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Scientists Use Sunlight to Make Fuel From CO2

wired.com — The Sunlight to Petrol, or S2P, project essentially reverses the combustion process, recovering the building blocks of hydrocarbons. They can then be used to synthesize liquid fuels like methanol or gasoline. Researchers said the technology already works and could help reduce greenhouse-gas emissions

Who dugg this? Made popular Jan 7, 2008

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  • bradkovach, on 01/07/2008, -3/+33In other news... Plants use sunlight to make fuel from CO2.
  • webcure, on 01/07/2008, -7/+29I have to get this out of my system.
    WHERE HAS ALL OF THIS BRAINPOWER BEEN FOR THE LAST 30 YEARS?
    Suddenly everyone has a brain...
    Why oh why has it taken so long to get environmental friendly fuel into the hands of the customer?
  • thebellmaster1x, on 01/07/2008, -1/+21How long has this been going on?
    ...Millions of years?!
    Why aren't these plants sharing their research with us? Why must they keep their top scientists behind the Cellulose Curtain?!
  • brentinkc, on 01/07/2008, -0/+17You know what else sunlight can do? Make electricity. Clean, carbon-free, renewable electricity.
    I do wonder if that would help reduce greenhouse gas emissions....
  • sdellboy, on 01/07/2008, -0/+10BP bought their first solar panel production company in 1980. They then sat on the technology for 27 years before deciding to final invest in improving it....

    The brainpower is there. It's just people have been paid not to use it.
  • tehbored, on 01/07/2008, -1/+11I'd think turning sunlight directly into electricity would be a much more efficient use of it.
  • gijoel, on 01/07/2008, -0/+8If you read TFA it says this was looked into years ago but it just couldn't compete with cheap oil then.
  • BaronSamedi242, on 01/07/2008, -1/+7RTFA - all they've done so far is convert CO2 to CO and O2. They're saying "can be used eventually to make gasoline...." when they figure out how to take CO and make gas out of it.

    It's literally vaporware.
  • S1ngular1ty1, on 01/07/2008, -0/+6They have a hidden agenda.
  • prisoner24601, on 01/07/2008, -1/+7I've got to apply a little bit of "devil's advocate" logic here. I'm as enthusiastic about reducing carbon emissions as anyone and I don't doubt global warming, so don't misunderstand me as one of those "i'ma gonna drive me a hummer to go club me a baby seal" posters that sometimes wander into these environmental discussions, OK?

    My concern here is simply that even if the entire developed world managed to go "all electric" tomorrow, wouldn't that (perversely) just drop the price on oil (due to reduced demand) which would still be used by the third world. In other words, I've gotten this sinking feeling recently about this issue that isn't being discussed by ANYONE on either side of the global warming debate as far as I've seen: No matter what industrialized nations do, how can we ever stop Saudis from eventually pumping every single drop of oil out of the ground and selling it to *someone* who will burn it. If it's not America burning it in hummers, won't it be India or China or Africa burning it in factories? I really HATE to be negative, and I'm hoping someone has a real solution to this, but I've suddenly become unclear on what (if any) true "net" environmental benefit it will have even if I could get really cheap solar panels tomorrow and put them on my roof. That just seems to mean that the Saudi would perhaps drop the price of oil back down under $100 a barrel and sell it to someone in the third world who will burn it anyway. That's why this technology is very interesting to me (actually captures carbon) but I'm still concerned that unless it's conceivable that somehow this (or solar panels, or wind, or whatever) actually get cheaper than oil, someone is going to burn that oil. Consider the (improbable) situation that some radically cheaper solar panels are released tomorrow, so cheap that everyone in the west gets them essentially for free. The price of oil would plummet due to reduced demand, but how cheap does it have to get before a Saudi oil prince says "just turn off the wells we've already drilled and leave the oil there" because the ACTUAL COST of pumping it out is more than it will sell for in the market. In other words, if the price drops from $100 a barrel to $10 a barrel, or even $1 a barrel, does that matter if India says: "great, we'll buy all you can sell us at that rate!" ?
  • Gzero, on 01/07/2008, -0/+5So they made a tree?
  • Manchowder, on 01/07/2008, -1/+6Oil was less than $10 a barrel in the 80's, and the Saudis were freaking out about losing all their money.
    Oil was 20-30 dollars a barrel under Clinton thanks to his judicious use of the strategic oil reserve.
    Oil is now 100 dollars a barrels thanks to Bush's decision to starting filling up the strategic oil reserve right as oil prices go up.

    If this technology costs 120 dollars a barrel to produce, it will never EVER be produced unless oil costs 120 dollars a barrel.
    The skyrocketing price of oil has made oil alternatives become economical.
    Now brain power is lining up behind alternative fuel.
    This is not hard to understand.
  • peranadigital, on 01/07/2008, -0/+4The oil companies have a massive level of control and while they were able to provide oil cheap enough and no-one was kicking up a fuss about the environment results nobody was interested in these alternatives. Venture capitalists have told me repeatedly that they won't even consider investing in alternative fuels and new types of engines simply because the oil companies do everything they can to kill off competitors (not literaly as far as I know). It's just big business at work.
  • rhedrick, on 01/07/2008, -0/+4I totally agree with you. I've been looking for someone to report just this very sentiment.
    The developing world wants the US to 'lead' because they want us to stop using oil so they can have it for cheap. The oil will be burned. China and India will use every last drop of it.
    Does that mean the US should stop exploring alternative fuels? NO.
    Valcent's biomass growth system produces 33,000 gallons of vegetable oil acre/year. Compared to 20 gallons for corn acre/year, 50 for soybean acre/year, 800 for palm acre/year. Requires NO arable land, NO potable water. Land area equivalent of 10% of New Mexico is all we need to solve the US's energy needs.
  • chingy1788, on 01/07/2008, -0/+3or do both
    hybrid cars, with batteries (aside from the one for the petrol engine) in them...
  • GeneralKickass, on 01/07/2008, -0/+3FYI CO can be used as fuel.
  • kevma, on 01/07/2008, -0/+3Let me know when it makes a difference in my pocket. For now, this is just another amazing discovery which I'll hear no more about.

    POTENTIAL WILL NOT DO!

    Sorry.. had to get that out of my system :P
  • Cooperfan, on 01/07/2008, -1/+4But, is this the only thing that would be needed before that 'fuel' would be usable?
    "Can be used to generate fuel" sounds like they still need something else, but that isn't mentioned.
  • xSEED, on 01/07/2008, -0/+3when prices started to affect everyone else
  • bdkvxd, on 01/07/2008, -0/+3$
  • inactive, on 01/07/2008, -1/+4fta: "The idea of recycling carbon dioxide is not new, but has generally been considered too difficult and expensive to be worth the effort."

    That was true until we started to recognize how shameless our corporations are and how quick they are to gauge us at the pump during times of war. Given what we know about the middle east and the fact that everyone in the world hates us more than ever... there's a good chance that our resources are going to be a huge issue moving forward. Alternative energy isn't just good for the environment, it'll be good for our nation's economy over the generations. There will be a strong resistance to this from certain corps., and when that push comes I hope the right people are in office to make sure that our nation and world isn't sabotaged on the energy front.
  • rhedrick, on 01/07/2008, -0/+2Algae Oil is the answer.
    Valent's (www.valcent.net) biomass growth system produces 33,000 gallons of vegetable oil acre/year. Compared to 20 gallons for corn acre/year, 50 for soybean acre/year, 800 for palm acre/year. Requires NO arable land, NO potable water. Land area equivalent of 10% of New Mexico is all we need to solve the US's energy needs. Buy a diesel - go to www.frybrid.com
  • Logicexe, on 01/08/2008, -0/+2Ummm, so? Diesel has more energy per liter than gasoline, of course it's going to have better fuel economy, but a diesel hybrid would have better economy than both of them.

    There's nothing wrong with conserving wasted energy anyway so what's your problem?

    Just to clarify, when talking about electric-gas hybrids I'm talking about something like the Chevy Volt which can be plugged to charge, run only on its electric motor and only uses the ICE to generate electricity for longer trips. This is where Hybrid technology is moving and it'll be a very significant step towards really cutting down our oil usage.
  • shadydentist, on 01/07/2008, -0/+2I would also imagine that converting that energy into electricity has much more applications that simply reversing the combustion process.
  • timbo458, on 01/07/2008, -0/+2I don't know how many *cobalt ferrite" rings it has but my neighbor has a lawnmower that runs on "dirty water",...right.
  • init100, on 01/07/2008, -0/+2The cost to pump up oil from the ground will only increase, because more and more advanced technology will be necessary to get the remaining oil that is there. It is possible that this technology might become cheap enough to make pumping oil from the ground not worthwhile at all, although that point is probably still many years away.
  • aussieNickuss, on 01/07/2008, -0/+2Well probably billions of years actually. (although only 6000 years according to the born-agains).
  • MikeSD34, on 01/07/2008, -1/+3True, but changing over all at once won't happen. If we can find some way to recycle the CO2 we're already generating (and will be for a while), we'll be much better off. At the very least this process should be carbon neutral meaning it won't be making the problem any worse then it already is.
  • stonedgeek, on 01/07/2008, -0/+2I agree, this stuff should have been developed 30 years ago when we knew about the problem but it was not yet too late.
    Also, it bothers me that this is still 15-20 years off because it's "not yet economically viable". I hate to think that we're not pursuing global warming solutions because big businesses haven't found a way to profit from it yet.
  • EarlR, on 01/09/2008, -0/+1Plants do it a lot cheaper though.
  • EarlR, on 01/09/2008, -0/+1And more expensive. And makes money for people.
  • EarlR, on 01/09/2008, -0/+1The cost of drilling for oil will also increase because we started pumping the easy oil first. If there are two oil resources and one costs 1 dollar per barrel to get and the second costs 10, then we wont bother pumping the second till the first is dry.
    We are about half way through the oil, unfortunately it's the cheap half. Same with coal - we have gotten most of the anthracite - working our way down in quality to lignite. Gas has probably got about 20 years to peak.
    It used not be economically worth while to burn natural gas - it was just burnt off as a flare. Now it is our cheapest source of energy. Eventually it too will fade.
  • nullity, on 01/09/2008, -0/+1Prior art: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthesis
  • YevS, on 01/08/2008, -0/+1We are not talking about 1 solution, this is just to help things along... We dont have to fix all energy needs at once.
  • egonSchiele, on 01/07/2008, -1/+2wtf
  • Logicexe, on 01/07/2008, -0/+1We'd probably need to do that anyway seeing as how it would probably be impossible to supply current needs for gasoline with this method alone. Of course it doesn't really need to, the whole thing about alternative power is not to find one magic bullet, it's more like a magic buckshot.
  • YevS, on 01/08/2008, -0/+1Algie is a good idea, but doesent actually help the problem they are trying to fix... Which is make existing plants more efficient.
  • bono4u, on 01/09/2008, -0/+1well the nature of corporations is not human health it is making money.
  • YevS, on 01/08/2008, -0/+1If you go by law of Thermodynamics you will soon realise that you cannot convert 1 fuel into another fuel without losing energy along the way.

    The reason this is useful is that it takes CO2 that is produced by plants and further recycles it instead of wasting it... This is NOT about replacing fuels, this is about recycling plants CO2.
  • Logicexe, on 01/07/2008, -0/+1Or at the very least an environmentally friendly way to have electric-gas hybrids that only use their ICE to generate electricity when the batteries get low.
  • YevS, on 01/08/2008, -0/+1You're missing the point. It's cheaper to put this at existing plants than build new plants.
  • YevS, on 01/08/2008, -0/+1You may be suprised to find out that this does it more efficiently than plants.
  • YevS, on 01/08/2008, -0/+1You do relalise that all hybrids do is conserve wasted energy prodused by the motor? The main fuel is still petrol. Hybrids today get less MPG than diesels...
  • SpaceDreamer, on 02/20/2008, -0/+1Someone just submitted this to the patent office:
    " an apparatus with water-absorbing roots, CO2 and sunlight energy absorbing leafs, for production of combustible hydrocarbon matter "
  • init100, on 01/07/2008, -0/+1What is the efficiency of this system? What is the efficiency of this system combined with the seriously inefficient gasoline ICE? If the gasoline ICE could be replaced by a fuel cell using gasoline as fuel, could the efficiency be boosted by any significant factor? Is a gasoline-fueled fuel cell even possible?

    The reason why this could be useful is because gasoline is an excellent energy storage medium. A lot of energy is stored in a small volume. Higher efficiency in the car (meaning longer range on a single tank) coupled with green generation of gasoline could be an interesting solution.
  • vikingcoder, on 01/07/2008, -0/+1That's been known for over 80 years. It's called Fischer-Tropsch Synthesis.

    http://www.rgu.ac.uk/eng/cpi/page.cfm?pge=5332
    http://www.chemlin.de/news/dez05/fischer-tropsch-s ...
  • YevS, on 01/08/2008, -0/+1This is more efficient than trees....
  • haid, on 01/07/2008, -0/+1The math is way off on this one... "The Sandia team envisions a day when CR5s are installed in large numbers at coal-fired power plants. Each of them could reclaim 45 pounds of carbon dioxide from the air daily and produce enough carbon monoxide to make 2.5 gallons of fuel."
    According to the EPA the average 2 person household generates 2,020 pounds of emissions per year. According to my calculations, that means that each coal fired power plant could reclaim the emissions to account for 17 people.
  • ProgressBar, on 01/07/2008, -0/+1At first, I thought the same thing. But I think they mean 45 lbs per CR5 unit. If the devices are made small and affordable you could install many of them at each plant. However...

    45 lbs / day = 16,425 lbs / yr. @ 2,020 lbs household / yr that's 8.13 households per CR5 unit.
    Number of US households in 2000 (US Census) was approximately 105 million. (and MANY are generating more than 2,020 lbs/yr)

    We would need over 12.9 million CR5 units... does seem like a futile effort when you put it that way.

  • YevS, on 01/08/2008, -0/+1I think you're underestimating how fast drilling technology is developing when being funded by all the oil companies of the world
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