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My angle was informed by the idea that this is only really applicable to gasoline fuel. Diesel and Jet fuel is not really changed by this. (Jet fuel because ele

My angle was informed by the idea that this is only really applicable to gasoline fuel. Diesel and Jet fuel is not really changed by this. (Jet fuel because electrolysis at this scale requires heavy batteries or power draw.) To that end, the actual amount of gasoline edge cases get really small. Almost all small engines (lawn care, etc) are EoL due to better battery options. Motorcycles are an interesting use case but this likely requires too much electrical power to make sense. Once you get past all of that, the actual edge cases are tiny and nowhere in this report does it actually cover the impacts on efficiency or the fact that it makes chlorine gas.

mlyle 3y ago
Obviously perchlorate, etc, isn't great. I don't know whether this invention will find any use. Applications of liquid fuels which are remote, in high fire-risk environments, don't lend themselves to other safety countermeasures during fueling, and don't lend themselves to electrification are tiny portions of the energy market, but still could be quite noticeable in absolute terms. But that's not why I answered you. I answered in the way I did because you responded to a question "why do you think combustion fuels are a dead-end?". Even if we take the absolute best path for climate and get lucky on some aspects of battery and electrification economics, we're still going to be burning significant quantities of fuels for the next 100 years. They will be markets in significant decline, but still huge.
- agloe_dreams 3y ago
  I did not make the first comment above that so I read it a little differently, but the point, in this context, stands. Gasoline combustion, in the context of the article, is a dead end.
  - mlyle 3y ago
    The fuel we're talking about isn't a really good gasoline alternative, anyways. Gasoline isn't mentioned in the article, except as an example of a very volatile, easily ignited fuel.
TylerE 3y ago
Diesel and thus jet fuel, which is mostly the same thing minus some variance in additives are both essentially kerosene + additives. Diesel is not very flammable. You can drop a kit match into a puddle of diesel and it’ll extinguish the match. The big difference is that unlike gasoline, diesel doesn’t really vaporize at standard conditions, and it’s the vapors that are so dangerous - the god old surface area effect, the same reason sawdust is much more dangerous than a solid hunk of wood.

mlyle 3y ago

Obviously perchlorate, etc, isn't great. I don't know whether this invention will find any use. Applications of liquid fuels which are remote, in high fire-risk environments, don't lend themselves to other safety countermeasures during fueling, and don't lend themselves to electrification are tiny portions of the energy market, but still could be quite noticeable in absolute terms. But that's not why I answered you. I answered in the way I did because you responded to a question "why do you think combustion fuels are a dead-end?". Even if we take the absolute best path for climate and get lucky on some aspects of battery and electrification economics, we're still going to be burning significant quantities of fuels for the next 100 years. They will be markets in significant decline, but still huge.

agloe_dreams 3y ago
I did not make the first comment above that so I read it a little differently, but the point, in this context, stands. Gasoline combustion, in the context of the article, is a dead end.
- mlyle 3y ago
  The fuel we're talking about isn't a really good gasoline alternative, anyways. Gasoline isn't mentioned in the article, except as an example of a very volatile, easily ignited fuel.

TylerE 3y ago

Diesel and thus jet fuel, which is mostly the same thing minus some variance in additives are both essentially kerosene + additives. Diesel is not very flammable. You can drop a kit match into a puddle of diesel and it’ll extinguish the match. The big difference is that unlike gasoline, diesel doesn’t really vaporize at standard conditions, and it’s the vapors that are so dangerous - the god old surface area effect, the same reason sawdust is much more dangerous than a solid hunk of wood.