6 ms·

Scale Model WWII Craft Takes Flight With Fuel From the Sea Concept

44 points by omegaworks 12y ago

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
jkaunisv1 12y ago
I guess the output of the fuel after use is still greenhouse gas, but would this reduce net CO2 emissions?
- JoeAltmaier 12y ago
  It doesn't seem it would. The CO2 is from seawater; burning releases it into the air. Since seawater has many times the density of CO2 as air, it would definitely be a net greenhouse gas process. However comparing making liquid fuel this way, with drilling refining and shipping gasoline, it may be a great improvement!
  - xxgreg 12y ago
    The surface ocean and atmosphere exchange CO2 freely. So as long as the electricity input is carbon neutral, the process is carbon neutral. i.e. it doesn't matter if you take CO2 out of the surface ocean or the atmosphere. Both will reduce the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_cycle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_cycle
- wwkeyboard 12y ago
  A major source of the oceanic CO2 is the atmosphere http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification. It's not perfect but could be much better than burning dinosaurs.
- xxgreg 12y ago
  The carbon in the fuel comes from CO2 which is captured out of sea water. The problem with fossil fuels is that they transfer old carbon which used to be stored underground into the atmosphere. This process only uses carbon that is already part of the active carbon cycle, so it is carbon neutral as long as the electricity source is.
  - jkaunisv1 12y ago
    Yeah, that's what I was thinking. It's not eliminating carbon in the atmosphere, but it's avoiding adding more from fossils.
TrainedMonkey 12y ago
At best this technology would allow capital ships with nuclear reactors (mostly carriers) to produce hydrocarbon fuel in order to resupply nearby craft. In theory this would help to optimize naval supply chain.
- JoeAltmaier 12y ago
  e.g. nuclear carrier fueling jets
- bpodgursky 12y ago
  I think that's simplistic. It lets any energy source with access to seawater store energy in a very energy-dense medium, eg gasoline. Oceanic wind-turbines, solar panels, nuclear generators on the ocean, etc. Certainly more useful short-term for the navy, but could definitely be extended to civilian uses.
  - jdhawk 12y ago
    I guess the real question is efficiency.
  - aaron695 12y ago
    Yes, but given the huge demand for energy everywhere there is absolutely no point wasting so much energy converting it except in locations where/when transporting a energy-dense medium to is difficult but highly valuable. IE The middle of the ocean during a war.
    - dredmorbius 12y ago
      The cost for this energy is $3-$6/gallon according to the US Navy's estimate. I get about $9/gallon if you include the costs of solar power provisioning. Or $126 - $378/bbl. That's not cheap, but it's a damned sight better than pretty much any biofuel alternative, which runs about $1000/bbl. And fuel is essential for transportation. Some transport can be liberated -- you can run passenger cars on batteries (for a price). Within cities, buses and even delivery vehicles can be electrified (possibly with on-board batteries for short off-grid excursions). Rail absolutely can be electrified. But a lot of uses cannot be. It's difficult to run power cords across oceans (though you might be able to electrify some barge and river traffic). Especially if you want to tap into them at sea. An electrified marine cargo business isn't an option. Your primary alternatives are sail power, biofuel (including possibly pelletized wood ships, an existing proposal), or electrically-generated synfuels as here. Airplanes handle electric cords even worse than boats do. There are numerous airline industry initiatives looking at biofuels, but Boeing's "biggest breakthrough there is" bet really doesn't pan out. Unless you want to cover _all_ of Oklahoma and Kansas, as well as parts of Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Nebraska, and Missouri, just to supply fuel to the aviation industry. Worldwide, shipping and aviation account for about 5% each of total petroleum consumption. Or you could create the fuel. Yes, shipping prices, airfares, and air cargo rates would increase. But you'd still have them.
magd 12y ago
It can't get worse.
dredmorbius 12y ago
I've been looking into the research on this process for a few months. In a world with a lot of bleak news on energy fronts, it offers some promise -- not of "free energy" (it isn't), but of a sustainable, abundant, predictable, carbon-neutral liquid fuel provisioning option. First: liquid hydrocarbon fuels are hugely useful for a number of characteristics. They're very energy dense, by both weight and volume. They've over ten times the energy storage density of batteries, and while they have lower energy density by unit weight than hydrogen, have over seven times the density by volume with vastly fewer handling constraints. They're easily handled (no high pressures, low temperatures, corrosion, embrittlement, or other issues). They're generally really safe -- many liquid hydrocarbons won't explode unless specifically induced to do so. They're a drop-in replacement for existing fossil fuels. They could be blended with these, and can utilize the same processing, transport, and utilization infrastructure. Engines would not have to be modified. At the same time, for those who see efficiencies in electric drives, they're amenable to hybrid-drive technologies. And we've got well over a century of expertise in utilizing them. For transportation, liquid hydrocarbons are very hard to beat, and for certain modes, all but essential, especially heavy land cargo, marine shipping, and air travel. The research that the US Naval Research Lab is conducting is based on over 50 years of work on the concept, with the first studies undertaken by nuclear physicist Meyer Steinberg at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in 1964. Steinberg continued his research through the 1990s, with further work at M.I.T. under Michael J. Driscoll and more recently as USNRL (who peculiarly fail to cite the earlier research -- it's rather like an evolutionary biologist failing to credit Darwin). Steinberg's work generally considered nuclear power as the electricity source, though any generating option could be substituted. More recent research considers nuclear, solar, and OTEC, an ocean thermal power system. The basic concept was suggested by M. King Hubbert, the petroleum geologist who predicted peak oil in the 1950s, in a 1962 report (though he suggested mining carbon from limestone). In terms of process, there are two very-well understood processes operating at industrial scale presently, hydrogen electrolysis and Fischer Tropsch synthesis. The third stage is where most research is focused: on finding means to sequester carbon from seawater. A small fraction is present as dissolved CO2, but most (about 96%) is in the form of dissolved carbonate and bicarbonate. Since carbon is being drawn from the biosphere (seawater), it's overall carbon neutral, though it might tend to bias balance slightly toward the atmosphere as compared to the oceans. If run in excess of human energy needs (a very expensive proposition), it could sequester additional carbon from the atmosphere. The primary energy cost is in the electrolysis, which returns hydrogen with about 60% of the energy capacity as the input electricity -- so your conversion costs you energy. Fischer Tropsch processing is exothermic (more energy is released than consumed). Energy usage of the CO2 separation phase is comparatively low, much of it is in the water handling -- you've got to move a lot of seawater to get the carbon necessary. I suspect overall efficiency will be roughly 50%. Though the Navy research is looking at this for their own purposes, it could just as well be used for civilian purposes. The 100,000 gallon/day capacity seen for a carrier task force would be roughly appropriate for a city of 100,000. My own cost estimates, including solar power provisioning, are higher than the Navy's, about $9/gallon. But that would be a stable price going forward -- with a renewable liquid fuels source, there are no oil embargoes, supply shocks, or imports. At a national scale for the United States, supplying 20 million barrels/day, you'd require 2TW of power -- a solar collection region about 180 miles on a side. That's quite large, but as compared with biofuel-based alternatives, downright reasonable -- most plant-based fuel proposals if scaled out would require a sizeable fraction, or several multiples, of total US land area to provide an equivalent of present petroleum usage. On the "bad news" front: the fact that research has been conducted in this area for 50 years without significant implementation suggests that there may be engineering or other challenges which are frustrating broader application. Or it could be that fossil fuel prices have simply been too low to allow larger-scale demonstrations. I've explored a few other aspects of this in a series of reddit posts covering the USNRL's work and other historical background. Search on "fischer tropsch": http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/search?q=fischer+tropsch&restrict_sr=on&sort=relevance&t=all http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/search?q=fischer+tropsch... USNRL research and papers: http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/22k71x/us_navy_electricitytofuel_synthesis_papers_and/ http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/22k71x/us_navy_... BNL/MIT history and papers: http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/28nqoz/electrical_fuel_synthesis_from_seawater_older/ http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/28nqoz/electric... M. King Hubbert connection: http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/298a4l/seawater_fischertropsch_fuel_synthesis_the_m_king/ http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/298a4l/seawater... And for comparison, limitations on biofuel potential: http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/28k1w5/prospects_for_biofuels_limited_additional/ http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/28k1w5/prospect... http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/2cvap7/the_intractable_problem_of_biomass_for_fuels_is/ http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/2cvap7/the_intr...

44 points by omegaworks 12y ago

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

jkaunisv1 12y ago

I guess the output of the fuel after use is still greenhouse gas, but would this reduce net CO2 emissions?

JoeAltmaier 12y ago
It doesn't seem it would. The CO2 is from seawater; burning releases it into the air. Since seawater has many times the density of CO2 as air, it would definitely be a net greenhouse gas process. However comparing making liquid fuel this way, with drilling refining and shipping gasoline, it may be a great improvement!
- xxgreg 12y ago
  The surface ocean and atmosphere exchange CO2 freely. So as long as the electricity input is carbon neutral, the process is carbon neutral. i.e. it doesn't matter if you take CO2 out of the surface ocean or the atmosphere. Both will reduce the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_cycle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_cycle
wwkeyboard 12y ago
A major source of the oceanic CO2 is the atmosphere http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification. It's not perfect but could be much better than burning dinosaurs.
xxgreg 12y ago
The carbon in the fuel comes from CO2 which is captured out of sea water. The problem with fossil fuels is that they transfer old carbon which used to be stored underground into the atmosphere. This process only uses carbon that is already part of the active carbon cycle, so it is carbon neutral as long as the electricity source is.
- jkaunisv1 12y ago
  Yeah, that's what I was thinking. It's not eliminating carbon in the atmosphere, but it's avoiding adding more from fossils.

TrainedMonkey 12y ago

At best this technology would allow capital ships with nuclear reactors (mostly carriers) to produce hydrocarbon fuel in order to resupply nearby craft. In theory this would help to optimize naval supply chain.

JoeAltmaier 12y ago
e.g. nuclear carrier fueling jets
bpodgursky 12y ago
I think that's simplistic. It lets any energy source with access to seawater store energy in a very energy-dense medium, eg gasoline. Oceanic wind-turbines, solar panels, nuclear generators on the ocean, etc. Certainly more useful short-term for the navy, but could definitely be extended to civilian uses.
- jdhawk 12y ago
  I guess the real question is efficiency.
- aaron695 12y ago
  Yes, but given the huge demand for energy everywhere there is absolutely no point wasting so much energy converting it except in locations where/when transporting a energy-dense medium to is difficult but highly valuable. IE The middle of the ocean during a war.
  - dredmorbius 12y ago
    The cost for this energy is $3-$6/gallon according to the US Navy's estimate. I get about $9/gallon if you include the costs of solar power provisioning. Or $126 - $378/bbl. That's not cheap, but it's a damned sight better than pretty much any biofuel alternative, which runs about $1000/bbl. And fuel is essential for transportation. Some transport can be liberated -- you can run passenger cars on batteries (for a price). Within cities, buses and even delivery vehicles can be electrified (possibly with on-board batteries for short off-grid excursions). Rail absolutely can be electrified. But a lot of uses cannot be. It's difficult to run power cords across oceans (though you might be able to electrify some barge and river traffic). Especially if you want to tap into them at sea. An electrified marine cargo business isn't an option. Your primary alternatives are sail power, biofuel (including possibly pelletized wood ships, an existing proposal), or electrically-generated synfuels as here. Airplanes handle electric cords even worse than boats do. There are numerous airline industry initiatives looking at biofuels, but Boeing's "biggest breakthrough there is" bet really doesn't pan out. Unless you want to cover _all_ of Oklahoma and Kansas, as well as parts of Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Nebraska, and Missouri, just to supply fuel to the aviation industry. Worldwide, shipping and aviation account for about 5% each of total petroleum consumption. Or you could create the fuel. Yes, shipping prices, airfares, and air cargo rates would increase. But you'd still have them.

magd 12y ago

It can't get worse.

dredmorbius 12y ago

I've been looking into the research on this process for a few months. In a world with a lot of bleak news on energy fronts, it offers some promise -- not of "free energy" (it isn't), but of a sustainable, abundant, predictable, carbon-neutral liquid fuel provisioning option. First: liquid hydrocarbon fuels are hugely useful for a number of characteristics. They're very energy dense, by both weight and volume. They've over ten times the energy storage density of batteries, and while they have lower energy density by unit weight than hydrogen, have over seven times the density by volume with vastly fewer handling constraints. They're easily handled (no high pressures, low temperatures, corrosion, embrittlement, or other issues). They're generally really safe -- many liquid hydrocarbons won't explode unless specifically induced to do so. They're a drop-in replacement for existing fossil fuels. They could be blended with these, and can utilize the same processing, transport, and utilization infrastructure. Engines would not have to be modified. At the same time, for those who see efficiencies in electric drives, they're amenable to hybrid-drive technologies. And we've got well over a century of expertise in utilizing them. For transportation, liquid hydrocarbons are very hard to beat, and for certain modes, all but essential, especially heavy land cargo, marine shipping, and air travel. The research that the US Naval Research Lab is conducting is based on over 50 years of work on the concept, with the first studies undertaken by nuclear physicist Meyer Steinberg at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in 1964. Steinberg continued his research through the 1990s, with further work at M.I.T. under Michael J. Driscoll and more recently as USNRL (who peculiarly fail to cite the earlier research -- it's rather like an evolutionary biologist failing to credit Darwin). Steinberg's work generally considered nuclear power as the electricity source, though any generating option could be substituted. More recent research considers nuclear, solar, and OTEC, an ocean thermal power system. The basic concept was suggested by M. King Hubbert, the petroleum geologist who predicted peak oil in the 1950s, in a 1962 report (though he suggested mining carbon from limestone). In terms of process, there are two very-well understood processes operating at industrial scale presently, hydrogen electrolysis and Fischer Tropsch synthesis. The third stage is where most research is focused: on finding means to sequester carbon from seawater. A small fraction is present as dissolved CO2, but most (about 96%) is in the form of dissolved carbonate and bicarbonate. Since carbon is being drawn from the biosphere (seawater), it's overall carbon neutral, though it might tend to bias balance slightly toward the atmosphere as compared to the oceans. If run in excess of human energy needs (a very expensive proposition), it could sequester additional carbon from the atmosphere. The primary energy cost is in the electrolysis, which returns hydrogen with about 60% of the energy capacity as the input electricity -- so your conversion costs you energy. Fischer Tropsch processing is exothermic (more energy is released than consumed). Energy usage of the CO2 separation phase is comparatively low, much of it is in the water handling -- you've got to move a lot of seawater to get the carbon necessary. I suspect overall efficiency will be roughly 50%. Though the Navy research is looking at this for their own purposes, it could just as well be used for civilian purposes. The 100,000 gallon/day capacity seen for a carrier task force would be roughly appropriate for a city of 100,000. My own cost estimates, including solar power provisioning, are higher than the Navy's, about $9/gallon. But that would be a stable price going forward -- with a renewable liquid fuels source, there are no oil embargoes, supply shocks, or imports. At a national scale for the United States, supplying 20 million barrels/day, you'd require 2TW of power -- a solar collection region about 180 miles on a side. That's quite large, but as compared with biofuel-based alternatives, downright reasonable -- most plant-based fuel proposals if scaled out would require a sizeable fraction, or several multiples, of total US land area to provide an equivalent of present petroleum usage. On the "bad news" front: the fact that research has been conducted in this area for 50 years without significant implementation suggests that there may be engineering or other challenges which are frustrating broader application. Or it could be that fossil fuel prices have simply been too low to allow larger-scale demonstrations. I've explored a few other aspects of this in a series of reddit posts covering the USNRL's work and other historical background. Search on "fischer tropsch": http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/search?q=fischer+tropsch&restrict_sr=on&sort=relevance&t=all http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/search?q=fischer+tropsch... USNRL research and papers: http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/22k71x/us_navy_electricitytofuel_synthesis_papers_and/ http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/22k71x/us_navy_... BNL/MIT history and papers: http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/28nqoz/electrical_fuel_synthesis_from_seawater_older/ http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/28nqoz/electric... M. King Hubbert connection: http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/298a4l/seawater_fischertropsch_fuel_synthesis_the_m_king/ http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/298a4l/seawater... And for comparison, limitations on biofuel potential: http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/28k1w5/prospects_for_biofuels_limited_additional/ http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/28k1w5/prospect... http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/2cvap7/the_intractable_problem_of_biomass_for_fuels_is/ http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/2cvap7/the_intr...