Synthetic petroleum

[kerbiloid]

4 minutes ago, Sereneti said:

there are many of Natural-CO2 exhausts, that are put their CO2 into the air

(Originally all atmospheric CO2 was volcanic gases, but this doesn't matter).

I mean, you wouldn't take the volcanic CO2 into account as an additional bonus, as it is already inside all-inclusive.

[Sereneti]

2 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

(Originally all atmospheric CO2 was volcanic gases, but this doesn't matter).

I mean, you wouldn't take the volcanic CO2 into account as an additional bonus, as it is already inside all-inclusive.

there are local "springs" of high% CO2...
this should decrease the absolute mass of liquified air...

[todofwar]

1 hour ago, John JACK said:

It would be fossil fuel all again. Whole point of going carbon neutral is taking carbon from atmosphere, where it matters. Mining everything (except short lived plants) for carbon will add to global warming, just as oil and coal. To help we need go backwards — grab carbon from air, solidify and bury it. And that's best done again with plants.

Everybody loves oil not because oil is that great. Everybody loves oil because for every unit of energy spent in extracting and refining it, they get TEN units of energy back. That gives enough spare energy to support people and institutions not busy in making energy. Like workers, engineers, scientists, artists, game developers and so on. Otherwise they would have to mine coal or plow fields or scavenge fruits and seeds just to support themselves, not do anything nice they do now.
Also oil is great raw material for chemistry. But to make lubricants, plastics, food and everything else it's first split to components. And that components may be too harvested from plants or synthesised more or less directly. Actually, to make crude petroleum from hydrogen and carbon you'll have to synthesise it's components and mix them.

Synthetic oil will absolutely not return that much spare energy. Actually it will return less than was spent in it's production. So it may be profitabe only when produced by using even cheaper energy — nuclear or better fusion. Otherwise synthetic fuel is just a wartime erzatz — you spend expensive coal energy to power your war machines to get sources of cheap energy. Because tanks (or rockets) do not run well on wood and coal.

Switching over global fleet of cars isn't that hard. Modern cars are already made to serve five, maybe ten years, and than be replaced. If new generation of cars will use gas tanks of fuel cells, people would buy them. IF they are better and cheaper, of course. Electric cars are still much more expensive than LF ones, and cheap recharge is ruined by low mileage.
Through 20 century and still now, overall inefficiency of ICE engine is offset by cheap, handy and very energy dense liquid fuel. If it became not so cheap, people will switch to other fuels. Like they are massively switching existing cars to methane and LPG right now. It's simple and in a long run it's cheaper. Synthetic methane and propane also would be much cheaper than synthetic petrol. There already is infrastructure for gas stations and car manufacturers can modify design for gas tanks.

tl;dr: people need not synthetic petroleum, people need cheap energy. Any form is good — till it's cheap.

It's not just about energy though. Lubricants, dyes, plastics, pharmaceuticals, all require petroleum. Hell, even acetic acid is primarily petroleum derived. Now, if we stop burning all of it our current reserves may carry us for a while, but the lower margins on those products may very well make other means of getting carbon more attractive. Currently, as crazy as it sounds, the renewable and biodegradable plastic industry is horribly unsustainable. We're tearing down Madagascar for those compostable spoons everyone loves. 

[kerbiloid]

56 minutes ago, todofwar said:

It's not just about energy though. Lubricants, dyes, plastics, pharmaceuticals, all require petroleum. Hell, even acetic acid is primarily petroleum derived.

Just a note. They call this Organic Synthesis.

Edited May 18, 2016 by kerbiloid

[todofwar]

2 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Just a note. They call this Organic Synthesis.

Which requires carbon sources. The foundation of the chemical industry is readily available feed stocks. Organic doesn't mean the same thing to chemists that it does to lay people, organic just means you have carbon (or carbon-hydrogen bonds by some definitions). In order to synthesize these kinds of compounds we're going to need a renewable supply of feedstocks. Once oil is replaced entirely, coal tar will cease to be economic to go after because it comes with tons of hydrocarbons that are now nothing more than a pollutant that has to be sequestered somewhere. Things like methylene chloride, THF, ethyl acetate, acetone, and acetonitrile which the synthetic chemists in my lab go through by the gallon will become horribly expensive soon unless we solve the carbon problem. 

[Bill Phil]

Syngas can be produced through other resources 

[JebKeb]

Well, it looks like we've cleared mostly up CO2 capture. But are there any other methods for capture?Here's my list of viable methods.

• Air liquefaction
• Biomass burning
• Biomass gasification
• Another chemical method?

So, anyone got any other methods of CO2 capture?

[wumpus]

1 hour ago, JebKeb said:

So, anyone got any other methods of CO2 capture?

I've always assumed that you want to take agricultural chaff or simply harvest prarie grass and toss it (in a slurry or something) into a mine.  Best guess is that the [energy] cost harvesting and storing the grass is going to be more than the natural process of soil production.  Certainly algae production might be easier, but typically any area with enough water for an algae pond is too valuable to waste on algae.  Maybe some parts near LA/TX chemical plants.  The key is minimal processing.  You just want carbon down the mine, preferably in a way that doesn't decay into released CO2.  To a certain degree what you are doing is making coal instead of burning it (although it would probably take a mine shaft collapse to make it coal).

But plants have been doing CO2 capture since life began.  I'd start there.

 

[kerbiloid]

You would decide: do you mean hydrocarbons as a source of energy (as fossil fuels) or as a initial material for organic synthesis.

If energy - no valuable ways, as you:
-    either will put more energy than get,
-    or need horizonless plantations which eliminate food resources and require
.        either voracious technical resources and poisonous chemicals,
.        or billions of peasants working for food and needing this place for food instead of fuel.

If organic synthesis - of course you can get carbon in any of the listed ways, as you just need much less of it. "Much less" currently means "hundred million tonnes".
Of course, you can recycle plastic, but it's not too easy, comparing, say, to metals.

To bring fuel hydrocarbons from Titan - doesn't make sense, as you will spend much more energy to deliver a tonne from Titan, than to synthesize a tonne of methane on the Earth.
While for organic synthesis it's still easier to create such amounts in place, than to bring it from Saturn system - also injecting additional CO2 into atmosphere.

[magnemoe]

7 hours ago, JebKeb said:

Well, it looks like we've cleared mostly up CO2 capture. But are there any other methods for capture?Here's my list of viable methods.

• Air liquefaction
• Biomass burning
• Biomass gasification
• Another chemical method?

So, anyone got any other methods of CO2 capture?

One idea is to fertilize the ocean with iron oxide. The plankton will either sink to the ocean deep taking the carbon with them or getting eaten by fish increasing fish population. 
You do this in the open ocean there its deep. 

[Sereneti]

48 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

One idea is to fertilize the ocean with iron oxide. The plankton will either sink to the ocean deep taking the carbon with them or getting eaten by fish increasing fish population. 
You do this in the open ocean there its deep. 

you know, that there was an Extinction event from  the Ozean?
The Ozean had got a "Dead zone"

too much fertilizer will cause the ozean to die ...
(https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umkippen)

[todofwar]

2 hours ago, Sereneti said:

you know, that there was an Extinction event from  the Ozean?
The Ozean had got a "Dead zone"

too much fertilizer will cause the ozean to die ...
(https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umkippen)

An ongoing problem sadly. You don't need to seed the ocean with iron, nitrogen is the growth limiter there. Runoff from farms has made algal blooms so large you can see them from space. 

[Sereneti]

16 minutes ago, todofwar said:

An ongoing problem sadly. You don't need to seed the ocean with iron, nitrogen is the growth limiter there. Runoff from farms has made algal blooms so large you can see them from space. 

there was an extincion event earlyer too...
Vulkans had feedet the ozeans, - too much. And then the ozean become a dead zone...
The "dead zone" in the ozean had made a lot of toxic gases, that reached land, and then ....
(H2S)

[cantab]

As I see it the advantages of synthetic petroleum are that everything already in place. It's less land-intensive but more energy-intensive than biofuels, so which is better will depend a lot on what else is going on.

The thing with either though is we're still a long way off not using regular petroleum really. That's a lot of time for stuff that uses it to be taken out of service - after all, vehicles need repairing or replacing over time anyway. And then the opening is somewhat there for other options. Batteries are getting a lot of investment, hydrogen is waiting in the wings. And with transport being a major part of petroleum use, well the way we use vehicles is set to change with self-driving cars. It matters less that there's a 20-mile detour the nearest hydrogen filling station when your car can go there and fill up all by itself while you sit at home watching TV!

[Sereneti]

i think syntetic petroleum is  a good choice,
we dont need to chance much...

if we hav an fusion-generator , the problem of the energy is nearly gone...

[magnemoe]

1 hour ago, todofwar said:

An ongoing problem sadly. You don't need to seed the ocean with iron, nitrogen is the growth limiter there. Runoff from farms has made algal blooms so large you can see them from space. 

Yes, close to land its too much fertilizer because of runoff, far out to sea on the other hand its an desert with lite life. 
Far out to sea also has the benefit that lots of the plankton will sink 3 km down and its carbon is out off circulation. 
Say its one of the cheapest geoengineering ideas and easy to monitor, 

[p1t1o]

Here's a relevant thing I saw recently, provided without comment:

http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-03/iron-fertilization-may-not-work-against-climate-change

[kerbiloid]

1 hour ago, Sereneti said:

i think syntetic petroleum is  a good choice,
we dont need to chance much...

if we hav an fusion-generator

Once they have fusion reactor, the first thing they do — prohibit petroleum cars.
 

[Sereneti]

6 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Once they have fusion reactor, the first thing they do — prohibit petroleum cars.
 

why?
the problem with electric cars dont go away...
and syntetic fuel has in this case the upside from the petroleum cars, and lot less downsides....
 

[shynung]

30 minutes ago, Sereneti said:

why?
the problem with electric cars dont go away...
and syntetic fuel has in this case the upside from the petroleum cars, and lot less downsides....
 

When fusion power (or any advanced nuclear power) goes online on a large scale, electricity would become dirt cheap compared to today. Cost per kilometer traveled on electric vehicles would've dropped so much, everyone would jump to electric cars in hordes. Car manufacturers would then follow their whims, and produce better electric cars.

[Sereneti]

yes...
the big downside on Electric cars are the Lithium...
And for Fusion are Lithium the "fuel"
(or silver...)

Edited May 19, 2016 by Sereneti

[cantab]

8 minutes ago, shynung said:

When fusion power (or any advanced nuclear power) goes online on a large scale, electricity would become dirt cheap compared to today.

People said this about fission power. Didn't work out that way. I see several reasons to think fusion power won't be especially cheap:

Major capital expense for building the plants, ongoing maintenance costs, and finite lifespan even with maintenance. All that needs paying for.

The leading reaction is Deuterium - Tritium fusion. Tritium is not cheap to obtain, requiring its own kind of nuclear reactor to make. It's also radioactive, which means handling it requires loads of expensive precautions.

The majority of reactions release neutrons or protons, which will turn the reactor walls radioactive over time. When it comes to decommissioning, a fusion plant isn't going to be much better than a fission plant, and that's very costly.

But suppose we actually overcome all those issues. We have cheap-to-build fusion power using aneutronic fusion of common isotopes. Free energy? Not quite, because a lot of what you pay for electricity isn't for the generation. Distribution is the next biggest cost - the building and maintenance of the cables that get the power to your home. Transmission - the long distance high-voltage cables - are a bit too. Then there's a bit on metering, and of course the government taxes the whole thing. And there has to be a company involved, which means they need customer services and want some profits. And of course the government sticks a tax on the whole shebang.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24238708

I'd say best case scenario, fusion reduces electricity costs to about 20-25% of current prices. Cheap, but not dirt cheap.

[todofwar]

9 minutes ago, cantab said:

People said this about fission power. Didn't work out that way. I see several reasons to think fusion power won't be especially cheap:

Major capital expense for building the plants, ongoing maintenance costs, and finite lifespan even with maintenance. All that needs paying for.

The leading reaction is Deuterium - Tritium fusion. Tritium is not cheap to obtain, requiring its own kind of nuclear reactor to make. It's also radioactive, which means handling it requires loads of expensive precautions.

The majority of reactions release neutrons or protons, which will turn the reactor walls radioactive over time. When it comes to decommissioning, a fusion plant isn't going to be much better than a fission plant, and that's very costly.

But suppose we actually overcome all those issues. We have cheap-to-build fusion power using aneutronic fusion of common isotopes. Free energy? Not quite, because a lot of what you pay for electricity isn't for the generation. Distribution is the next biggest cost - the building and maintenance of the cables that get the power to your home. Transmission - the long distance high-voltage cables - are a bit too. Then there's a bit on metering, and of course the government taxes the whole thing. And there has to be a company involved, which means they need customer services and want some profits. And of course the government sticks a tax on the whole shebang.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24238708

I'd say best case scenario, fusion reduces electricity costs to about 20-25% of current prices. Cheap, but not dirt cheap.

And of course even in areas with tons of renewable energy sources like Iceland you don't get everyone jumping on electric cars because of issues with charging times and expensive batteries. I think the future of transport will be some kind of liquid fuel since gas fuels are a bit too dangerous. Gasoline is quite nice, surprisingly difficult to ignite yet energetic when you do ignite it, stable enough for storage for months, energy dense, doesn't corrode components, honestly if we can cap the carbon cycle it will be the best fuel around. 

[p1t1o]

14 minutes ago, cantab said:

People said this about fission power. Didn't work out that way. I see several reasons to think fusion power won't be especially cheap:

Except fission didnt replace anything. Since most electricity is still produced by fossil fuels, the price of electricity has been more controlled by the increasing price of oil/gas/coal. Also, one shouldn't listen to *people*.

 

34 minutes ago, shynung said:

When fusion power (or any advanced nuclear power) goes online on a large scale, electricity would become dirt cheap compared to today. Cost per kilometer traveled on electric vehicles would've dropped so much, everyone would jump to electric cars in hordes. Car manufacturers would then follow their whims, and produce better electric cars.

More specifically put, it would be "When fusion power becomes a mature industry, and natural fossil fuels are depleted..." [which will hopefully happen not too far apart] then electricity will be likely to see a price change.

I would expect a healthy synthetic hydrocarbon fuel industry to arise, apart from the electric cars being iffy, the worlds military run on hydrocarbons, electric airplanes are hard, and heck, people just straight up love their vroom-vroom-mobiles.

Electric cars dont go "vroom" you see.

They just go "click-ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff..........."

[PB666]

26 minutes ago, todofwar said:

And of course even in areas with tons of renewable energy sources like Iceland you don't get everyone jumping on electric cars because of issues with charging times and expensive batteries. I think the future of transport will be some kind of liquid fuel since gas fuels are a bit too dangerous. Gasoline is quite nice, surprisingly difficult to ignite yet energetic when you do ignite it, stable enough for storage for months, energy dense, doesn't corrode components, honestly if we can cap the carbon cycle it will be the best fuel around. 

Because on Iceland if you have an excess amount of electricity you can create hydrogen, and use that with electricity.