The end of fracking and energy storage all in one...

[Bomb#20]

"Synthetic Liquid Hydrocarbons" would be a better name.

Hmm, yes. "Synthetic Fossil Fuels". That would be when you heat your house by burning Piltdown Man.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Petulant much? You misunderstood what someone originally said and now for some unknown reason, you won't let it go.

Sorry Jimmy, the comment was indeed stupid as hell. Not sure why you felt such a great need to defend such stupidity. It looks like we have hit the point where you have stopped attempting actual defenses and you have decided to go after me personally. Thanks for your contribution.

LOL

 

[Derec]

Sunfire expects that the market price for their e-diesel could be between 1 and 1.5 euros ($1.1 – $1.6) per liter, which would be slightly more expensive than current diesel prices in Europe. However, the actual figure will be largely dependent on the price of electricity.

The article and the video are short on details. A couple of remarks here
- they talk about diesel fuel. While diesel is very popular for passenger cars in Europe it's very rare in the US. How flexible is their process to produce e-gasoline?
- The article is conflating cost to produce e-diesel with retail price with regular diesel. It doesn't include wholesale and retail margins. Since the e-fuel is CO₂-neutral, I assume it would be fuel tax free, but its competitiveness solely depends on high taxes on fossil fuels.

Also, electric car technologies are gaining ground and that will be direct competition to any synthetic fuels for ICEs in the coming decades.

 

[Derec]

One comment said that windy locations, such as Newfoundland, could end up becoming the new petro states.

There's a pretty topsy-turvy, eh?

That doesn't make any sense. The reason petrostates exists as a concept is widely unequal distribution of easily accessible, high quality crude oil. But this process needs electricity and that can be produced from various sources from all over the world. Actually being dependent on a relatively small number of suppliers is a very bad idea geopolitically, as the oil shocks of the 1970s showed very clearly. Actually there has been a project proposed to use deserts of North Africa and Middle East to harness solar power to make hydrogen, but one reason why I think that project is not very desirable even if it could work is that it would put Europe's energy at the mercy of those countries even more so that it is right now with oil.
Desertec

 

[Derec]

But that means nuke plants!

In fact since the process likely requires high temperatures nuclear power plants, with their waste heat, would be well positioned. It would increase efficiency vs. plants where electricity would be used not only for electrolysis but to heat the reaction vessel as well.

An application I think would be worth looking into would be for aircraft carriers to use their nuclear reactors to make jet fuel on demand instead of having to haul large quantities of it for the duration of the mission.

 

[dismal]

Sunfire expects that the market price for their e-diesel could be between 1 and 1.5 euros ($1.1 – $1.6) per liter, which would be slightly more expensive than current diesel prices in Europe. However, the actual figure will be largely dependent on the price of electricity.

The article and the video are short on details. A couple of remarks here
- they talk about diesel fuel. While diesel is very popular for passenger cars in Europe it's very rare in the US. How flexible is their process to produce e-gasoline?
- The article is conflating cost to produce e-diesel with retail price with regular diesel. It doesn't include wholesale and retail margins. Since the e-fuel is CO₂-neutral, I assume it would be fuel tax free, but its competitiveness solely depends on high taxes on fossil fuels.

Also, electric car technologies are gaining ground and that will be direct competition to any synthetic fuels for ICEs in the coming decades.

We have diesel engines (trucks, rail, ships, and some passenger cars) in the USA and of course could have more.

This is not the issue. Fischer-Tropsch technology to make diesel like fuels out of methane has been around for decades. The Nazis used it when they could not get oil. The South Africans used it during apartheid when they could not get oil.

First problem: We don't use it because the economics of it suck pretty bad, though when we had cheap gas and $100 oil it probably would have made some sense if you could have locked in the spread. But you couldn't.
Second problem: Problem with Fischer Tropsch sucking even with cheap gas is compounded by making your gas expensive. Syn gas created from hydrogen and CO2 will be far more expensive than methane from drilling gas wells. If it weren't we could stop drilling the gas wells.
Third problem: When we want hydrogen in large quantities for industrial use, where do we get it? Sure as the heck not from electrolysis of water. This is an egregiously energy intensive process. We get hydrogen from steam reforming of methane. Obviously it would be a bit silly to get hydrogen by steam reforming of methane so we could convert the hydrogen back to methane.
Fourth problem: When we want CO2 in large quantities for industrial uses where to we get it? Sure as the heck not capturing it from the air. The CO2 concentration in the air is ~350 parts per million. Capturing enough of it from the air to meet our energy needs is an absurdity. And besides, if we could do it cost effectively we could solve global warming just by doing that and containing the CO2. One of the ways we get CO2 in industrial quantities is drilling for it. Or getting it from the emissions of a power plant.

This is a great example of energy utopianism. They've hit a few hot buttons sure to resonate with utopians like "we'll get fuel from water!" and "we'll purify the air of CO2!" but it really bears no relationship to practical reality.

Even if you were going to spend all that energy and capital to get cleaner vehicles there would be more practical ways to do it.

 

[Derec]

Assuming that you're not joking, the premise is that windy states can produce more electricity. Areas with greater renewable potential can produce more fuel.

Right now windy states cannot even meet most of their own electricity demand with wind power (40% for Denmark for example, and they have a very high coastline/area ratio) , much less have any surplus to produce e-diesel.

 

[bilby]

The article and the video are short on details. A couple of remarks here
- they talk about diesel fuel. While diesel is very popular for passenger cars in Europe it's very rare in the US. How flexible is their process to produce e-gasoline?
- The article is conflating cost to produce e-diesel with retail price with regular diesel. It doesn't include wholesale and retail margins. Since the e-fuel is CO₂-neutral, I assume it would be fuel tax free, but its competitiveness solely depends on high taxes on fossil fuels.

Also, electric car technologies are gaining ground and that will be direct competition to any synthetic fuels for ICEs in the coming decades.

We have diesel engines (trucks, rail, ships, and some passenger cars) in the USA and of course could have more.

This is not the issue. Fischer-Tropsch technology to make diesel like fuels out of methane has been around for decades. The Nazis used it when they could not get oil. The South Africans used it during apartheid when they could not get oil.

First problem: We don't use it because the economics of it suck pretty bad, though when we had cheap gas and $100 oil it probably would have made some sense if you could have locked in the spread. But you couldn't.
Second problem: Problem with Fischer Tropsch sucking even with cheap gas is compounded by making your gas expensive. Syn gas created from hydrogen and CO2 will be far more expensive than methane from drilling gas wells. If it weren't we could stop drilling the gas wells.
Third problem: When we want hydrogen in large quantities for industrial use, where do we get it? Sure as the heck not from electrolysis of water. This is an egregiously energy intensive process. We get hydrogen from steam reforming of methane. Obviously it would be a bit silly to get hydrogen by steam reforming of methane so we could convert the hydrogen back to methane.
Fourth problem: When we want CO2 in large quantities for industrial uses where to we get it? Sure as the heck not capturing it from the air. The CO2 concentration in the air is ~350 parts per million. Capturing enough of it from the air to meet our energy needs is an absurdity. And besides, if we could do it cost effectively we could solve global warming just by doing that and containing the CO2. One of the ways we get CO2 in industrial quantities is drilling for it. Or getting it from the emissions of a power plant.

This is a great example of energy utopianism. They've hit a few hot buttons sure to resonate with utopians like "we'll get fuel from water!" and "we'll purify the air of CO2!" but it really bears no relationship to practical reality.

Even if you were going to spend all that energy and capital to get cleaner vehicles there would be more practical ways to do it.

^This.

The only really practical way to get CO₂ out of air is to get plants to do it for us. Grow trees, then burn the wood to get CO₂.

Of course, if you are going to grow plants, you are probably better off growing something oily, and extracting the oil. Sunflowers, Canola (Rape) or peanuts are perfectly good sources of Diesel fuel - in fact, most Diesel engines run better on peanut oil than on mineral oil.

I seriously doubt that the sunfire process can be made cheap enough to turn atmospheric CO₂ to Diesel for less than the cost of growing and processing vegetable oils. But that isn't its purpose. If it is used to soak up the free electricity that would otherwise be wasted, then it increases the efficiency of the renewables by turning some of the waste into a valuable byproduct.

It's not about making fuel, it's about finding a use for free power that is currently just discarded.

 

[dismal]

We have diesel engines (trucks, rail, ships, and some passenger cars) in the USA and of course could have more.

This is not the issue. Fischer-Tropsch technology to make diesel like fuels out of methane has been around for decades. The Nazis used it when they could not get oil. The South Africans used it during apartheid when they could not get oil.

First problem: We don't use it because the economics of it suck pretty bad, though when we had cheap gas and $100 oil it probably would have made some sense if you could have locked in the spread. But you couldn't.
Second problem: Problem with Fischer Tropsch sucking even with cheap gas is compounded by making your gas expensive. Syn gas created from hydrogen and CO2 will be far more expensive than methane from drilling gas wells. If it weren't we could stop drilling the gas wells.
Third problem: When we want hydrogen in large quantities for industrial use, where do we get it? Sure as the heck not from electrolysis of water. This is an egregiously energy intensive process. We get hydrogen from steam reforming of methane. Obviously it would be a bit silly to get hydrogen by steam reforming of methane so we could convert the hydrogen back to methane.
Fourth problem: When we want CO2 in large quantities for industrial uses where to we get it? Sure as the heck not capturing it from the air. The CO2 concentration in the air is ~350 parts per million. Capturing enough of it from the air to meet our energy needs is an absurdity. And besides, if we could do it cost effectively we could solve global warming just by doing that and containing the CO2. One of the ways we get CO2 in industrial quantities is drilling for it. Or getting it from the emissions of a power plant.

This is a great example of energy utopianism. They've hit a few hot buttons sure to resonate with utopians like "we'll get fuel from water!" and "we'll purify the air of CO2!" but it really bears no relationship to practical reality.

Even if you were going to spend all that energy and capital to get cleaner vehicles there would be more practical ways to do it.

^This.

The only really practical way to get CO₂ out of air is to get plants to do it for us. Grow trees, then burn the wood to get CO₂.

Of course, if you are going to grow plants, you are probably better off growing something oily, and extracting the oil. Sunflowers, Canola (Rape) or peanuts are perfectly good sources of Diesel fuel - in fact, most Diesel engines run better on peanut oil than on mineral oil.

I seriously doubt that the sunfire process can be made cheap enough to turn atmospheric CO₂ to Diesel for less than the cost of growing and processing vegetable oils. But that isn't its purpose. If it is used to soak up the free electricity that would otherwise be wasted, then it increases the efficiency of the renewables by turning some of the waste into a valuable byproduct.

It's not about making fuel, it's about finding a use for free power that is currently just discarded.

If we had a big problem with having lots of electricity that was going to waste we could use it to charge up Chevy Volts and drive those around without all that other jazz.

But we don't have this problem.

 

[arkirk]

The explanation of the process is too scanty to accurately assess the possibilities of this system. The fact is that there are perhaps a hundred or more such projects occurring in the world. People are looking for methods of energy storage. Some will prove out. Some won't. This is touted as a three step process and there are a lot of unanswered questions like...what source for CO2? Also what is the ratio of energy consumed versus energy stored. It is obvious this process requires the breaking of Oxygen-Carbon bonds...energy intensive...and Hydrogen reduction of CO.

There is no such thing as "free power." The process is intriguing.

 

[bilby]

^This.

The only really practical way to get CO₂ out of air is to get plants to do it for us. Grow trees, then burn the wood to get CO₂.

Of course, if you are going to grow plants, you are probably better off growing something oily, and extracting the oil. Sunflowers, Canola (Rape) or peanuts are perfectly good sources of Diesel fuel - in fact, most Diesel engines run better on peanut oil than on mineral oil.

I seriously doubt that the sunfire process can be made cheap enough to turn atmospheric CO₂ to Diesel for less than the cost of growing and processing vegetable oils. But that isn't its purpose. If it is used to soak up the free electricity that would otherwise be wasted, then it increases the efficiency of the renewables by turning some of the waste into a valuable byproduct.

It's not about making fuel, it's about finding a use for free power that is currently just discarded.

If we had a big problem with having lots of electricity that was going to waste we could use it to charge up Chevy Volts and drive those around without all that other jazz.

But we don't have this problem.

You could, if you had lots of Chevy Volts, (or at least the batteries for them), but you don't.

In Germany, they clearly do have a big problem with having lots of electricity that was going to waste, because they frequently have a negative wholesale price for electricity. That is a problem (or an opportunity, depending on your attitude).

The opportunity to exploit free (or even cheaper) power to make Diesel exists. It would be a good idea to exploit it - although if it can be more profitably exploited in some other way, they should do that instead, of course.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Sunfire expects that the market price for their e-diesel could be between 1 and 1.5 euros ($1.1 – $1.6) per liter, which would be slightly more expensive than current diesel prices in Europe. However, the actual figure will be largely dependent on the price of electricity.

The article and the video are short on details. A couple of remarks here
- they talk about diesel fuel. While diesel is very popular for passenger cars in Europe it's very rare in the US. How flexible is their process to produce e-gasoline?
- The article is conflating cost to produce e-diesel with retail price with regular diesel. It doesn't include wholesale and retail margins. Since the e-fuel is CO₂-neutral, I assume it would be fuel tax free, but its competitiveness solely depends on high taxes on fossil fuels.

Also, electric car technologies are gaining ground and that will be direct competition to any synthetic fuels for ICEs in the coming decades.

I disagree about the electric cars. Without better battery technology they can't compete.

- - - Updated - - -

But that means nuke plants!

In fact since the process likely requires high temperatures nuclear power plants, with their waste heat, would be well positioned. It would increase efficiency vs. plants where electricity would be used not only for electrolysis but to heat the reaction vessel as well.

An application I think would be worth looking into would be for aircraft carriers to use their nuclear reactors to make jet fuel on demand instead of having to haul large quantities of it for the duration of the mission.

You failed to quote the second line of my message that made it clear that I was talking about the anti-nuke hysteria being the issue.

- - - Updated - - -

The only really practical way to get CO₂ out of air is to get plants to do it for us. Grow trees, then burn the wood to get CO₂.

Of course, if you are going to grow plants, you are probably better off growing something oily, and extracting the oil. Sunflowers, Canola (Rape) or peanuts are perfectly good sources of Diesel fuel - in fact, most Diesel engines run better on peanut oil than on mineral oil.

I seriously doubt that the sunfire process can be made cheap enough to turn atmospheric CO₂ to Diesel for less than the cost of growing and processing vegetable oils. But that isn't its purpose. If it is used to soak up the free electricity that would otherwise be wasted, then it increases the efficiency of the renewables by turning some of the waste into a valuable byproduct.

It's not about making fuel, it's about finding a use for free power that is currently just discarded.

All such bio-fuel schemes require several decades before they reach carbon neutrality. The problem is clearing the land to plant crops on releases a huge amount of carbon.

 

[dismal]

If we had a big problem with having lots of electricity that was going to waste we could use it to charge up Chevy Volts and drive those around without all that other jazz.

But we don't have this problem.

You could, if you had lots of Chevy Volts, (or at least the batteries for them), but you don't.

You don't have lots of Fischer-Tropsch machines, machines that separate hydrogen from water, or machines that separate CO2 from air either.

My understanding is we could build more Chevy Volts and I imagine it would be a far more cost effective way to use "excess" power.

In Germany, they clearly do have a big problem with having lots of electricity that was going to waste, because they frequently have a negative wholesale price for electricity. That is a problem (or an opportunity, depending on your attitude).

I don't know much about how the German wholesale pool works but Texas also has negative wholesale electricity prices from time to time. This is not necessarily an indication there is "excess power". (Technically there is never excess power as the power grid must be balanced real time - I presume your actual argument would be that there wind power that could have been produced but wasn't due to lack of load.)

In the Texas pool a negative wholesale price can occur when the wind blows unexpectedly at night. A big surge of power when there is no load. There are several contributing factors to a negative price:

1) Wind is "must run" in the pool. Other power sources of power must be backed down to take the wind power if the wind producer nominates. The way you back out other sources is for the price to fall.
2) Wind gets a healthy production tax credit. Hence wind producers will nominate at a price less than zero.
3) Many other generators have bilateral agreements or hedges that insulate them from the wholesale price. If I have a contract that gets me $35 mwh for my power I do not respond to the wholesale price at all. I am also happy to nominate and run at a negative price.
4) Many types of generation do not respond to prices instantly. If I have a nuke plant or a coal plant my cycle up and down time is far longer than a gas turbine. If I want to run during the peak daytime hours I must run at night or periods when the wind is blowing and take whatever the power price is.

Anyway, the overall point is that Texas sometimes has negative power prices though the wind never comes near supplying all the power that is needed, even in those night time hours when the wind is blowing and overall only amounts to ~8% of the power generated. There is about 12 gigs of nameplate wind capacity in TX and the demand never falls below ~20 gigs. A little googling suggests there may be days when wind approaches 30% of the demand.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Wind-Power-Hits-Record-Output-in-Texas-US-435153.shtml

 

[Rhea]

You asked a question, I answered it.

If wind was going to make windy places Saudi Arabia due to wind generated electricity it does not require this.

We already have many uses of electricity. It has not made windy places into Saudi Arabia.

This changes the game by making the electricity portable. You make it the fuel (really a "battery" of sorts, isn't it) then you put it on "storage" while you ship it wherever you want, then you activate it and use it. One draw back of wind energy is getting the electricity to the user. This addresses that problem.

 

[dismal]

If wind was going to make windy places Saudi Arabia due to wind generated electricity it does not require this.

We already have many uses of electricity. It has not made windy places into Saudi Arabia.

This changes the game by making the electricity portable. You make it the fuel (really a "battery" of sorts, isn't it) then you put it on "storage" while you ship it wherever you want, then you activate it and use it. One draw back of wind energy is getting the electricity to the user. This addresses that problem.

It doesn't "change the game" as we already have ways to get electricity to users. The question is whether this is a better way. I highly doubt it for reasons already explained at length.

 

[Derec]

I disagree about the electric cars. Without better battery technology they can't compete.

With current battery technology electric cars cannot replace all uses of cars, that's true, but they do not have to. Even with current technology electric cars have sufficient range to meet most people's daily use comfortably. And most families have two cars - having an electric as a second car even removes the need to rent a car for longer trips. If I didn't live in an apartment where overnight charging is iffy I'd seriously be looking to buy one as my next car.
Electric vehicles have significant advantages over ICE vehicles. Electric motors have significant advantages over the internal combustion ones, such as much better torque response and a lot fewer moving parts or complicated emission control equipment. The ability to generate power over a wide range of RPMs means that EVs can get away with a simple fixed gear transmission - it does not even need a reverse gear!

Yes, batteries are still rather expensive. But when you compare it to all the car parts (catalytic converter, various pumps, gazillion sensors, etc.) that are not needed - and that won't need replacing - EVs look like a good bet to me. And yes batteries take a long time to recharge currently. But if you use your car primarily for commuting and can recharge it at home (or work) that is not much of an issue.

You failed to quote the second line of my message that made it clear that I was talking about the anti-nuke hysteria being the issue.

I don't disagree with you that anti-nuke hysteria is a big issue. I was merely offering some ideas of using nuclear power for this process.