, but very brittle and have almost no tensile strength as compared to sheet steel, so rather elaborate backface support structures are required to cradle each very large mirror panel. According to the document, they're very delicate and prone to cracking if any mishandling occurs, which is unsurprising.

My assertion is that however technically excellent those Rioglass mirrors happen to be, they're also very costly to fabricate ($30+ per square meter) and very easy to break. A relatively minor earthquake could destroy them. Rough handling would almost certainly destroy them.

Given appropriate ribbing / reinforcement imparted during the stamping process, is there any reason why we couldn't substitute a 1mm thick piece of sheet steel, hot-dipped in Aluminum and polished (Aluminumized sheet steel so commonly used in automotive exhaust systems), to prove an almost-as-good reflective surface for significantly lower cost ($15/m^2 - $20m^3 vs $30/m^2)?

We need to maximize the mirror surface area used here, so if we go with a plastic reinforced concrete mirror support base instead, how thick does that mirror support surface have to be and how much would it weigh per square meter?

If the 3mm figure provided is correct, then Rioglass weighs about 7.2kg/m^2. I already know approximately what my proposed mirror solution weighs, which is 7.84kg/m^2. It's marginally heavier than the glass, but much stronger and nowhere near as delicate. If these mirrors are bent or dropped, they can be recycled fairly easily and don't leave a giant pile of broken glass mess on the ground. I know we're putting these things in places where that probably won't be too problematic, but cleanup is still much easier. What I'm after is a corrosion-protected sheet steel mirror and primary support structure that can be tweaked onsite, if need be.

I do see the potential utility of using a plastic-reinforced concrete base to support the weight of the mirrors.

Researchers develop plastic construction beams based on LEGO bricks -- strong as concrete

2. If this plastic concrete composite ever cracks, how easy is it to recycle?

Can we grind it up into powder and put it back through the molding process to produce a new panel?

Will the plastic interact with any of the other common materials in the aggregate in a way that degrades the plastic over time?

3. In your estimation, does this kind of solution contribute or detract from ultimate durability?

I get that concrete is much cheaper than steel, but how much do we need per square meter of mirror to provide adequate strength and stiffness?

Calliban · 2022-05-21 16:44:11

The plastic is in the form of polypropylene fibres, about 10 micron in diameter and 10mm long. It is mixed in with the cement whilst wet. The fibres add a certain amount of tensile strength and reduce cracking. The main problem of interaction between cement and polymer is the weak bonding between the cement film and surface of the polymer. The fibre are extremely fine to increase their surface area to get sufficient bonding.

Concrete isn't easy to recycle. More likely we woukd upcycle it. It could be smashed into smaller pieces and used as hardcore for foundations. Or we could cut it into rectangles that are used for roof tiles or cemented into sheets to make walls.

It is possible that concrete is not the best solution. It may be too vulnerable to cracking and insufficiently durable. It is the sort of option that woukd need to be trialed before we known for sure. The reason I bring it up is that the amount of steel consumed in solar thermal powerplants built to date, is huge. The embodied energy is about 10% of the energy they produce in a 40 year lifetime. So that plant would need to run for 4 years, just to produce as much energy as was needed to make its steel. And it is only one of the energy inputs. So reducing the amount of material needed or using cheaper materials, would really help improve the viability of this option.

We could use a combination of materials. We could make frames out of wood or bamboo and use a much thinner sheet of aluminised steel that is bent onto the frame. Or maybe a steel casing with a concrete core to provide additional stiffness.

Last edited by Calliban (2022-05-21 17:00:16)

SpaceNut · 2022-05-21 17:07:34

Its the location, setup cost and regulations once must get by for a total systems design as many towns and cities have not explored the ways that we can produce fuels to power.
The town had 5 solar arrays in planning for the town but due to those wanting to get there taxation from these business that wanted to bring about such PV systems, regulations which would be needed to be part of the planning and then the final import taxes on foreign panels sadly to say we have none and most likely will never see any of them.

edit ex
Explosion rocks Coshocton ethanol plant

tahanson43206 · 2022-05-21 17:37:14

For SpaceNut re #120

This topic was created and is managed by kbd512

Your post #120 mentions PV systems.

If you look back in this topic, I ** think ** you'll find that kbd512 is attempting to provide leadership toward acceptance of Trough Solar collection systems as a better long-term bet than PV.

I bring this up here because I suspect the townsfolk you've described were given PV panels as their only choice.

It would be interesting to learn how the townsfolk would regard a Solar Trough energy collection system?

It seems to me reasonable for the town to collect taxes from energy produced inside the legal boundaries of the entity. The amount of those taxes needs to be established before hand at a reasonable level.

Your story/history of the behavior of the townsfolk reminds me of so many others I've heard, or read about.

I am not ** sure ** I have a good grasp of everything kbd512 has been trying to say, let alone what Calliban added to the several topics, but I ** think ** that local materials can be enlisted to make Trough Solar collection systems.

If that is the case, then it might be possible for individual propety owners to set up solar collection systems on their own premises.

The big advantage that I ** think ** the idea has, is durability, longevity, simplicity and maintainability. Unlike PV panels, which have a limited life time and cannot be maintained locally, well designed Trough Collectors ** should ** be capable of installation and maintenance by average (albeit handy) people. Not every American is capable of maintaining property, which is why there are such an abundance of service companies, but there are a significant number of Americans handy enough to be able to keep a Solar Trough system running for many years.

All that said, thanks for your contribution of the example of a failed proposal. It shows what ** not ** to do, and that is often as helpful as knowing ** what ** to do.

(th)

SpaceNut · 2022-05-21 17:51:51

The trough is a solar thermal fluid working system. which are typically oil filled to create a sustained heat for steam generation to turn a turbine.
Solar PV concentration uses the reflectivity to increase solar power output from the panels but temperature must be monitor as this degrades the panels.
Both can combine a trough to achieve the goal.

kbd512 · 2022-05-21 21:04:23

Rough sizing calculation to synthesize all 122 million gallons of diesel per day using the US Navy's own projected energy consumption for seawater and ZSM-5 catalyst based synthetic JP-5 kerosene or F-76 marine diesel fuel. The total power requirement, which was based upon real-world CO2 and H2 electrolyzer and heating technology from 10 years ago, is around 3TWh per day.

We're referencing this document here:

Naval Research Laboratory - The Feasibility and Current Estimated Capital Costs of Producing Jet Fuel at Sea Using Carbon Dioxide and Hydrogen

3TWh = 3,000,000,000,000Wh

1m^2 of desert land area receives about 6kWh / 6,000Wh over the 6 hours of productive solar insolation time per day.

1km^2 of land area therefore produces 6GWh/day or 6,000,000,000Wh/day.

We can thermalize about 90% of the incident solar radiation, so 90% of 6GWh is 5.4GWh/day, or 5,400,000,000Wh/day.

3,000,000,000,000Wh/day / 5,400,000,000Wh/km^2/day = 556km^2. That's the area covered by solar reflectors

Approximately double that land area is required to avoid casting shadows on other array elements, so 1,111km^2 of land area strictly devoted to producing 100% of the nation's total diesel fuel requirement.

If I have to cover 556km^2 / 556,000,000m^2 with 1mm sheet steel that weighs 7.84kg/m^2, then that equates to 4,359,040,000kg / 4,359,040t of steel. If I figure that the support structure weighs twice as much as the panel its supporting, then I need 13,077,120t of steel.

2020 global steel production was 1,860,000,000t, so 13 million metric tons of steel represents about 0.7% of the total global steel supply.

Cold rolled steel was about $210/t one year ago, but now it's up to $533/t, so the total steel investment is $6,970,104,960 USD.

$7B is not much for a wealthy country like America to spend on an endless supply of diesel fuel. We routinely drop a few trillion here and there for miscellaneous purposes. Our aircraft carriers each cost about $13B.

I was surprised by how little jet fuel we consume, only 45 million gallons per day, as that seems a bit low.

Gasoline seems to be the real problem, as we consume 369 million gallons per day.

Total annual steel consumption would never approach 0.25% of total global consumption if we did this project over 10 years. That seems quite reasonable to me, especially given the fact that the steel we're asking for is one of the most widely mass-produced products available. The total concrete consumption would barely register in terms of global scale.

The Zeolite and Copper-based catalyst consumption is something I'm presently researching. We need to know how much of each type of catalyst is required, the Copper to produce alcohols (Ethanol or Methanol) and the second to upgrade the alcohols to gasoline / diesel / kerosene.

We need to establish plants and sea water pipelines in West Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona.

kbd512 · 2022-05-21 21:21:07

tahanson43206,

Yes, I believe you understand correctly. A piece of corrosion-protected sheet steel is not subject to the degradation mechanisms that a highly sophisticated semiconductor device, such as a photovoltaic wafer is subjected to.

25 years from now, none of the photovoltaics presently in operation today will still be in operation. They will continually degrade each year they operate, and unless land area continually increases, you have to replace them or increase the total land area devoted to the power plant. This would be far less of a problem if basic math and geometry didn't apply, but they do apply, so it's a problem. Reality sucks, but there it is.

25 years from now a corrosion-protected steel plate will still be a fully functional mirror. The same applies to glass-based mirrors, but a borosilicate glass is much more expensive as a function of its embodied energy cost. Pyrex is good stuff, no doubt about that, but it's also expensive and shatters if dropped or struck. Sheet steel is not prone to shattering when dropped or accidentally struck. If money didn't matter, then we'd use Silver-coated or Gold-coated borosilicate glass. Humanity still lives in the Iron Age when it comes to civilization scale construction projects. Even the most ham-fisted construction worker knows how to work with steel and they're good at it.

SpaceNut · 2022-05-22 10:05:15

Its funny how thew largest oil reserves are located in the same place that has the best solar insolation times.

New Mars Forums

Announcement

#101 2022-05-18 19:06:33

Re: Prometheus Fuels Lower Cost Than Fossil Fuels

#102 2022-05-19 05:59:43

Re: Prometheus Fuels Lower Cost Than Fossil Fuels

#103 2022-05-19 06:51:30

Re: Prometheus Fuels Lower Cost Than Fossil Fuels

#104 2022-05-19 20:19:40

Re: Prometheus Fuels Lower Cost Than Fossil Fuels

#105 2022-05-20 05:42:19

Re: Prometheus Fuels Lower Cost Than Fossil Fuels

#106 2022-05-20 09:48:54

Re: Prometheus Fuels Lower Cost Than Fossil Fuels

#107 2022-05-20 10:55:52

Re: Prometheus Fuels Lower Cost Than Fossil Fuels

#108 2022-05-20 17:16:25

Re: Prometheus Fuels Lower Cost Than Fossil Fuels

#109 2022-05-20 21:32:28

Re: Prometheus Fuels Lower Cost Than Fossil Fuels

#110 2022-05-20 21:42:51

Re: Prometheus Fuels Lower Cost Than Fossil Fuels

#111 2022-05-20 21:52:58

Re: Prometheus Fuels Lower Cost Than Fossil Fuels

#112 2022-05-21 04:01:57

Re: Prometheus Fuels Lower Cost Than Fossil Fuels

#113 2022-05-21 05:07:56

Re: Prometheus Fuels Lower Cost Than Fossil Fuels

#114 2022-05-21 07:41:35

Re: Prometheus Fuels Lower Cost Than Fossil Fuels

#115 2022-05-21 08:07:14

Re: Prometheus Fuels Lower Cost Than Fossil Fuels

#116 2022-05-21 08:20:14

Re: Prometheus Fuels Lower Cost Than Fossil Fuels

#117 2022-05-21 08:48:08

Re: Prometheus Fuels Lower Cost Than Fossil Fuels

#118 2022-05-21 14:08:51

Re: Prometheus Fuels Lower Cost Than Fossil Fuels

#119 2022-05-21 16:44:11

Re: Prometheus Fuels Lower Cost Than Fossil Fuels

#120 2022-05-21 17:07:34

Re: Prometheus Fuels Lower Cost Than Fossil Fuels

#121 2022-05-21 17:37:14

Re: Prometheus Fuels Lower Cost Than Fossil Fuels

#122 2022-05-21 17:51:51

Re: Prometheus Fuels Lower Cost Than Fossil Fuels

#123 2022-05-21 21:04:23

Re: Prometheus Fuels Lower Cost Than Fossil Fuels

#124 2022-05-21 21:21:07

Re: Prometheus Fuels Lower Cost Than Fossil Fuels

#125 2022-05-22 10:05:15

Re: Prometheus Fuels Lower Cost Than Fossil Fuels

Board footer