Who thought British ingenuity was dead!

[Gibbon]

A technology that goes one better than carbon capture could be crucial in fighting climate change - Comment - Voices - The Independent


Bye bye fecked up middle east. (I hope)

[DimPrawn]

Running the numbers it would work out about £20 per litre for petrol based on scaling up the system, so be my guest.

[xoggoth]

Indeed. Can't be bothered to get out my ancient chemistry books and check but it sounds like crap.

[DimPrawn]

I've got a system that makes petrol out of gold mixed with crushed diamonds and is powered by Premier League footballers on treadmills.

[BrilloPad]

Now we just need some nuclear power stations to generate the electricity to get it to work.

[xoggoth]

Actually, putting dynamos on treadmills ain't a bad idea. I must waste quite a bit of energy on mine.

[Mich the Tester]

Actually, putting dynamos on treadmills ain't a bad idea. I must waste quite a bit of energy on mine.

You can generate about 200 to 250 watts continually if you're fit. That won't get you far, beyond powering the flashing lights on the treadmill computer. Chris Hoy manages about 2kW for about 3 seconds at a time.

[Scoi]

If only reporters knew some basic chemistry and enthalpies then we wouldn't have to read this. A technology which is only viable because governments class it as green to waste 80% of energy to make 'clean' fuel and subsidise it, almost as clever as storing CO2 in permeable rock

[d000hg]

You can generate about 200 to 250 watts continually if you're fit. That won't get you far, beyond powering the flashing lights on the treadmill computer. Chris Hoy manages about 2kW for about 3 seconds at a time.

200W is enough to run a desktop PC or to light your home, the treadmill should use more like 5W surely?

How long can you output 700W for, is it long enough to heat up a ready meal in the microwave?

[doodab]

The process is still in the early stages of development, and far too inefficient yet to compete with conventional fossil fuels. There are efficiency problems at each stage, from capturing the carbon dioxide from air to combining it catalytically with hydrogen derived from water vapour to make Syngas, methanol and more complex hydrocarbons.

No one is saying it's the finished article, anything like this takes a bit of development. The important thing is that if they can get it to say 90% efficiency and the energy that goes in doesn't come from burning fossil fuel then petrol stops being part of the problem and becomes the state of the art high density energy storage system. So we can all keep on using our cars. Has to be worth a punt IMO.