4 ms·

If source of energy is low CO2, such as nuclear, then losses dont contribute to CO2 increase. As for taking CO2 from the ocean, it is done for this project as

If source of energy is low CO2, such as nuclear, then losses dont contribute to CO2 increase. As for taking CO2 from the ocean, it is done for this project as it is military for airplane carriers. CO2 can be had from atmosphere as well, with more energy cost.

vlovich123 6y ago
I see how you're thinking about it. In your experience does this chemical process transfer from seawater to atmosphere? I'd love to learn about the details of this process based on your expertise. I've only taken public high school chemistry & it's been a while so I consider myself here a total novice. From a logical perspective though, to me this has to be a net production of energy reaction though since otherwise it wouldn't be extending the operational time (an external power source would be needed & thus you may as well just use that power source to power your ship). My guess would have been that the seawater -> CO2 + Hydrogen conversion is the part that produces the energy needed for the rest of the process as I would think CO2 -> CO1 -> liquidcarbons requires energy somewhere or is at best roughly neutral with a mix of +/- steps. I could easily be wrong there though in that assumption (again, don't know these reactions). If that is actually a correct guess, I would have expect CO2 density differential between air & seawater to be a critical component. I then checked CO2 for density and water on Google [1]: 1.98 kg/m^3 in air, 997 kg/m^3 in water (didn't know these densities in advance of making my hypothesis). This is a wild guess on all fronts, but given the magnitudes involved & how much fuel it requires to power ships (i.e. how much CO2 you'd need to extract from seawater to turn it into liquidcarbons to power a ship), that disparity in density would seem crucial to being able to produce the fuel at all. Even without that, from a physical aspect, I would think the combination of density & how long the process takes could be the next limiting factors even if it did map. The 1000x disparity in density would mean that you could need 1000x the volume to produce the same amount of liquidcarbon fuel. Now of course there are differences between the use-cases that will alter the needs but I don't have an intuition if it would increase or decrease net, and if it were to decreae, would it be sufficient to make the disparity manageable. Would love your thoughts on this nuance.

vlovich123 6y ago

I see how you're thinking about it. In your experience does this chemical process transfer from seawater to atmosphere? I'd love to learn about the details of this process based on your expertise. I've only taken public high school chemistry & it's been a while so I consider myself here a total novice. From a logical perspective though, to me this has to be a net production of energy reaction though since otherwise it wouldn't be extending the operational time (an external power source would be needed & thus you may as well just use that power source to power your ship). My guess would have been that the seawater -> CO2 + Hydrogen conversion is the part that produces the energy needed for the rest of the process as I would think CO2 -> CO1 -> liquidcarbons requires energy somewhere or is at best roughly neutral with a mix of +/- steps. I could easily be wrong there though in that assumption (again, don't know these reactions). If that is actually a correct guess, I would have expect CO2 density differential between air & seawater to be a critical component. I then checked CO2 for density and water on Google [1]: 1.98 kg/m^3 in air, 997 kg/m^3 in water (didn't know these densities in advance of making my hypothesis). This is a wild guess on all fronts, but given the magnitudes involved & how much fuel it requires to power ships (i.e. how much CO2 you'd need to extract from seawater to turn it into liquidcarbons to power a ship), that disparity in density would seem crucial to being able to produce the fuel at all. Even without that, from a physical aspect, I would think the combination of density & how long the process takes could be the next limiting factors even if it did map. The 1000x disparity in density would mean that you could need 1000x the volume to produce the same amount of liquidcarbon fuel. Now of course there are differences between the use-cases that will alter the needs but I don't have an intuition if it would increase or decrease net, and if it were to decreae, would it be sufficient to make the disparity manageable. Would love your thoughts on this nuance.