Comments on: CO2 Into Methanol — Highly Effective Conversion Method Developed

By: Otis11

Otis11 — Thu, 11 Jul 2013 04:28:00 +0000

I like Bronque’s idea…

But probably better to block them as new-comers and people on the fence may be misled…

By: Bob_Wallace

Bob_Wallace — Fri, 28 Jun 2013 06:45:00 +0000

I would guess that older plants are less efficient and would be first to be shut down. Being older they also probably have higher maintenance costs.

Coal isn’t going to disappear overnight. But it’s fairly clear that fading away has commenced….

By: RobS

RobS — Fri, 28 Jun 2013 06:23:00 +0000

It would take a staggering collapse in profits to see Coal plants that have been commissioned this year (1 so far) or in the last few years shut down within a year or so of opening and resulting in a total loss of all invested capital. I expect many plants in their middle to elder years will start to be shuttered far earlier then initially intended as profit margins shrink and repair costs rise but seriously doubt whether newer plants built in the last 5 years will be shuttered any time soon, they are the ones for which this technology could be applied.

By: JamesWimberley

JamesWimberley — Thu, 27 Jun 2013 11:57:00 +0000

Threre's a post over at Renewables International on a new 6 MW power-to-gas (P2G) plant in Germany built for Audi. It doesn' t look as if it needs concentrated rather than atmospheric CO2. Renewable synfuel may still be uneconomic, but it's well out of the lab and into real pilot industrial plants.

By: Zachary Shahan

Zachary Shahan — Thu, 27 Jun 2013 08:59:00 +0000

Thanks for the note on the ads, but I’ll need a link in order to get them blocked. If you see them again, please email me the link at zach@importantmedia.org

By: Bob_Wallace

Bob_Wallace — Thu, 27 Jun 2013 02:47:00 +0000

Baseload fossil fuel may be gone sooner than you suspect. Cheap wind and solar cuts the heck out of profits for coal.

Coal is on its way out in CA. I suspect Oregon and Washington are working it out of their grids.

Dispatchable fossil fuel will last longer. However very cheap and fast to build storage like Ambri’s liquid metal battery could do it in.

Back east, where some states are 60% or more coal will take longer.

By: RobS

RobS — Thu, 27 Jun 2013 02:18:00 +0000

Whilst I think we will see a large shuttering in of the 20-40 year old fossil fuel stations it will be a long time before we do away with fossil fuel baseload altogether. Even if we see an 80% reduction in fossil fuel that still leaves 20% remaining, and if this technology can sequester the CO2 from those remaining plants then that seems like a good outcome.

By: Bronque

Bronque — Wed, 26 Jun 2013 15:37:00 +0000

well, that being the case, everyone should click on it (as there will likely be no converts here) this site gets revenue, and the knuckledraggers get a lighter wallet. It’s a win win!

By: Bob_Wallace

Bob_Wallace — Wed, 26 Jun 2013 01:33:00 +0000

Concrete – there are ways to drastically cut the CO2 with concrete. If they prove out a bit more I think we can see some cuts there.

Beer – the CO2 from the beer itself is not de-sequestered carbon. It’s carbon that was already above ground. The heat needed – that needs to come from renewables.

Yep, we’re not close to electric commercial aviation. But we can move a very significant amount of air travel to HSR.

(This is an article about vehicle fuel….)

By: dynamo.joe

dynamo.joe — Wed, 26 Jun 2013 00:42:00 +0000

There are other sources Bob. I think beer and concrete are heavy CO2 producers, for example. And those are necessities.

I know there was a electric aircraft article recently, but we are a long way from electric commercial aviation.

By: Neil Blanchard

Neil Blanchard — Tue, 25 Jun 2013 22:52:00 +0000

I don’t think that any site gets to pick and choose who advertizes on their page. It may be that those ads are targeted at people like us reading this site precisely because they want to try and convince us?

Neil

By: Bob_Wallace

Bob_Wallace — Tue, 25 Jun 2013 18:49:00 +0000

There’s another downside. These approaches need sources of concentrated CO2, they don’t work with atmospheric levels.

That means that they need fossil fuel plants feeding them CO2.

Let’s quit flogging this tired old ICE technology and move on to electricity…

By: dynamo.joe

dynamo.joe — Tue, 25 Jun 2013 15:25:00 +0000

How is an immediately lethal gas less toxic than a heavy metal which will give you cancer in 30 years?

By: Jim Nelson

Jim Nelson — Tue, 25 Jun 2013 14:24:00 +0000

Something has been left out, by either the university puff piece or the writer. Why should it matter that hydroborane is “more expensive than methanol” if it’s merely a regenerable catalyst of the conversion reaction? Platinum is more expensive than gasoline, too, but it’s used in all automobile catalytic converters.

Something else that’s the fault of neither: this page shows TWO ads from the conservative group “Americans for Prosperity” AGAINST carbon taxes. Why is CleanTechnica helping knuckledraggers fight sustainability?