Pioneering British firm produces 'petrol from air'

[Peterae]

Pioneering British firm produces 'petrol from air' in breakthrough that could solve the world's energy crisis

    Institution of Mechanical Engineers hails the process as a potential 'game changer' in battle against climate change
    Stockton-on-Tees-based Air Fuel Synthesis claims they can make petrol directly from water and carbon dioxide in the air
    Within two years the company hopes to have a commercial-scale plant capable of producing up to a ton of fuel a day

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2220044/Pioneering-British-firm-produces-petrol-air-breakthrough-solve-worlds-energy-crisis.html

[Peterae]

I would say there maybe a way to use this process to our advantage right now.

Forget the inefficient electrolysis.

Use Zinc for Hydrogen evolution.
Sugar & yeast for Carbon Dioxide evolution including a free heat supply for house heating.
Resulting in a steady supply of wine or beer to be drunk and petrol to run the car.

Zinc is plentifull and cheap.
Sugar is relatively cheap, i wonder how much would be needed to make a gallon of fuel.

and
believe it or not zinc oxide can be used to make solar cells  or cream

[Peterae]

I believe that most bottled CO2 sold has it's origins from being captured at brewery's, don't quote me on this but i am sure i read this some years ago.

[exnihiloest]

"While the company claims to have used carbon dioxide extracted directly from the air in their reaction, it is mainly using industrial sources of the gas until it is able to improve the performance of 'carbon capture.'
As yet the process is considered too expensive to be commercially viable, with the extraction of one ton of carbon dioxide costing as much as £400."

Their process is very expensive and they hope that the oil price will increase so that it becomes competitive. It's not at all satisfactory.

[Allcanadian]

Eureka
They have discovered the poorest possible way to use a renewable resource by putting it into an expensive inefficient process to produce a hydrocarbon fuel for a car operating at 15-20% efficiency. I think we should fire up every nuclear reactor on the planet and produce hydrocarbon fuel that would show them or we could use a coal fired power plant to take CO2 from the air to produce fuel which is even better because it could couple with naturally occuring zipons and create a self-sustaining CO2 reaction. My god it would be raining freaking crude oil and we would all be saved.

[Grumpy]

The combustion of fossil fuels creates 96.5% of all CO2 emissions and is the largest source of carbon dioxide emissions

Recycle the smog...

a purification process: (very interesting)
http://www.engg.ksu.edu/CHSR/events/che670/201001/docs/Session4d-Anthony.pdf

[Allcanadian]

@Grumpy
I think this problem is repeated all through our history where we create a problem then develop an unsustainable band-aid solution to solve it. The problem was never CO2 the problem is hydrocarbon fuels and it is absurd that anyone in their right mind would tackle the problem of emissions from the burning of fuel rather than the fuel itself. Take the trillions these half-wits would spend trying to capture CO2 and spend it on sustainable alternative energy sources to actually solve the problem.

Think of it this way, I have a match in my hand and I light it for heat and the byproduct is CO2 now this CO2 was always latent in the match however I just liberated it by my actions. The people in this article seem to be saying just keep lighting matches and we will cature the CO2 and everything will be fine however Entropy states it will always take much more energy to condense this CO2 back to it's original form as it was in the match. So why not just stop lighting the god damn matches?, but no that's not there answer which makes this nothing more than pseudo-science in my opinion. Not in a million years will they ever reach a scale that could ever possibly make a difference which means this is nothing more than propaganda so that people can feel good about themselves while they destroy the planet.
This feel good pseudo-science is just great until one sobers up but it is our children who will be left with the hangover.

AC

[muDped]

I am not convinced that Carbon Dioxide emissions
are, or ever have been, a problem since CO2 is an
essential plant food.

Perhaps our problem is instead mis-management of
plant life and agriculture on planet earth coupled
with an intensive disinformation program.

Cui Bono?

[Paul-R]

"While the company claims to have used carbon dioxide extracted directly from the air in their reaction...

...which is, after all, what trees do. Maybe their process should be studied in detail.

[forest]

Hey I plan to sue them for using my chimney output 

[Centraflow]

The idea is fine, the way they do it maybe another thing. The extraction of CO2 from air is a no go area because of cost, but using CO2 from power plant scrubbers is nearly free.

Using standard electrolysis is also not the way to go, it also uses too much energy. As far as the rest is concerned, turning H2 and CO2 into fuel is a simple process that was done over 100 years ago.

In our present day this process can be done in a more efficient way using accelerated electron beams @ ATP using low input energy. By using a special system of DBD "dielectric barrier discharge" of a two potential, dual frequency, "two electrode plus grid reactor", the orbiting electrons in both H2 and CO2 are shifted into lower orbits.

This type of reactor produces a high current density sufficient to create H, C and O, other catylists are then used to direct the recombination to a hydrocarbon fuel such as ethane. From ethane you can make just about any other fuel you want, be it gas or liquid.

This system has a carbon footprint of zero if wind or solar is used to run it

Mike