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British engineers produce amazing 'petrol from air' technology


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2012 Oct 18, 11:45am   2,909 views  9 comments

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/fuel/9619269/British-engineers-produce-amazing-petrol-from-air-technology.html

A small company in the north of England has developed the “air capture” technology to create synthetic petrol using only air and electricity. Experts tonight hailed the astonishing breakthrough as a potential “game-changer” in the battle against climate change and a saviour for the world’s energy crisis. The technology, presented to a London engineering conference this week, removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The “petrol from air” technology involves taking sodium hydroxide and mixing it with carbon dioxide before "electrolysing" the sodium carbonate that it produces to form pure carbon dioxide. Hydrogen is then produced by electrolysing water vapour captured...

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1   curious2   2012 Oct 18, 11:59am  

"The process is still in the early stages of development, and far too inefficient yet to compete with conventional fossil fuels. There are efficiency problems at each stage, from capturing the carbon dioxide from air to combining it catalytically with hydrogen derived from water vapour to make Syngas, methanol and more complex hydrocarbons."

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/a-technology-that-goes-one-better-than-carbon-capture-could-be-crucial-in-fighting-climate-change-8217148.html

2   MershedPerturders   2012 Oct 18, 12:02pm  

credible scienticians have long proven that burning massive amounts of oil is the only way to do anything.

3   zzyzzx   2012 Oct 19, 5:43am  

Wouldn't it be easier just to use electrolysis to create to use on Hydrogen powered cars?

4   Ceffer   2012 Oct 19, 5:55am  

Great, now just go burn up all our air.

5   leo707   2012 Oct 24, 7:44am  

Barlowe says

The process uses electricity. But none of the articles I've found regarding this says how much is needed.

Yes, and I suspect that this is probably one of the most inefficient methods of energy production known to man.

6   freak80   2012 Nov 5, 11:48pm  

There's no such thing as free energy. If it takes 100W of electricity to create petrol with 50W of stored chemical energy, I say it isn't worth it.

7   Patrick   2012 Nov 6, 12:02am  

Sure, it may be inefficient right now to create gas from air using other sources, but as stated, gas has just about the highest energy density you can get, so gas is a great way to store and transport energy, not to mention all the infrastructure that already uses it.

So it's probably an important technology for that reason. The big question is how efficient it can theoretically be.

8   taxee   2012 Nov 6, 12:18am  

Raising your own food is dam inefficient too, until the stores are empty.

9   MisdemeanorRebel   2012 Nov 7, 5:57am  

This whole CO2 shit is crazy. Doesn't fermentation create CO2 as a byproduct? Don't I have CO2 reactor bubbling into my aquarium right now for my plants?

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