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Megillah Gorilla posted:Dammit, it's not dead dinosaurs, it's dead trees Dead algae really.
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Dec 28, 2018 18:17
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Lightning Knight posted:Why would you want to produce more gasoline? Some things are preferably run using fossil fuels, but if you have the energy available (from a source that doesn't use carbon) to turn the CO2 in air into fossil fuels you could, by replacing all mined/drilled fossil fuels with synthesized fossil fuels, be carbon neutral. If you've got the power to do that though, you could probably also do general carbon sequestration, which would be better than growing bamboo and dumping into a mineshaft.
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Dec 28, 2018 18:33
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Killer-of-Lawyers posted:I bet you that there's more labor jobs in building wind turbines in the ocean than there is in building gee wiz fighter jets too! - They aren't long-term jobs which provide job security, you have a contract for six months to two years and then either move or find other work. - Eventually we will run out of turbines to build and shift to maintenance, much as has happened with Hydro, and 90% of the guys working on this poo poo are barely smart enough to turn a wrench the correct direction let alone hold down a job in maintenance. - Offshore construction requires specialized training (see point 2 above) and smaller crews. It will be a hard sell to the masses of Joe Bud Lights that they have a bright future in Renewable Energy, vs. assembling depleted uranium shells down in Bumblyfuck Dyingtown - Kentucky. That being said I'm looking forward to getting my full GWO package this summer, because  do I want to build a Haliade X while I"m in this business.
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Dec 28, 2018 18:34
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HelloSailorSign posted:Some things are preferably run using fossil fuels, but if you have the energy available (from a source that doesn't use carbon) to turn the CO2 in air into fossil fuels you could, by replacing all mined/drilled fossil fuels with synthesized fossil fuels, be carbon neutral. Ok I think I'm lost here but I have been planning to take an afternoon one of these days and read this thread front to back so I can be up to speed on what y'all are talking about.
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Dec 28, 2018 18:42
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Potato Salad posted:150,000 2MW turbines: God, what would the cost be to maintain all those offshore turbines? The sea relentlessly works to destroy anything we put into it.
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Dec 28, 2018 18:43
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That said, I'm also in favor of just overbuilding the hell out of clean energy generation, and using the excess to power carbon extraction from the atmosphere.
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Dec 28, 2018 18:45
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Farmer Crack-rear end posted:God, what would the cost be to maintain all those offshore turbines? The sea relentlessly works to destroy anything we put into it. Less than you'd expect, but the lifespan is only 20 years and cost of energy from them is nearly double other sources. Most of the wear and tear is on the blades, not due to corrosion.
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Dec 28, 2018 18:48
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Lightning Knight posted:Ok I think I'm lost here but I have been planning to take an afternoon one of these days and read this thread front to back so I can be up to speed on what y'all are talking about. When you burn fossil fuels, you release CO2 (and other things). If you pulled the fossil fuels from the ground, they were sitting there happily as carbon sequestration until they've been burned and released into the atmosphere. You're adding to the carbon in the air, which is bad for climate change. If you get enough energy and the right other setups, then you can take CO2 from the air and, in a reaction, produce fossil fuels. Then, if you had used 100 tons of CO2 from the air to make a fossil fuel, and then that fuel gets burned, that fuel being burned doesn't add to the amount of carbon in the air from what originally happened. That's better than pulling it from the ground! If you're at the point where you are creating fossil fuels from the air on a massive industrial scale, then hopefully you not only have the energy but technical know-how in order to do other carbon sequestration tech, to further decrease the CO2 in the air. The reason this is important is because there are some things where fossil fuels are the best fuel for the purpose that we currently have. If you make a magical fusion generator, tons of fission plants, or thousands of sky-scraper wind turbines, those things aren't going to be able to directly power the vehicle fleet that exists, as I doubt the electric vehicle will replace trucking and other methods of people/cargo transport anytime soon. You can then take all the power they create and use it to make fossil fuels to power the things that are not able to directly benefit from a new power generation tech that needs lots of space or specific controls, i.e. no Mr. Fusion. However, you've then managed to massively decrease the amount of carbon we're raw dumping into the atmosphere, which is good.
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Dec 28, 2018 19:08
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HelloSailorSign posted:Some things are preferably run using fossil fuels, but if you have the energy available (from a source that doesn't use carbon) to turn the CO2 in air into fossil fuels you could, by replacing all mined/drilled fossil fuels with synthesized fossil fuels, be carbon neutral. It's not really fossil if it's not made from crude oil. It would have the advantage of not having all the contaminations petrol-based fuels have, but if most transport is already electric by then, would it even matter? If something needs an ICE, you could design it around a simpler fuel.
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Dec 28, 2018 19:13
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Rime posted:- They aren't long-term jobs which provide job security, you have a contract for six months to two years and then either move or find other work. https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/design-for-50mw-offshore-wind-turbine-inspired-by-palm-trees#gs.2_Li_2Y
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Dec 28, 2018 19:16
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Lurking Haro posted:It's not really fossil if it's not made from crude oil. octane is a fairly simple fuel.
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Dec 28, 2018 19:18
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HelloSailorSign posted:When you burn fossil fuels, you release CO2 (and other things). So if I'm understanding you correctly, you're talking about pulling the carbon out of the air and turning it back into fuel? That seems dope and sci-fi-y, I dig it.
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Dec 28, 2018 19:23
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karthun posted:octane is a fairly simple fuel. I meant even simpler like ethanol or methane.
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Dec 28, 2018 19:33
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Lurking Haro posted:It's not really fossil if it's not made from crude oil. True, the terminology would be different. I'm suspecting that a fair bit of transportation will remain non-electric for a long time, barring significant technological change or regulatory action. Lightning Knight posted:So if I'm understanding you correctly, you're talking about pulling the carbon out of the air and turning it back into fuel? That seems dope and sci-fi-y, I dig it. Correct! Here's one company doing stuff: http://carbonengineering.com There's a lot of hype around this stuff, and I'm not well versed enough in the engineering and chemical knowledge to tell super bullshit from give it time to develop but currently kinda bullshit. Currently, we are able to do it, but not at an industrial, efficient, scale.
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Dec 28, 2018 19:40
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HelloSailorSign posted:Correct! Here's one company doing stuff: http://carbonengineering.com Interesting. So if they did get this to work on an industrial, efficient scale, would that be able to alleviate climate change?
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Dec 28, 2018 19:51
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Lightning Knight posted:Interesting. So if they did get this to work on an industrial, efficient scale, would that be able to alleviate climate change? Not without a clean, cheap energy input. It's still fundamentally a net negative energy process, but in a theoretical future world with unlimited wind turbines or fusion plants it's fine to "waste" a bunch of energy to prevent burning fossil fuels. With enough power and some chemical reactions you can solve pretty much any problem. We have (and have had for a long time, the underlying chemistry is not terribly complicated) all the tools to create gasoline or something resembling it out of pretty much anything that's carbon-based. Whether that can be done in a way that's scalable, cost effective, and energy efficient is a different story - but if circumstances changed so power generation was no longer a limiting factor a lot of neat technologies become practical. AreWeDrunkYet fucked around with this message at 19:59 on Dec 28, 2018 |
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Dec 28, 2018 19:56
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AreWeDrunkYet posted:Not without a clean, cheap energy input. So what does that mean in practice? Could we do it with large scale fission power? Or do we need fusion power?
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Dec 28, 2018 19:58
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I saw a really good (and long) talk at a conference once about the search for the holy grail of synthetic fuels. Because we aren't just trying to make gasoline out of thin air, we're looking for any synthetic fuel process that can produce the most energy for least cost.
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Dec 28, 2018 20:17
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Lurking Haro posted:I meant even simpler like ethanol or methane. Well I wouldn’t recommend methane since it has a much higher GWP. Pretty much any leaks whatsoever and it quickly starts being worse than burning gas made from crude. That’s the thing about a lot of these plans to make something carbon neutral, it’s very easy for one element of the scheme to fail and the whole effort ends up counterproductive. Like all the carbon credits that rely on future generations to protect forests or permit systems where they get credit for only building 5 coal plants because they pretended to want to build 100.
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Dec 28, 2018 20:27
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You don't want to know the carbon cost of building a wind turbine, and frankly I doubt anyone has bothered to do that calculation 'cause it'd be pretty grim. 
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Dec 28, 2018 20:42
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Lightning Knight posted:So if I'm understanding you correctly, you're talking about pulling the carbon out of the air and turning it back into fuel? That seems dope and sci-fi-y, I dig it. Ever used a wood stove?
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Dec 28, 2018 21:00
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Rime posted:You don't want to know the carbon cost of building a wind turbine, and frankly I doubt anyone has bothered to do that calculation 'cause it'd be pretty grim. yeah I’m pretty sure there are quite a few carbon LCAs done on wind turbines. why would you assume otherwise? Or is this one of those “stupid scientists don’t know how the real world works” kinda thing? edit: I mean there’s even a wiki page on the topic, idk why you’d assume no one had ever done it before https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life-cycle_greenhouse-gas_emissions_of_energy_sources Trabisnikof fucked around with this message at 21:18 on Dec 28, 2018 |
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Dec 28, 2018 21:15
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Rime posted:You don't want to know the carbon cost of building a wind turbine, and frankly I doubt anyone has bothered to do that calculation 'cause it'd be pretty grim. I want to know. Tell us Trabisnikof posted:yeah I’m pretty sure there are quite a few carbon LCAs done on wind turbines. why would you assume otherwise? Holy poo poo, that hydropower column, apparently reservoirs are catastrophic CO2 and methane generators QuarkJets fucked around with this message at 21:41 on Dec 28, 2018 |
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Dec 28, 2018 21:39
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Owlofcreamcheese posted:Ever used a wood stove? lol I get it. You can take it to the very simple, "sun makes energy that turns CO2 into fuel" but that's not really equitable to what this is.
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Dec 28, 2018 22:14
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QuarkJets posted:Holy poo poo, that hydropower column, apparently reservoirs are catastrophic CO2 and methane generators I feel like that analysis is biased - severe anoxia/hypoxia is a climate emergency wherever it occurs, and you don't get that kind of greenhouse gas generation under normal conditions. That's why the median is so low. It's a controllable part of the cycle, if you're actually paying attention to it.
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Dec 28, 2018 22:17
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Trabisnikof posted:
This. Infinite Karma posted:I feel like that analysis is biased - severe anoxia/hypoxia is a climate emergency wherever it occurs, and you don't get that kind of greenhouse gas generation under normal conditions. That's why the median is so low. It's a controllable part of the cycle, if you're actually paying attention to it. The problems is making sure people pay attention to it.
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Dec 28, 2018 22:32
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Lightning Knight posted:Why would you want to produce more gasoline? Gasoline has a high energy density and works with existing vehicles. Gasoline made from atmospheric carbon, excess wind energy, and water would be carbon nuetral when used to power vehicles. Farmer Crack-rear end posted:God, what would the cost be to maintain all those offshore turbines? The sea relentlessly works to destroy anything we put into it. Money spent is a feature not a bug of infastructure building. Also, as to what LK asked, no, anything you could do with fusion you could do with mass fission as well. But there are issues with that, cost over runs, nimby, fear of waste, ect. Renewables may be the most economically feasable, for what thats worth in any of my pie in the sky massive energy grid ideas. Killer-of-Lawyers fucked around with this message at 23:28 on Dec 28, 2018 |
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Dec 28, 2018 23:19
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Lightning Knight posted:So what does that mean in practice? Could we do it with large scale fission power? Or do we need fusion power? For reference since it seems to be a common comparison point, the lifetime price of the F-35 program is expected to be in the area of $1.5 trillion with about a third of that going to buy the planes. Fusion power doesn't exist so that's out. Replacing the ~2.5 trillion kWh of fossil fuel electricity currently used annually with fission power at 90% capacity factor would require about 315 million kW of generation, or about $2 trillion at current EIA cost estimates (plus operating costs). Once you get that far, you can start looking at replacing gasoline. Adding another 3.4 billion barrels of gasoline per year and assuming a barrel of gasoline represents ~1,700 kWh, that's another 5.7 trillion or so kWh of power to make up for - assuming a perfectly efficient conversion process, which it won't be - so another 600 million kW of generation. That's another $3.5 trillion at best, multiplied by whatever efficiency losses would come from the carbon fixing process. Within the scope of the country's wealth and industrial capacity? Probably. Politically possible? lol.
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Dec 28, 2018 23:29
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AreWeDrunkYet posted:Within the scope of the country's wealth and industrial capacity? Probably. Politically possible? lol. Interesting. I originally came to this thread with the plan to ask about nuclear power and why it's so divisive and the current state of nuclear power re: safety and emissions but I didn't want to be a bother and rehash old arguments. edit: also would this plan, of turning carbon in the air into gasoline, make the air cleaner?
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Dec 28, 2018 23:38
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AreWeDrunkYet posted:For reference since it seems to be a common comparison point, the lifetime price of the F-35 program is expected to be in the area of $1.5 trillion with about a third of that going to buy the planes. Fusion power doesn't exist so that's out. Replacing the ~2.5 trillion kWh of fossil fuel electricity currently used annually with fission power at 90% capacity factor would require about 315 million kW of generation, or about $2 trillion at current EIA cost estimates (plus operating costs). On the one hand, if we set about deliberately replacing all of that generation with nuclear power, rather than "letting the market decide", it should theoretically be possible to realize cost savings through economies of scale - we know we're building so many hundred nuclear power plants, we can ramp up production of all those components, etc. On the other hand we're a decaying society that can't do anything right anymore so the final cost would probably still be even higher than what you estimated. 
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Dec 28, 2018 23:47
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Lightning Knight posted:Interesting. I originally came to this thread with the plan to ask about nuclear power and why it's so divisive and the current state of nuclear power re: safety and emissions but I didn't want to be a bother and rehash old arguments. It's not just nuclear, solar and wind power have lifetime costs that are on the same order of magnitude as nuclear these days and would go nowhere either. That kind of infrastructure spending isn't feasible politically regardless of the power source, the near future is incremental improvements at best. Lightning Knight posted:edit: also would this plan, of turning carbon in the air into gasoline, make the air cleaner? Define cleaner. If you mean locally irritating, it's unlikely to make much of a difference. The carbon/carbon dioxide itself doesn't have much of a direct effect on the quality of the air you breath, and burning a synthetic gasoline is still going to release the same pollutants as burning refined gasoline. "Cleaner" air in the non-smoggy sense that term typically evokes comes from vehicle and industrial emissions standards and is a somewhat different conversation than climate change.
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Dec 28, 2018 23:47
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AreWeDrunkYet posted:It's not just nuclear, solar and wind power have lifetime costs that are on the same order of magnitude as nuclear these days and would go nowhere either. That kind of infrastructure spending isn't feasible politically regardless of the power source, the near future is incremental improvements at best. I see. I have no real technical understanding of what we're discussing so I think I need to go back and read the thread so I can see what y'all have already discussed and ask more educated questions.
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Dec 28, 2018 23:53
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Killer-of-Lawyers posted:Gasoline has a high energy density and works with existing vehicles. Gasoline made from atmospheric carbon, excess wind energy, and water would be carbon nuetral when used to power vehicles. Commercial aviation is going to require high grade kerosene for a while yet. There’s been some tinkering with downblending but I’m not aware of any real substitute close to use. Compressed hydrogen may be a solution for ground transport, particularly if cheap clean electricity is a reality.
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Dec 29, 2018 00:57
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You can make jet fuel the same way you make gasoline with water and air. The navy is wxpermenting with doing it on carriers with the excess thermal energy from the reactor.
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Dec 29, 2018 01:30
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AreWeDrunkYet posted:Define cleaner. If we choose to go this method, as opposed to directly using electricity in batteries for transport, we could also choose a cleaner burning fuel than gasoline. Ethanol is probably the immediate candidate, but probably anything from the alcohol family would be good. Most engines can be tuned for it, and we already mandate E85 in new vehicles/engines. Capt.Whorebags posted:Commercial aviation is going to require high grade kerosene for a while yet. There’s been some tinkering with downblending but I’m not aware of any real substitute close to use. Compressed hydrogen may be a solution for ground transport, particularly if cheap clean electricity is a reality. Jet engines tend to be very friendly about burning different fuels, so an artificial kerosene or similar fuel should be totally doable. Related to that, there are a number of companies that are in the prototype or preproduction phase for short haul electric planes, seating between 1 to 12 people. While these are aimed at the corporate jet market, if the tech could be adapted/adopted by the civil market, it would be a huge boon. AvGas is nasty, and getting rid of all the old 60's era Cessna's (etc) that are still flying would be a good cut to some of the uglier pollution we dump in the air.
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Dec 29, 2018 01:31
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Lightning Knight posted:So what does that mean in practice? Could we do it with large scale fission power? Or do we need fusion power? To expand a bit on the whole "make hydrocarbons from CO2" thing - if we had enough excess (clean) energy, we could just make hydrocarbons and pump them back into the planet, which would basically just reverse the process of the last several hundred years. The interesting thing is it could be a regional or situational approach - if your solar plant in North Africa produces too much power during certain days/weeks/months of the year, and you've already topped off your batteries in the area, you can use that energy to make something to pump back into the earth to remove CO2 from the atmosphere permanently. "Pump poo poo into the earth" can be saved for excess power generation, which makes the cost easier to swallow. This approach will never be seen as "cost effective" under the current political/economic system, but a system that properly values carbon removal can view this differently, and a mix of cheaper/more efficient clean power generation and cheaper/more efficient chemical reactions to turn CO2 into anything that can be sequestered away brings down the price per ton of CO2 removed.
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Dec 29, 2018 02:31
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A GIANT PARSNIP posted:To expand a bit on the whole "make hydrocarbons from CO2" thing - if we had enough excess (clean) energy, we could just make hydrocarbons and pump them back into the planet, which would basically just reverse the process of the last several hundred years. The interesting thing is it could be a regional or situational approach - if your solar plant in North Africa produces too much power during certain days/weeks/months of the year, and you've already topped off your batteries in the area, you can use that energy to make something to pump back into the earth to remove CO2 from the atmosphere permanently. "Pump poo poo into the earth" can be saved for excess power generation, which makes the cost easier to swallow. Ok I actually think I understand 100% of this post so we're on the same page here, interesting!
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Dec 29, 2018 02:33
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Lightning Knight posted:Ok I actually think I understand 100% of this post so we're on the same page here, interesting! Most people are talking about a step before pumping CO2 into the ground - instead of using that excess solar/wind power to make carbon sludge to pump into the planet, you can use it to make fuel that can power vehicles. The benefit of this is you're taking carbon right out of the atmosphere to put into those vehicles, so when the vehicles release carbon back into the atmosphere you're back where you started instead of worse off (assuming you used 100% clean sources). If you can make enough fuel this way to power the world's economy, you can still run on hydrocarbons but you'll be carbon neutral because each CO2 molecule you put into the air will be one you took from it a few months previous. It's a step further to go past making the fuel you need and making some carbon sludge to dump back into the caves we've pumped oil from to become carbon negative.
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Dec 29, 2018 06:58
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EoRaptor posted:Jet engines tend to be very friendly about burning different fuels, so an artificial kerosene or similar fuel should be totally doable. Related to that, there are a number of companies that are in the prototype or preproduction phase for short haul electric planes, seating between 1 to 12 people. While these are aimed at the corporate jet market, if the tech could be adapted/adopted by the civil market, it would be a huge boon. AvGas is nasty, and getting rid of all the old 60's era Cessna's (etc) that are still flying would be a good cut to some of the uglier pollution we dump in the air. Agreed, my point was more that we need to have a fuel with a similar energy density and composition as avtur. Hopefully this is achievable with renewable energy inputs, soon.
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Dec 29, 2018 11:07
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A GIANT PARSNIP posted:Most people are talking about a step before pumping CO2 into the ground - instead of using that excess solar/wind power to make carbon sludge to pump into the planet, you can use it to make fuel that can power vehicles. The benefit of this is you're taking carbon right out of the atmosphere to put into those vehicles, so when the vehicles release carbon back into the atmosphere you're back where you started instead of worse off (assuming you used 100% clean sources) This also assumes 0% leakage otherwise the supposedly carbon neutral fuel can have significant negative impacts on the climate. That can be physical leakage from process plants (e.g. methane) policy leakage from corrupted or weakly written regulations (e.g. wood in EU or the Californian carbon market). I’m very skeptical of any plan that relies on significant use of “carbon neutral” hydrocarbon fuels. Right now the incentive structure is such that any hydrocarbon fuel reliant plan will face significant chances of being worse than nothing. When you have environmentalist groups like the NRDC working in secret with oil companies to write climate regulations, I have little hope complex schemes like carbon neutral hydrocarbon fuels won’t be similarly undermined.
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Dec 29, 2018 15:55
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