A380 test for Gas-to-Liquid jet fuel

[ddavid 149]

Picked this up in the IET monthly:

I guess we'll have to start growing bio-mass now.........

Cheers - Dai. :yes:

[allardjd 1,853]

This is a much more positive development than the recent Virgin Airlines bio-fuel stunt that proved nothing.

The gas to liquid aspect of this is pretty exciting. Natural gas and products derived from it have an inherent environmental advantage over hydrocarbon fuels derived from crude oil as the gas has little sulphur.

I didn't know that this was possible and it's a great development. Unfortunately, the power generation industry has discovered the benefits of natural gas too and the additional demand on supplies from power generation has doubled the cost over the past decade or so. That is precisely because it is a more environmentally friendly fuel than oil or coal.

The sulphur present in oil products (and coal) as an impurity creates SO2, sulphur dioxide, during the combustion process. This in turn combines with water vapor, creating H2SO4, sulphuric acid (battery acid), the main culprit in acid rain.

So, a hydrocarbon fuel that is synthesized from natural gas would lack that pollutant. Great news. Now the other side of the coin. It's still a hydrocarbon. It still procuces CO and CO2 during the combustion process. There will be no, "...overall reduction in CO2..." as the article suggests.

This business about bio-fuel is pretty much a red herring from an environmental standpoint. It too is just a hydrocarbon and burning it too, still produces the same amount of greenhouse gas as jet fuel. There is no inherent advantage to bio fuels. The energy from burning a hydrocarbon comes from breaking the Hydrogen-Carbon bonds in the molecule, each bond broken releasing a fixed amount of energy. If a certain hydrocarbon is lower in carbon, then more of it will need to be burned to liberate the same amount of energy and the amount of carbon that is released as CO and CO2 is pretty much the same.

I'm very concerned about the idea of bio-fuel. If pursued on a large scale it will put energy production and food production in competition for farmland, farm labor, irrigation, fertilizer and all manner of other things that currently serve the food chain. The result will be great upward pressure on food prices.

We're as addicted to food as we are to energy.

Sorry for the dissertation, guys. I'm afraid I'm becoming a zealot. :yes:

John

[MartinW 0]

We need a few crystal sponges. :yes:

Crystal sponges capture carbon emissions

23 February 2008

Andy Coghlan

Magazine issue 2644

CRYSTALLINE sponges pocked with pores that are just the right size to trap carbon dioxide molecules could filter the fumes from power stations and cars. What's more, the trapped CO2 can then be sucked from the crystals and piped into containers and buried underground, allowing the crystals to be reused.

Carbon capture and storage has been touted as a powerful weapon against global warming. Until now, the only way to strip CO2 from car exhaust, flue gases or power-plant emissions was to bubble them through a solvent that reacts with CO2. The trouble is that subsequently removing the gas from the solvent requires heat, limiting the efficiency of the process. "Anything that has the potential to reduce this 'energy penalty' is extremely valuable," says Stuart Haszeldine, an expert on carbon capture at the University of Edinburgh, UK.

So Omar Yaghi and colleagues at the University of California, Los ...

http://www.physorg.com/news8664.html

[ddavid 149]

Some quick conclusiojns:

A) This GtL fuel may be a step in the right direction in terms of efficiency - if it is to be used only for long haul 'jumbos' then we'll benefit when we need to move bodies around the globe (for whatever reason....) and reduced pollution (less sulphur etc) - however, you've still got to have a pretty good reason for going in the first place;

:dance2: Prioritising between electrical generation and jet fuel is going to be a political decision - but the politicians ain't going to want to get cold, either;

C) The main advanatage of bio-fuel is as a substitute energy source, so that we avoid depleting an already scarce fossil fuel base;

D) The secondary advantage - or is it more important than C? - is that bio-fuels should be carbon neutral, in that carbon is extracted from the atmosphere in the growing and released in the 'burning' - this 'carbon neutral' effect depends, of course, on how the stuff is processed before the energy is extracted - not an easy one for electrical generation;

And how do you get any sort of agreement between developed and developing nations on how to utilise resources? How can you stop the Chinese from using their coal reserves or the Russians from selling their oil?

Like the Beach Boys (who?) sang:

You know it seems the more we talk about it

It only makes it worse to live without it - But lets talk about it.......

At least talking puts off the inevitable and unthinkable.

Cheers - Dai. :yes: