Gasoline Out of Thin Air? It's a Reality! (jalopnik.com)
- Reference: 0180655472
- News link: https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/26/01/25/2153246/gasoline-out-of-thin-air-its-a-reality
- Source link: https://www.jalopnik.com/2083556/new-york-startup-builds-machine-that-makes-gasoline-from-air/
> The Aircela machine works through a three-step process. It captures carbon dioxide directly from the air... The machine also traps water vapor, and uses electrolysis to break water down into hydrogen and oxygen... The oxygen is released, leaving hydrogen and carbon dioxide, the building blocks of hydrocarbons. This mixture then undergoes a process known as direct hydrogenation of carbon dioxide to methanol, as documented in scientific papers.
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> Methanol is a useful, though dangerous, racing fuel, but the engine under your hood won't run on it, so it must be converted to gasoline. ExxonMobil has been studying the process of doing exactly that since at least the 1970s. It's another well-established process, and the final step the Aircela machine performs before dispensing it through a built-in ordinary gas pump. So while creating gasoline out of thin air sounds like something only a wizard alchemist in Dungeons & Dragons can do, each step of this process is grounded in science, and combining the steps in this manner means it can, and does, really work.
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> Aircela does not, however, promise free gasoline for all. There are some limitations to this process. A machine the size of Aircela's produces just one gallon of gas per day... The machine can store up to 17 gallons, [2]according to Popular Science , so if you don't drive very much, you can fill up your tank, eventually... While the Aircela website does not list a price for the machine, [3] The Autopian reports it's targeting a price between $15,000 and $20,000, with hopes of dropping the price once mass production begins. While certainly less expensive than a traditional gas station, it's still a bit of an investment to begin producing your own fuel. If you live or work out in the middle of nowhere, however, it could be close to or less than the cost of bringing gas to you, or driving all your vehicles into a distant town to fill up. You're also not limited to buying just one machine, as the system is designed to scale up to produce as much fuel as you need.
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> The main reason why this process isn't "something for nothing" is that it takes twice as much electrical energy to produce energy in the form of gasoline. As Aircela told The Autopian " Aircela is targeting >50% end to end power efficiency. Since there is about 37kWh of energy in a gallon of gasoline we will require about 75kWh to make it. When we power our machines with standalone, off-grid, photovoltaic panels this will correspond to less than $1.50/gallon in energy cost."
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader [4]Quasar1999 for sharing the news.
[1] https://www.jalopnik.com/2083556/new-york-startup-builds-machine-that-makes-gasoline-from-air/
[2] https://www.popsci.com/environment/aircela-gasoline-machine/
[3] https://www.theautopian.com/a-company-wants-to-sell-you-a-small-machine-to-make-gasoline-out-of-air/
[4] https://www.slashdot.org/~Quasar1999
additives? (Score:4, Interesting)
Gasoline isn't just short chain hydrocarbons. There are detergents, and other chemicals added to keep engines clean and keep exhaust clean. I assume having read the article that this doesn't come from thin air. What will the legislative or regulatory impacts on generating gasoline from thin air going to be? As someone with a PHEV this would probably completely serve my gasoline needs.
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, gasoline *is* just the short chain hydrocarbons. But you need the other stuff to make it a fuel for modern cars. (The "s" is on "hydrocarbons" because it's a mix of different molecules.)
Donâ(TM)t fear the batteries! (Score:2)
Iâ(TM)m so tired of tech people coming up with new, unnecessary, overpriced solutions to renewable power variability or car range anxiety. Just stick in some batteries! This thing costs $15,000-$20,000, which means a $300/mo payment to get 30 gals of gasoline. Thatâ(TM)s $10/gal just for the equipment. Then theyâ(TM)re using 75 kWh of electricity per gallon, which costs around $30 retail or $10 from a home solar system. All to get you about 9 kWh of propulsion (after the 75% losses in the car
EVs are nice and all (Score:2)
But nothing beats the energy density of a hydrocarbon. Combine this with solar power generation and you have carbon-neutral green energy storage that works with existing infrastructure. Obviously there are losses in this method of storing energy (making fuel). But if there's enough solar input to make it happen, and if it can be scaled to a level that is meaningful, the efficiency doesn't matter as much.
I've long maintained that in order to get off of fossil fuels we have to find a way of replacing those
Re: (Score:3)
The problem with hydrocarbons (apart from all the climate/war stuff) is that no use of hydrocarbons comes close to the efficiency of an electric powertrain - your typical ICE car turns around 66% of the energy in the fuel into waste heat for example, and the most efficient possible uses with either super-exotic million-dollar engines or giant turbines are in the 50~60% ballpark. An EV powertrain can turn well over 90% of the electricity that goes into the charge plug into power at the wheels. And if you're
Re: (Score:2)
If you want to migrate away from fossil fuels you will need to replace the plastics/hydrocarbons that are in clothing, shoes, tires, food packaging, medical supplies, roads, aircraft, wind turbines, and utility side electrical equipment. Food packaging is a big one - we spend a ton of energy going after plastic grocery bags yet every food item you buy is in plastic trays (or bottles) covered with plastic wrap.
out of thin air and..... (Score:2)
a TON of electricity that doesn't come out of thin air.
Click bait BS.
No comes from Sun, just passes through thin air (Score:1)
> a TON of electricity that doesn't come out of thin air.
The ton of electricity comes from solar which comes out of the Sun, it just passes through the thin air to get to the solar panel. :-)
Re: (Score:2)
It *could* come out of thin air, using solar cells or wind power. And it's inefficient enough (i.e. 1 gallon/day) that you might as well. It might be useful in a remote cabin with a motor/generator set that you rarely needed.
Scam (Score:2)
I've done atmospheric catalysis chemistry, it's utterly trivial to get ethanol or similar out of CO2, in fact it's pretty hard not to. The next to impossible part is making it cost effective, just like this clearly a scam company doesn't do.
Useful to make fuel on Mars (Score:2)
This looks like a development that comes out of work done to generate rocket fuel on Mars, basically taking carbon dioxide and water and converting it to hydrocarbons.
[1]https://duckduckgo.com/?q=maki... [duckduckgo.com]
[1] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=making+rocket+fuel+on+mars+-biofuel&ia=web
Organic fouling (Score:1)
The bane of every green wet technology.
Air is full of bacteria and fungal spores, some of which just love to eat some intermediate stage of this process in the nice warm anerobic environment in this chemical reactor.
Expect crazy consumables costs in the form of air filters and membranes on the inside that will need to get changed out frequently.
Maybe this makes sense in a niche application, but at scale it will be cheaper to drill it out of the ground, refine it in a big expensive plant, and transport it to
So... (Score:2)
...If the converter machine is powered by solar, wind or other renewable source, this would make a gasoline car carbon neutral.
Should all gas stations have an array of these? (Score:2)
At $1.50/gal ready to go in a car with just energy as an input, even with those huge up-front costs for the machine it could make sense for gas stations to have an array of these constantly filling their Regular or Economy tanks. Especially in places with more expensive gas like basically everywhere a random person walking around with an assault rifle would be cause for alarm and not just Tuesday.
Re: (Score:3)
No. With 75 kWh, you can power an electric vehicle to go 250 miles. And at current prices for public chargers in the U.S., you can sell the 75 kWh for about $30. With the one gallon you can get from the same 75 kWh, your car will go 35 miles, and you can sell it for $3. It simply makes no sense.
Re: (Score:2)
So it's not as profitable (or sensible, but that's beside the point) as charging an EV, sure. But it looks like it could still be profitable in a lot of jurisdictions, perhaps moreso than the dinosaur juice the stations are currently selling.
Re: (Score:2)
At 1 gallon/day it doesn't seem like it would justify itself much of anywhere. Perhaps the same principles could be applied to a different design, This looks like a lab curiosity.
Re: (Score:2)
You can do it if you really have free energy to spend, and no one else is taking it. But even then, it makes more sense to run a power cable to the next development in the neighborhood and sell the electricity.
Re: (Score:2)
Except there aren't enough EV customers of that (yet). There are people buying gasoline today. So you can offer the direct electricity for the occasional EV while selling cheap gasoline too.
In this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics (Score:2)
> At $1.50/gal ready to go in a car with just energy as an input, even with those huge up-front costs for the machine it could make sense for gas stations to have an array of these constantly filling their Regular or Economy tanks.
There's one small problem: you need a lot of electricity to run this process. About 10x more than just using it for EV charging. And this is not something that can be improved with mass production, it's a fundamental limitation imposed by thermodynamics.