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An area of research that I don't hear much about is creating hydrocarbon fuels for applications that really need them, like airplanes. Essentially, using hydroc

An area of research that I don't hear much about is creating hydrocarbon fuels for applications that really need them, like airplanes. Essentially, using hydrocarbons as a chemical battery instead of an out-of-the-ground energy source. As with any contributor to climate change, the issue is not burning the fuel, the issue is that the fuel is bringing new carbon out of the ground into today's carbon cycle. Hydrocarbons generated in real time from carbon currently in the environment, using carbon-free energy[1], would not contribute to global warming. The chemistry is complicated and presumably it would take a tremendous amount of energy to do so. I think I read that the Navy was exploring it for aircraft carriers--which have plenty of energy thanks to redundant nuclear power plants onboard, and obviously would benefit from being able to generate more jet fuel whenever they need it. [1] I know there is not really such a thing yet; nuclear, wind, even solar panels take fossil fuel to make today. But in theory man-made jet fuel would decouple the end use from the generation, allowing planes to keep flying the same way they always have, while cleaner fuel generation could incrementally supplant new oil in the supply chain.

outworlder 7y ago
> An area of research that I don't hear much about is creating hydrocarbon fuels for applications that really need them, like airplanes. Essentially, using hydrocarbons as a chemical battery instead of an out-of-the-ground energy source. Oh yes, I was going to comment on exactly that point. > The chemistry is complicated That depends on which type of fuel you are talking about. If you can use Methane (AKA Natural Gas), then you could use the Sabatier reaction (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabatier_reaction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabatier_reaction). You need CO2 (which is what we want to remove) and Hydrogen (which is the energy consuming part). Then you have to compress it (more energy). The advantage of adding CO2 to the mix(instead of just burning hydrogen) is that it becomes much easier to store and you have decent energy density. Of course, that's not Jet-A. If you really need that (turbines don't care too much, but logistics and storage will care), then you need to use something else. Eg. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer%E2%80%93Tropsch_process https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer%E2%80%93Tropsch_proces... As I understand it, that's what the Navy was struggling against. But forget about the energy costs, think about human labor costs. Because if you can reduce labor to zero and have these things be self-sufficient, then we really don't care about energy costs. Stick a bunch of these fuel facilities wherever they will fit, power them with whatever renewables are available, wait a bit, then come back to collect. I think the first large scale application will actually come from SpaceX. They need to figure out fuel manufacturing for a Mars return trip.
ac29 7y ago
Biofuels are certainly a thing - over 100 billion liters were produced last year [0]. For a while, it looked like there were credible avenues to using algae to produce jet fuel, and there were even test flights. Unfortunately, pumping fuel out of the ground is really, really cheap, and most of these companies went under or pivoted [1] (a gallon of algae-produced omega-3 oil or cooking oil is worth far more than a gallon of algae-produced Jet-A). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biofuel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biofuel [1] https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/lessons-from-the-great-algae-biofuel-bubble https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/lessons-from-th...

outworlder 7y ago

> An area of research that I don't hear much about is creating hydrocarbon fuels for applications that really need them, like airplanes. Essentially, using hydrocarbons as a chemical battery instead of an out-of-the-ground energy source. Oh yes, I was going to comment on exactly that point. > The chemistry is complicated That depends on which type of fuel you are talking about. If you can use Methane (AKA Natural Gas), then you could use the Sabatier reaction (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabatier_reaction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabatier_reaction). You need CO2 (which is what we want to remove) and Hydrogen (which is the energy consuming part). Then you have to compress it (more energy). The advantage of adding CO2 to the mix(instead of just burning hydrogen) is that it becomes much easier to store and you have decent energy density. Of course, that's not Jet-A. If you really need that (turbines don't care too much, but logistics and storage will care), then you need to use something else. Eg. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer%E2%80%93Tropsch_process https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer%E2%80%93Tropsch_proces... As I understand it, that's what the Navy was struggling against. But forget about the energy costs, think about human labor costs. Because if you can reduce labor to zero and have these things be self-sufficient, then we really don't care about energy costs. Stick a bunch of these fuel facilities wherever they will fit, power them with whatever renewables are available, wait a bit, then come back to collect. I think the first large scale application will actually come from SpaceX. They need to figure out fuel manufacturing for a Mars return trip.

ac29 7y ago

Biofuels are certainly a thing - over 100 billion liters were produced last year [0]. For a while, it looked like there were credible avenues to using algae to produce jet fuel, and there were even test flights. Unfortunately, pumping fuel out of the ground is really, really cheap, and most of these companies went under or pivoted [1] (a gallon of algae-produced omega-3 oil or cooking oil is worth far more than a gallon of algae-produced Jet-A). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biofuel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biofuel [1] https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/lessons-from-the-great-algae-biofuel-bubble https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/lessons-from-th...