"Just as converting chemical energy in the form of fuel into electricity endures 45-75% thermodynamic losses, converting electricity back into chemical fuels loses 60-70% of the energy in the process. Converting solar power into natural gas only to burn it in a gas turbine power plant could help with long term seasonal energy storage but is so much less cost competitive than other ways to stabilize electricity supply that we should expect this usage modality in, at most, niche cases."
If the chemical fuel can work in a fuel cell, then where it's relevant (high latitudes in winter), you can get 100% efficiency in the chemical->used energy step by using the fuel cell for heating.
The electricity->fuel step struggles to heat 50%, which is not a deal breaker compared to other sources.
The whole article is basically about the question if solar power will continue to drop in price and if power-to-gas tech can have a similar drop in price. If those two are true then power-to-gas will become economical viable to the point where people could use it to store power produced in the summer to be burned for baseload/winter. It will also mean that pure hydrogen and pure oxygen, in compressed storage, will be is expected to reach a point where they are too cheap the meter.
The Sabatier reaction has been known since 1897. The Wiki article also gives some examples of Power-to-gas systems that were built, so I don't know why you claim it's not real. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabatier_reaction
Can you show me this actually in use literally anywhere on earth for this job, 125 years later?
Where would I go to buy some atmosphere derived gasoline?
You're confusing that something could theoretically be done with that it's a real thing that can be relied on today at scale to save the planet
If this was a real, practical thing, it would be in use. We fight wars over this stuff.
If the thing you want to use to save the world hasn't been done at scale, you probably can't get it there in the ten years we have left.
In all of history, only one of these has ever been made at the megawatt scale. Audi built one in 2013. They took it down three years later because it didn't actually work. It was supposed to provide fuel for 1300 cars, but it couldn't produce 1/10 of what it was supposed to
Yes, I see that you can find things in search engines
No: this is not a real option for saving us from climate change
What are you going to do with the atmosphere derived gasoline that you couldn't do better, cheaper and cleaner with cheap electricity?
That's why no one is making it at scale.
We're rapidly expanding renewable production at an amazing pace, as the article discusses, but we are very much still in the "stop burning fuels and directly electrify processes instead" stage, because that is currently cheaper even without including long term externalities, so even in lawless or suicidal nations self-interest makes it happen.
But the relatively small markets that fossil fuels will retreat to as electrification takes hold will soon be under threat too, for purely economic reasons adding extra impetus for change to happen.
Most of those will just use hydrogen directly, further reducing the market for gasoline, but again even gasoline will be replaced with renewable derived fuels for whatever obscure uses we still have for it, because it will be cheaper.
I just want to make sure that I'm understanding correctly.
You're saying that yes, we can economically make gasoline from the air today, and that the reason we don't is all the renewable production we're ramping up?
That everyone just decided not to sell carbon negative cheap gasoline?
I guess it's silly to ask why you believe that we can do this, based on no plant ever having been built with tens of billions of incentives available, huh? Probably can't get any evidence?
I don't think we're going to be able to see eye to eye on this. Thanks for the conversation
We can do anything that atmospheric gasoline or normal gasoline could do cheaper without any gasoline at all.
Therefore there is no market for atmospheric gasoline, and the only reason there is a market for normal gasoline, is because the costs are hidden for now.
It is not "economic" to live off credit cards just because you don't bother to open the letters telling you how much you owe and you plan to be dead before they come to collect.
What we're discussing is people using search engines to identify mechanics. This is not a thing that has been built.
This is an idea, not a real thing.
You haven't shown any actual examples of this having been built.
We can see that Wikipedia page, sure, but there are lots of Wikipedia pages for things that were never built. Those are not real things. It has to have existed to be real.
It's kind of wild having to explain what the word "real" means.
If these devices are real, can you show me one that actually exists or existed, instead of Wikipedia pages talking about what they would be?
The page referenced does not mention any real ones.
It seems like you're making claims that they are real, to respond to someone asking for examples, and didn't give any examples
I have to admit, it's pretty exhausting how solar fans always end up relying on devices that have never been built to explain why they're the right choice
There are many chemical plants synthesizing chemicals in large quantities: ammonia, ethanol, etc.
Until 10 years ago, the cheapest primary fuel was all fossil fuel based, so making synthetic fuels from fossil fuels is simply a loss in efficiency.
Only in the last decade, for the first time, renewables are a cheaper form of primary energy, creating motivation for a fuel producing energy plant R&D.
BTW: instead of raging at people with your own definition of "real" and "not real" it may help to talk in terms of Technology Readiness Level as used by eg NASA.
I can see why you say electricity to synthetic fuel "isn't real" but its not "not real" in the same way perpetual motion is not real.
> There are many chemical plants synthesizing chemicals in large quantities: ammonia, ethanol, etc.
There sure are. Zero of them, however, produce gasoline or kerosene from air.
Many, many substances cannot be produced in chemical plants currently.
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> Until 10 years ago, the cheapest primary fuel was all fossil fuel based
It still is, by leagues. The only reason that isn't showing up in the market is a blend of tax and subsidy (which I agree with.)
Notice what they use on the ocean, where there aren't laws.
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> making synthetic fuels from fossil fuels is simply a loss in efficiency.
This would be true if anyone had ever actually made it work at scale.
We're much earlier in that process than you seem to believe. The processes that people are talking about are things you can demonstrate in a beaker. These are not things that have even been industrialized at small scale, let alone at large scale.
There's decades of work involved in figuring something like that out. You don't just go "here's the money, build one."
It might be a good idea to watch some of those old Nova specials about Percy Lavon Julian, one of the greatest American chemists in history. Not only are the social angles interesting - he was a black man in the 1950s, but also a source of great wealth to an American dynasty, so you had various factions of old white people fighting over whether or not to be racist - but also his story is crucially informative here.
Mr Julian did invent and discover some plastics and other synthetics, yes, but that wasn't his important work.
His important work was taking "yeah this should be possible" and turning into "yes, we can do this cheaply at scale."
The reason he was so valuable is that that is much, much more difficult than the primary research.
I agree, the primary research has been done.
The things that people are bringing up aren't even the best examples; MIT's solar trees from 2002 do rings around this stuff in efficiency and productivity both per pound construction and per acre construction, and can be built relatively easily from already commercialized parts.
The problem is, once we're done being Cory Doctorow and being blown away by what should be possible, someone has to actually sit down and do the hard work of figuring out how to do it at scale, and then raising the money to do so, and then building several generations of factory until they get it right.
And yes, this will get done, sure.
But there's a /time/ /limit/ here.
Climate change is already putting island nations underwater, putting salt into major city aquifers, has been forcing the Army to relocate Louisianans for 30 years and now it's four states. Our water situation is getting to states suing each other and talking about piping seawater into Middle America to keep lakes wet.
I love the process you're describing, and I agree that it will eventually succeed, but I do not believe there is any realistic chance it will succeed in time for this specific challenge.
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> instead of raging at people
(sigh)
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> your own definition of "real"
"Has existed" is the common, dictionary definiton of real.
Why aren't vampires real? They haven't existed yet.
Why isn't strong AI real, even though it seems like it should be possible given the simulation argument? It hasn't existed yet.
Why aren't consumer jetpacks real, even though working jetpacks have been on demo for 100 years? Nobody's made them yet.
You know that 30 foot tall robot that some guy in Japan made for a TV show? Why isn't the American response to it real, even though we have all the same technology that one guy in a garage has? Because nobody's made it yet.
Why isn't a man with one son's daughter real, even though he can have children? Because knowing that something is possible doesn't make it real.
It's very strange to me that you think this is somehow "my definition."
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> its not "not real" in the same way perpetual motion is not real.
I'm not one to argue etymology. Apparently nothing is real until it's realized. So "not being real" is meaningless and we should discuss whether something is "able to be realized".
> we should discuss whether something is "able to be realized".
Cool story.
Are you about to say "well what if we can realize the way to realize it" when I point out none of the industrial work is done, none of the process work is done, none of the factories are built, none of the laws are drafted, none of the money is raised, none of the functionaries are settled, and none of the customers are online?
If you can't point to things that already exist, then what you're talking about isn't going to be ready in time.
I have been pretty clear that I am not going to be convinced by "could be." It's not clear why people insist on continuing to try.
If you think none of the industrial, process, or scientific work is done, you are incapable of decomposing the problem into its constitutent parts and recognizing the existance of most of its constituent parts in other parts of industry.
You said "isn't real", that's literally all you said. It's good that you have since clarified what you meant, but next time define what you mean from the start.
Either way the plant in Germany is still operational, the one Audi had. It's operated by Kiwi AG and it's located in Werlte.
> I have to to admit, it's pretty exhausting how solar fans always end up relying on devices that have never been built to explain why they're the right choice
Don't make so many assumptions. Pointing out something exists doesn't really give you any info on whether I am a solar fan or not. It also doesn't mean I believe it is the right choice.
> You said "isn't real", that's literally all you said.
Until you can show me one that's been built, that remains correct.
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> Either way the plant in Germany is still operational, the one Audi had. It's operated by Kiwi AG and it's located in Werlte.
That's a different plant doing different work in a different city, which was built by different people and never owned by Audi. That plant produces hydrogen from water, not gasoline from air. That plant could never do either half of the work (1. from air, 2. to gasoline) that was being discussed in this thread.
The Audi plant I brought up was in Dresden, on the other side of the country, 350 miles / 550 kilometers away.
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> Don't make so many assumptions.
Uh.
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> Pointing out something exists doesn't really give you any info on whether I am a solar fan or not.
That wasn't about you. That was about the ancestor posts I was talking to originally.
This is the 2013 Audi e-gas plant. It is now run by Kiwi AG, the CEO there is the previous boss at Audi e-fuels. So yes, please link what you mean.
Also nobody is talking about making gasoline from air, just to clarify. The process is described in the linked article, it is the same process as the one that this entire topic is about and it is the one I just described.
Go back to the start of this thread so that you can verify that you replied to "
> The catch is that power-to-gas tech described in the article". e-gas is synthetic methane, this plant went online in 2013. The plant exists and it produces e-gas. Which was what was asked for, this settles the discussion.
Additionally I would like to point out that the Dresden plant started in 2014 (not 2013) and it produces e-diesel, this is not e-gas.
1. I brought the Dresden plant up. You started arguing about some other plant and tried to pretend that it was the Dresden plant multiple times, even though the one you brought up is on the other side of the country. Now, you're suddenly an expert on the Dresden plant? Stop it.
2. You're attempting to say that "diesel isn't gasoline," when you previously tried to bring up a hydrogen plant. Stop it.
3. No, they also produce regular gasoline. Stop it.
4. The discussion isn't settled; you've just caught up with the thing I said earlier, that you tried to argue with, and now are pretending was your position. Stop it.
5. That plant got shut down, and no longer produces gasoline or diesel, which you didn't know, and which I brought up before you showed up. It now produces fertilizer. However, its webpage is out of date. Since you're arguing out of a search engine, and have no actual knowledge here, you have no ability to come to the correct position. Stop it.
6. There was only ever one, on Earth, ever, and it was never economical *BECAUSE IT DID NOT FUNCTION PROPERLY*, which was the point I was making before you showed up. This is why I say that the technology "isn't real" - for all your search engine pseudo-knowledge, in the real world, nobody has ever been able to make it work, and you're reciting face-saving press releases as if they're a way to make engineering decisions. Stop it.
7. Every single point you've made was wrong, and yet you're still "I would like to point out" ing. Stop it.
I can accept my mistakes, can you? The plant in Dresden is apparently no longer producing fuels and it also made gasoline, my mistake.
I'll repeat what I previously said. Power-to-gas refers to gas fuels (this includes LNG), it doesn't refer to liquid fuels such as gasoline. E-gas in this case refers to synthetic methane, it doesn't stand for e-gasoline. This entire thread is focused on creating synthetic methane (the Sabatier process mentioned in the Terraform Industries article), you referred to a plant from 2013 so naturally I assume it's the e-gas plant that opened there since that is the topic at hand and e-gas is a gas. The plant in Wertle is not a hydrogen plant, but it produces hydrogen as part of the Sabatier process. Yes, you mentioned Dresden but it didn't produce the gas this topic is about and it started producing in 2014...
Produce excess methane gas in summer, store with existing infrastructure, burn it for baseload/winter.