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This topic is offered in association with a new topic created by Calliban, to collect information about "peak oil", as well as comments members may provide.
We already have a topic dedicated to artificial manufacture of methanol, which is a precursor substance capable of feeding into a diesel manufacturing process.
The goal of this topic is to find (and publish) all the technologies needed to wean the human race off it's unhealthy dependence on fossil fuel, while continuing to provide all the benefits of energy dense hydrocarbons.
The human race lived off the incoming energy from the Sun for hundreds of thousands of years, before a bright individual discovered the stores of concentrated energy Nature had laid up for us. For the past few hundred years, we humans have exploited the dense hydrocarbons and concentrated carbon deposits, without much thought given to the fact we (humans) were consuming the yolk of the egg Nature had provided, without replacing it.
Now we have members of this forum (figuratively) wringing their hands in anguish because we can see the end of the yolk supply, and we haven't done what it will take to replace that dense energy with something suitable.
This topic is available for NewMars members who would like to calmly lay out how to make all the diesel, gasoline, kerosene and similar products using nuclear energy to pull carbon out of the atmosphere and hydrogen out of the ocean.
We don't need any more hand wringing, breast beating or lamentations.
it is time for calm, rational, numbers-based presentation of the systems required, and the human understandable arguments to persuade populations to support the needed investments.
(th)
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This post is reserved for an index to particularly noteworthy contributions to this topic.
When an outside reader (or a NewMars member for that matter) opens this topic, I want to see a flow that lays out the problem to be solved, solves the problem, and reviews how the problem was solved.
In a nutshell, we will use nuclear power to pull carbon out of the atmosphere, hydrogen out of the ocean, and make all the diesel, gasoline, kerosene and similar products that humans need to sustain the existing civilization.
(th)
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This might be the easiest diesel substitute fuel if we have to synthesise fuel from CO2.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimethyl_ether
It is liquid under about 5bar pressure and has some 60% of the energy density of diesel. This makes it comparable to propane in properties and energy density. But easier to synthesise. Any methanol production plant will also produce DME.
Last edited by Calliban (2024-03-25 13:42:51)
"Plan and prepare for every possibility, and you will never act. It is nobler to have courage as we stumble into half the things we fear than to analyse every possible obstacle and begin nothing. Great things are achieved by embracing great dangers."
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For Calliban re #3
Thanks for picking up this topic. We have an entire topic dedicated to a book you recommended for production of methanol and DME.
I would like to see if the folks active in the forum can put together a reasonable looking plan to replace fossil fuels in a controlled manner, over a reasonable period of time.
From my perspective, this is a larger than average corporate conversion project. A large corporation in the US (and probably elsewhere) often has to implement major changes in how it does business, due to market forces or regulatory pressures.
The US, Great Britain and many other nations are set up as corporations, albeit large ones.
A well thought out plan for change management will sustain everyone involved while implementing the needed changes.
In this case, we want to keep all the fossil fuel suppliers, and all the folks who contribute to the production of fossil fuels to be kept whole during the conversion process. That is NOT how some capitalist organizations operate, but it IS how some operate, and I have seen it in action, so I know it is possible.
(th)
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In another topic (on Canadian politics) RobertDyck reminded us of how poorly the average human being is able to deal with massive global scale changes. In that post, RobertDyck drew to our attention that some folks in Canada (and I'm sure other nations as well) object to paying anything at all extra, to head off disaster for some future generation that will come long after the present generation is dead.
In many posts in this forum, members have described how much cheaper it is to pull hydrocarbons from the ground (and coal) rather than go to the trouble of learning how to make useful fuels with nuclear power.
The clear implication is that as long as fossil fuels are less expensive than artificially manufactured ones, no one is going to support (or pay for) artificially produced fuels.
The capitalist system has an answer. Artificially produced fuels must be produced at a competitive price.
This forum has members who are interested in the problem of making artificial fuels using a variety of power sources, but so far I have seen no one with a plan to use any energy source to make artificial fuels that is competitively priced.
What we ** do ** see are a few efforts to make artificially produced fuels at prices that are high compared to fossil, for select customers who are willing to pay more for fuel that does not contributed to the addition of carbon to the atmosphere.
From the observations published by RobertDyck, it appears there may not be enough people willing to pay more today to benefit future generations.
The obvious solution is to learn how to make artificial fuels at a price that is less than ground-sourced fuels.
(th)
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The prices this topic is set up to beat are for refined products ready for sale to the consumer/customer.
I'd like to remind everyone that ** every molecule ** in the products we buy at the pump, or delivered to our homes by pipeline, are totally free as provided some time ago by the Universe. Stars have obliterated themselves to make the atoms we use today.
The price we pay at the pump is 100% little allocations to the countless human beings who have contributed to the products we buy.
When we complain that a product is "too expensive" we are complaining that the little bits that countless humans are asking in return for the product is more than the customer is willing to pay.
A typical behavior by a human is to look for a supplier who is willing to provide the same product at the same quality and in the same quantity, for a lower price.
A normal response by a provider is to attempt to cut the costs of human participation in the manufacturing and delivery process.
In the case of artificial manufacture of fuels to compete with ground-extracted supply, the entire enterprise has to be designed to produce a net profit while delivering high quality product in massive quantity to a global customer base.
(th)
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