Making Lemonade: “Green Freedom” to Make Gasoline from Carbon Emissions
Dr. Jeffrey Martin and William L. Kubic, Jr. have proposed a concept to synthesize gasoline from carbon dioxide emissions, and have dubbed their idea “Green Freedom.” “The idea is simple,” (a sure bet that it’s anything but) says Kenneth Chang in the New York Times:
Air would be blown over a liquid solution of potassium carbonate, which would absorb the carbon dioxide [which] would then be extracted and subjected to chemical reactions that would turn it into fuel: methanol, gasoline or jet fuel.
The resulting gasoline would not emit carbon dioxide. Developed at Los Alamos, the idea is based on sound physics, though so far it has not been proven at the factory level. The problem with the concept is that it uses an enormous amount of energy — so much so that it can’t be produced economically except by a nuclear power plant. Oh, and thousands of them would need to be built in order to replace petroleum at current levels of use. The scientists are estimating that the process could produce gasoline at a cost of $3.40 a gallon to the consumer.
If this sounds like a contorted process, it may be because the carbon emissions problem remains a hard nut to crack. Electric cars just move the energy use to the power plant, unless those cars are powered by solar-charged batteries. Hydrogen fuel cells take large amounts of energy to create the hydrogen. And biofuels take up valuable farmland or replace rainforests needed to offset carbon emissions. So you can’t blame a scientist for trying. Martin and Kubic will present their idea today at the Alternative Energy Now conference in Lake Buena Vista, Florida.
For another take on the “Green Freedom” project, see Steve Verhey’s post on Gas 2.0.
A few thoughts:
The article says that the gasoline would still emit carbon dioxide. They’re just saying that since the process takes out what it puts back in, it wouldn’t add to the problem.
The $3.40 price was mentioned as a “break-even price” if they get some “technological advances”. The way things are going that may actually seem really cheap one day soon.
Electric cars don’t necessarily solve the problem, however, they do have a couple things in their favor. First of all, they switch the energy generation and resultant pollution to the power plants, and out of the cities where large numbers of people are. Secondly, if we can manage to switch to renewable energy, there’s no pollution or CO2 to worry about. (Yes, that’s a big “if”.)
And third, generating electricity to power cars is a much more efficient use of fuel than gasoline. (See http://www.teslamotors.com/efficiency/well_to_wheel.php for a good comparison.)
I agree that it’s an idea worth pursuing, but I think others are worth pursuing as well. Ultimately, to solve this problem, we’re going to need to come up with lots of alternatives, including, perhaps, having less cars altogether and replacing them with more efficient types of transportation like mass transit.