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I
just LOVE this super happy announcement in Time magazine. Yep, those
genius scientists (actually chemists.... kind of like me) have figured out how
to use some exotic catalysts to turn CO2 into CH3CH2OH (ethanol), isn't that
great? So they can capture to kilotons of CO2 coming out of a power plant
burning oil, coal, or gas, and yield kilotons of alcohol. What a
deal!
Ahem.....
pardon me, but perhaps you notice that CO2 only has carbon and oxygen atoms in
it, while the alcohol has those H things too. Those are hydrogen
atoms. Hmm... where do they come from? Well from water, good old
H20. When you burn alcohol you get CO2 and H2O, so they have essentially
reversed combustion. Sounds great, yes?
The
only thing is that combustion occurs because alcohol and oxygen contain more
energy than CO2 and water, so it's a natural reaction liberating energy.
Duhhh... but this means to reverse it means you have to SUPPLY energy.
Where is that coming from?
They
mention that then the tons of alcohol can be used as an energy buffer for the
plant. How would that work? Well.... by burning the alcohol of
course. Liberating what.... oh yeah, water and CO2.
So
the net result is using up energy to convert the CO2 into alcohol, and then
burning the alcohol (where you only capture part of the energy back) later for
energy. So you will spend energy to make the alcohol in the first place,
and not get all the energy back when you burn it. Which means you just
use up energy and don't really come out ahead at all.
It's
parallel to the idiocy of ethanol in gasoline, where you get less energy back
than it took to grow the corn and convert it to alcohol.
Apparently
that virus that makes reporters, politicians, and others stupid has been
spreading like mad.
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