According to him, they will create a methane with an efficiency of 20-30% and then we burn that methane we will get only 30% (at best) heat which is used and rest are losses. So doing basic math this comes down to Solar generating energy (100) converted to methane (30) converted to useful energy which is a meager 9 points AT BEST. So you are losing 91% of the energy in this process just because you do not want to switch to other means of consuming energy (e.g. electricity directly). Makes NO SENSE to me.
Some things don’t work with electricity. For example, glass production or when you need power far from civilization. I agree with you for cars or heating a home, it does make sense.
The natural gas is primarily for processes that require it and cannot be electrified. Lots of critical industrial processes require chemical feedstock that is currently fed by fossil fuels. Also something like aviation will likely remain chemical-powered barring massive improvements in technology. If someone wants to waste (what will arguably be a more precious resource than electricity at that point) by burning it to drive a car instead, that is on them.
If the fuel produced can be sold competitively at least ten times more than the cost of the solar, who cares about energy efficiency? The thing will print money.
The reason they are doing this, is because at peak hours the solar engery delivered in a renawble grid is more than collective consumer can utilize. This risks to overload the grid and results in negative electricity price to motivate industrial consumers to raise their demand and match the offering. Now if you have a spot mechanism that can be turned on to consume when the prices become negative with over supply of electricity, like lets say produce synthetic fuels and resell them for a profit when electricity becomes scarce again (night, winter, elsewhere on the globe), you can leverage negative electricity price and resell prices to turn a profit and help balance the grid. Its essentially the same a battery would do but with fuel that can be stored and moved and used as you like and in the form (chemical, thermal, electircal) you like.
I think it will be usefull for some niches applications, like some industrial processes or maybe big machinery in far away region. But not in your car/bus/truck nor for heating/cooling your home.
I’m an energy researcher - to me his economics don’t add up: The US Natural Gas 'well price' (aka Henry Hub) is the world's cheapest at ~$3/MMBTU… or ~$10/MWhr. Even *IF* you could get PV at $10/MWhr, at his 30% efficient process to convert the building blocks back into CH4, you’d need energy at $10kWhr/30%= ~$3.3/kWh electricity. Perhaps the reactor doesn’t need energy, but the material (element) inputs are NOT free, either: Current CO2 ‘direct air-capture’ (DAC) is ~$1/kg, and electrolysis H2 production is ~$5/kg Even assuming “dream scenarios” of CO2 DAC @ $0.2/kg and H2 @ $2/kg…. results in CH4 material costs ~$10/kg. For reference, the above Henry Hub well price of Nat Gas is equivalent to ~$0.14/kg per natural gas… 2 orders of magnitude lower! Furthermore, a couple other slight-of-hands in his pitch: (1) He only showed a very ‘particular’ solar prediction using ‘Class 1’ landscape (ie, the best/hottest deserts in the world) and only the “advanced innovations” scenarios (aka science Hail Mary breakthroughs), not the other standard projections. Secondly, to get low cost electrolysis Hydrogen production requires very high ‘capacity factor’ (% of hours in a day)… requiring >90% for good economics. Solar can reach 20~25% but requires mechanical tracking to do so (thus, moving parts). So to get solar >90% capacity factor requires either storage/battery backup or grid-connections to achieve… greatly increasing the cost beyond the scenarios he shares. I truly want them to win. And cold-fusion. And the stuff I work on. And another 100x Cleantech breakthroughs… the world does indeed need them. It’s just that energy economics are truly *brutal*… and we need to be HONEST about what it takes. “Hot air” has gotten us into this climate crisis… more of it isn’t going to get us out! ;)
My question to him is, if solar becomes extremely cheap, why not just use the energy directly rather than jumping through all these hoops to make gas, which will then be burnt and used at 25% efficiency in many cases, making the whole exercise pointless. The most efficient use of natural gas is for heating homes and water, being up to 96% efficient, but if energy is basically free, why not just use resistive heating, or better yet, heat pumps?
@@xeridea For some things you need the specific energy density of synthetic fuels over batteries. It is simply not possible to make batteries light and energy dense enough for commercial airplanes. Or even Rocket Fuel for that matter.
@@xeridea Yes, agree this is a good point. Here's my 2 cents: Our *current* Nat Gas (from the ground) is indeed $10/MWhr for industrial customers and is between for homes and commercial building is between $35~$50/MWh. However, at the home, electricity costs are generally $100~$150/MWhr. So even tho electric water heating is close to 100% efficient, it is *cheaper* for many home/commercial customers to heat with gas. Especially so for Industrial applications (which often need very high temperatures). Likewise, for grid operators, when solar resource drops down, it's cheaper to ramp-up Nat Gas "peaker" plants to fill in the nighttime gap and/or variability. To his defense, I think there *are* many markets which need an energy-dense "fuel" which can store energy to bun at any time... and creating Syngas, Ammonia, H2 for these reasons has merit. And I since went to his website, and he's cleverly able to skip some overhead Capex b/c of his direct usage... I'm just curious about his economic claims given he requires "dream scenarios" of (1) PV, (2) carbon direct-air capture *AND* (3) H2 electrolysis to accomplish it. I definitely DO wish him luck and all the best!!
9:22 I think if everybody was motivated by this cause and works toward a solution to the biggest problems on earth, the way that our grandparents worked to solve the big problems of their time (like WW 1&2), we as a society would progress a lot faster towards a higher stage of civilisation. It is only when mankind stands united, that we achieve the impossible. So go wander into the world with the intention of making it a better place.
We just did it with COVID. If only the world could cooperate on climate change the same way. By the time the same immediacy as that of a global pandemic becomes apparent it will be far too late.
Using this we would only transform 20% of the solar energy captured into vehicle motion. If you use a battery then at least 90% of the solar energy is transformed into vehicle motion. The way this makes sense is for long term energy storage to offset seasonal variations in solar energy capture, however, even then, there are far more efficient promising options being developed like iron air batteries, direct hydrogen storage, compressed air storage. This is simply green washing of ice vehicles, suggesting you don't need an EV as tech like this makes an ice car part of a cyclic system, when in reality this is to just prolong a market for fossil fuels.
There are some applications mentioned that could make sense. Like rockets and commercial airliners. Combustion will be required for those for sometime to come (especially rockets). However, we'd still need such a surplus in solar energy generation that it'd make more financial sense to created these fuels rather than extract them. I'd like to understand more of the economics of this guys thesis.
@@chZubka There are certain industries that will always require fossil fuels, but there will always be cheaper methods of obtaining them. We can electrify perhaps 95%. Perhaps this tech would be useful in the year 2070 or something.
you are too indoctrinated, 10% is lost just to charge the battery, another 10 on average is lost at discharge (less with a new battery and more with old batteries, in cold weather or at high discharge rate), and then just 85% of that is transformed into mechanical energy (according to Tesla) so, just about 70% of the energy at the charging point gets to the wheels. But you said that from the solar energy meaning the energy produced by the solar panel. To reach the car the energy nust be converted from DC to AC then to HVAC then again to low voltage AC then to DC again at the charger. All these conversions and the transport lines have losses so the loss is at the minimum another 20% so in fact the energy that is transformed into vehicle motion is around 50% which is only a little better than a diesel. Besides that there is another source of loss due to the fact that the solar energy is intermittent and most of the cars are charged overnight. So, if you want to use solar energy during the night you need a grid storage meaning batteries or pumped storage. Both of them lose around 30% of the energy which makes the final efficiency around 35% which is comparable to a gasoline engine and inferior to newest diesel engines. On the other hand all that matters are the money not the energy. With the money you can put a solar field in uk or germany or canada and the money needed for grid storage and the money needed to recycle the batteries one can put a much larger solar array in sahara for instance without grid storage. Also due to the fact that there the sun is much stronger the production per panel is about 3x more so , even if there are losses in the production of the fuel the total energy produced by the panels can be around 5-6x or more greater than in uk for instance for the same money (because you don't waste money on grid storage so you can put more panels and the wages are smaller in Africa and there are less technical problems due to corrosion, hail and so on) resulting in about the same energy at the end without the need of batteries and without the variation summer-winter that increases the losses.
At first, I was like "This guy is just repeating the same old talking points 🙄". Then he started discussing his tech and that caught my ears. Very interesting 🤔
@@DesignForAdventure I went and watched it. That is a HORRIBLE interview. I also wish I could have earned $100 for each time he invoked "Elon Musk" 🙄. Short interviews works to his advantage right now.
@@NS-km7ek ruclips.net/video/i5SqwSU8ns4/видео.html ruclips.net/video/GzjpmmtGBqU/видео.html But if to answer question. 1L Diesel has 11kWh, here was mentioned 20-30% efficiency. meaning within the same energy, you would get 200-300mL of Diesel.
Fresh water is the big issues. It is becoming increasingly scarce around the world as our population and industry grows. This increasing shortage is going to create societal instability. Both the hydrogen economy and this tech depend on fresh water currently as the technology is not available to create sustainable, economic hydrogen from brackish / salt water due to the corrosive nature of the salts in this type of water on the catalyst that split the water into hydrogen an oxygen. I think we may see effective battery tech long before a solution is created.
The More Steps You Add, The More Efficiency You Lose In A System... The world runs on (jumbo jets and cargo ships) and they need heavy fuel. A better way is to make fuel from sunlight, which can be done using plants, like seaweed biofuel. And throw the plant residue back, so it doesn't lose the fertility of the coast. (don't be too greedy )
Maybe the efficiency of using hydrocarbons could be dramatically improved if they used fuel cells made specifically for hydrocarbons? Another option is combustion by a "light engine". They could be upto around 80% efficient: The fuel heats up a gas that emits only one frequency, then the energy is captured by photovoltaic cells that are optimized for that frequency and the efficiency is much much higher than regular solar cells.
What you are discribing is called SOFC "SolidOxideFuelCell". It can produce electricity from carbon monoxide and hydrogen, also called syngas, which ist produced my the partly burning of the hydrocarbons. Problem ist, they need to run at about 700-800 °C, which is problematic for seals, due to the different thermal expantion of the materials used.
wind turbines are much more efficient. If you cover the desserts with solar plants, you still end up with a huge infrastructure problem to bring the energy to where it is needed. I think they only want to sell a good story whithout considering the cons... Conversion also makes no sense due to the low efficiency. Industry has to switch. Only the parts that require it might need a system like this. But keep in mind, that this tech is not unique and that there are other companies as well doing exactly that which are already on the market. Hence, the idea is far from new and in most of the cases it is also not advisable to do it. To focus on solar is questionable as well. They treat the topic like it is the only renewable energy out there.
Deserts won't be covered in PV panels for the exact reason you mention; transmission expense. PV panels can go *anywhere*. Rooftops, over old coal mines & landfills, over parking lots (Google "solar carport") and other places closer to where the electricity will be used. You are also correct that the fuel produced by this process will always be too expensive for almost all ground transportation, which will be 99+% battery electric. Synthetic fuels will be used exclusively by rockets and maybe airplanes.
Good on him for pointing out the efficiency, but it begs the question, why go through all the effort of making gas at 30% efficiency, and high cost, then burning it at 25-40% efficiency, giving about 7-12% of the energy back, when you could just use the energy directly. Fuel stoves are much less efficient because most the heat goes around the pan instead if into it. This would give cars about 10% efficiency vs like 80-90% for electric. Heating your house would make no sense, requiring 10x the energy, not even counting heat pumps. The only potential use is for energy storage, but then, it is significantly worse than even hydrogen, which has a horrible round trip efficiency, IIRC about 25%, but that is much better than 10%. I think battery, and thermal energy storage make much more sense. This is an interesting idea, but it requires 100% of the energy grid to be beyond dirt cheap on solar, which we are no where even close, and no other good options, which there are plenty. I am 100% for solar, wind, hydro, and nuclear, but don't buy too much into these hype ideas that make little to no sense on paper. Hydrogen will never become mainstream, and this, though interesting, has little chance of taking off at scale.
Hydrogen storage is horrible, from many perspective. I really like his blog, but the question really arises, if you need that, when batteries are ridiculously inexpensive.
@@johndaugherty4127 Throwing it away by losing 70% in inefficiencies to use it as a fuel that also loses another 70% in inefficiencies, is pretty dumb. Even more considering charging batteries is almost 90% efficient.
You are right. His point is a more economic one, if one can get the price of 'solar' methane down to below market price, then one could just participate at the market and earn money. At the same time, it would displace fossil methane from the market, which would be a win. I think it can only be part of the solution, but we have places where it is very, very difficult to replace liquid fuels like in aviation, there it could be a useful alternative.
The end consumer will definitely notice because it's much more expensive to run a gas burner on synthetic fuel than to simply use the electricity directly. Synthetic fuels have a future in aviation, orbital rockets and hard to decarbonize industries. But it makes no sense to cook and heat your home with synthetic fuels.
Interesting points. The problem with e-fuels: a) They're inefficient to produce and inefficient to burn for fuel if again using in internal combustion b) Still pollute our city air carcinogenic toxic emissions: NOx, SOx, CO, particulate matter (PM2.5) and other volatile hydrocarbons. It's a major part of the sickly yellow-brown smog that hangs over all the major urban centers of our planet. Go visit some dense Asian cities for a face full of the stuff all day long. c) Although e-fuels will be net-zero carbon, we actually need to *reduce* the carbon in our atmosphere so net-zero may *not* provide sufficient ramp down since the carbon crisis is dire. Specifically for natural gas methane (CH4), it exists as a light-weight gas that absolutely wants to escape any vessel its contained in. CH4 has 80X the greenhouse effects as CO2! Methane leaks everywhere during production and transportation. It's called the "fugitive emissions" problem. One overlooked grid-scale storage solution is thermal storage: Use large, enclosed volumes of ceramic blocks and use embedded electric heaters to heat the ceramic up with solar, wind and other non-fossil fuel energy. Ceramic blocks are cheap as chips and easy to make. The heat can be used directly in industrial applications (steel, concrete) and it can be turned back to electricity using good old steam turbine technology as needed.
Also: The emissions problem can be overstated. Its maybe possible that e-fuels market can be created, but a consumer will have a great of trouble trying to register his/her e-fuel vehicle. Emission standards are getting more strict, not less strict. It's amazing really that we've let it go on as long as it has. Because internal combustion pollution is traced to respiratory illnesses, cancer and even dementia through nano-sized particulate emissions of unburnt fuel and metal shavings being found in the prefrontal cortex of urban people and their pet dogs too.
Unfathomably equator-centric takes :D Our world is one of extreme gradients. In Northern latitudes, annual sunshine hours drop off steeply, while heating requirements go up. Synthetic fuels would for the first time unlock indefinite / seasonal energy storage, which is the make-and-break topic for sustainable living and stability.
Just because a concept is compelling, doesn't mean that all competition should be eliminated. Batteries have their place, and synthetic fuel likely has a place (at least for 50 years or so) used in heavy machinery, aircraft and perhaps space vehicles. Eventually, I expect even materials such as thorium may be synthesised. Think of electrons as small centrifuges that store power, with more electrons using larger diameter spheres for their spin determining power stored. We're part way there with synthetic hydrocarbons. Look beyond, and then look even further!
Love the idea but am I missing something? Regardless of how you make methane, is burning it still not producing CO2 into the atmosphere despite taking it from the atmosphere to start with? I am not sure how this helps the big picture.
First, leaving the fossil fuels in the ground. Second, carbon neutral, as mentioned before. Third, it still has carbon in the system when it comes to building solar panels. Overall, this would help because what he is talking about is investing in a system that would last longer than a fossil fuel platform.
Co2 is a miracle chemical compound, just like water, that allows life to exist. 95% of its emission are made by nature, but the are captured back, so there is a natural cycle. And people are now brainwashed so badly (repeating phrases without actual understanding how it all works and why co2 is problematic) they think it's some kind of poison that needs to be eradicated. The Earth would become dead if that happens. Humanity should join that natural cycle and balance it instead of demonizing things all the time.
@@grimaffiliations3671 I guess, and it would also suck up co2 from the atmosphere. But I wonder how much energy it takes to get to liquid fuel(gasoline/kerosene) from methane and how clean that process is for emissions reasons. Also is there any other substances required for the chemical conversion
Lazard’s Levelized Cost of Energy does not include externalities such as grid update and energy storage. In reality PV panels are significantly more expensive than what is said in this documentary.
But keep in mind the grid is *shared* resource. It's used by other energy generators like fossil, nuclear, hydro, etc. So you can't pile on grid expense solely on solar. Note though residential and commercial rooftop solar _can_ bypass the grid! Those rooftop watts are both generated and used locally in situ. No other energy production can really do that effectively as urban solar with its quiet solid-state electronics. And, yes, storage is separate. That's why there's a separate measure for LCOS. So we'll eventually will need to consider both levelized cost of energy (LCOE) and levelized cost of storage (LCOS). But both are heading down dramatically. New forms of non-lithium based storage made specific for stationary grid-scale energy storage is coming up. They'll be fractions the cost of lithium several times the longevity too while using more common materials.
@@beyondfossil all the grid necessary for nuclear is already installed. Renewables require onerous new installations. The person speaking in the film was making a spurious comparison with nuclear energy, suggesting that it was more expensive. But if you include externalities from renewables and calculate the cost of energy throughout their entire lifecycle (not 20 years as Lazard does) the result is very different.
@@salahidin The entire world uses a some 620-exajoules of energy and only some 100-exajoules of it is electricity. Can quickly see the grid needs to be expanded to offset this huge amount of fossil fuels in use. Extremely slow to build and expensive nuclear will barely put a dent in that amount. You cannot just construct nuclear anywhere. Operation of utility-scale nuclear power plants requires large amounts of water (millions of gallons a day at up to 2700 L/MWh electricity production). Most people don't want to be within a hundred miles of one. You get NIMBY to the extreme with nuclear power construction. Even considering externalities, commercial nuclear power still stupidly expensive. It will also still be woefully inadequate with extremely upfront high capital cost all while producing 0 watts while construction takes 5 to 15+ years. Investors hate that. But renewables can be built in fractions of the time and power comes on incrementally as they're being built. Much less risky investment. According to UN IPCC, the next 10- to 20-years will be critical to mitigate the worst effects of climate change. Yet it takes that amount of time to online a single utility-scale commercial nuclear power plant. If commercial nuclear power didn't fail us so badly, we wouldn't be so far down the climate change hole as we are now. Now something much bigger, faster, cheap to pick up the huge slack where nuclear failed. Nuclear power is a fantasy that never lived up to its promises in the 1950's with electricity "too cheap to meter". It is cool tech but it's clearly the wrong tool for the job of grid power: too slow, too small in collective scale, and too expensive. Nuclear is important for smaller-scale endeavors where it excels: military, scientific, nuclear medicine and eventually deep-space exploration. Those are important fields too but, for the grid, commercial nuclear is simply the wrong tool for the job. That's just some of the unique problems with commercial nuclear.
@@salahidin The entire world uses a some 620-exajoules of energy per year and only some 100-exajoules of it is electricity. Can quickly see the grid needs to be expanded to offset this huge amount of fossil fuels in use. Extremely slow to build and expensive nuclear will barely put a dent in that amount. You cannot just construct nuclear anywhere. Operation of utility-scale nuclear power plants requires large amounts of water (millions of gallons a day at up to 2700 L/MWh electricity production). Most people don't want to be within a hundred miles of one. You get NIMBY to the extreme with nuclear power construction.
Sure, the comparison looks bad if the plan was to make methane and then burn that to create grid electricity. But the entire point of this venture is that you don't NEED a grid because the output is energy storage for non-electrified applications.
Methane, synthetic or not, is a greenhouse gas more significant than straight CO2. Creating methane when it's readily available is unnecessary. Methane is currently produced and expelled as a waste product in some cases. This is not the right way. Hydrogen by itself is a great energy product, although it can also have its own issues. Figure something else out to replace methane.
Burning methane from crust adds more carbon to atmosphere disbalancing the natural cycle of co2. Methane made form air does not do it, unless you leak it all instead of burning it.
Reserve fossil fuels for the heavy machinery. That's my 2 cents. Expand every city and home with each geographically viable energy source. Wind or Water turbine. Solar. Whatever the individual can come up with.
Maybe fossil fuels for heavy machinery for a little while during a 100% wind, water, solar energy transition, but look at the research by Mark Jacobson and it is clear we can get there for all power needs including heavy machinery before 2050, if we act soon and decisively. No Miracles Needed is the book.
Dear, you are educated and intelligent people, stay away from promotion, marketing and propaganda under the pretext of “no moving parts”. Because it has become known to everyone that what consumer companies call “moving parts” are the best, most efficient, most effective and reliable methods.
that wouldn't solve the problem of gas leaks like methane. So it's not really an option since it would probably still emit more CO2 equivalent than it takes out of the atmosphere :)
As stated, there are losses in the cycle. That means carbon that isn't being converted into fuel, which leads to cleaner fuels, and less net carbon in the air. Essentially it's built-in carbon sequestering.
A few things, I respect the centering of the global poor and lifting them out of poverty as the goal and not powering AI servers for the west. Two, electrolysis already exists and because methane is dense and transportable, people are looking at geothermal as the energy source for wide spread green natural gas. Natural gas from solar isn’t that viable. The low hanging fruit with powering industrial processes is to generate heat. This can be more efficiently generated via solar thermal and refrigerants located in close proximity to the energy source. The bigger issues I see is that economics is driving co location of industrial processes not environmental conditions. Example, clothing manufacturing in SE Asia because of cheaper labor as opposed to locating it in Jordan and creating the polyurethane via solar heating. That’s not the best example but the point is the wrong metrics are being used to justify building manufacturing “zones.”
Imagine turning 1/7 (he says this as if it is an insignifcant fraction, lol) of vast deserts, including the Sahara, Great Australian, etc., into solar fields, eviscerating these natural landscapes. There are no, or very few, roads that traverse these expanses. Even extracting and combusting bigenous, sedimental carbonized remains to produce energy seems more appealing.
I like your vision, butttt, as long as there are jobs that need manual labor such as maids and sewer disposal cleaners there are going to be poor people that have to do them. The rich people will just raise the price of everything that you need to live so that sooner or later somebody will be down in the sewer working. Kinda like the oil companies raising the price of gas now by shutting off the drilling rigs. If you've been watching, the rig count is down for the second month because the price of oil is down. They need more of your money! That is why JD Vance is crying about being forced to buy an EV. To make you say, NO! I have to have gas! More GAS NOW!!! But it's a lie! The gov't isn't going to force you to buy an EV anytime soon. The oil company will just raise the price and everybody's happy. No money for extras but happy.
Definitely not a good argument for ICE powered cars - get a BEV! But for all the ways we use methane today (home & water heaters, stoves, industrial processes), we may more quickly move towards carbon neutral via this approach compared to electrifying all those end-use devices. We'd need infrastructure to move the methane from the solar farms, but that may be less costly than the upgrades to the grid we'd need to move electricity. We could also used PV-produced methane (or even better hydrogen) as a feedstock for fertilizer production.
In the bigger picture, this is a form of civilization building. The technology is not the limiting factor. Irrational and parasitic behaviors, increasing cost of living via the need for security is a drain on the efficiency that is otherwise possible. The solution is a radical intermingling of cultures and geographies such that factions do not develop, evolutionary forces which would result in specialization, do not take hold and cause division. This is a monumental challenge because of differences in traditions, religions, and perceptions. Financial incentives alone, are not sufficient to spur necessary changes because not all efforts are profitable even when significant benefits could result. An example would be a cure for an exceedingly rare condition that would cost far more than the returns. So there needs to be a broader umbrella to cover such situations. Apologies for the highly philosophical comment, I'm trying to look at the big picture here.
@OP: The vid's overview could have been phrased better to make it clear that they were talking about the potential roles this new technology could be used for ... it was NOT presented as THE final solution to the fossil fuels crisis. It was presented as an idea/option for using surplus solar (that exceed local demand and storage capacity) to generate fuel instead of reducing output (aka downthrottling ... which is functionally the same as throwing that unusable renewable surplus energy capacity away.) That would enable any/all solar installations to continue outputting at 100% even if it exceeded demand and if their storage capacity was full (or non existant). It could also be adapted as a bolt on option for other types of renewable power plants to eliminate their need to throttle down their output (to match demand) if the surplus exceeded local storage needs. This is something that only makes sense in conjunction with a renewable power source that outputs more power than current local demand and storage can handle - so instead of throttling down, they generate useful methane.
Freethink don't think so much.... ENERGY DON'T must be categorize by NON renewable and renewable BUT in 3 parts: 1) Polluting fossil fuel ones 2) clean and green And maybe this 2) further in 2a) nuclear, clean but not renewable, natural 2b) renewable, natural
7:30 nope, it doesn't mean that as they are not the reverse reaction of each other. Efficiency of a combustion engine is 30 percent because of its cold and hot temperature difference. Ideally it is possible to get equal amount of energy converted to fuel!
I'm usually onboard with topics about which Freethink creates content. However, this isn't one of those cases. The opportunity cost of not using 100% of the primary energy generated via solar to decarbonize electrical grids is simply a cost that we cannot afford; nor the delay doing so would induce. Taking 1 Joule of solar energy to create 0.3 Joules of chemical energy, then burn that fuel to yield 0.09 Joules of work is about the worst well-to-wheel proposition ever! On top of that, you get the all of the greenhouse gas emissions associated with methane: fugitive methane, plus CO₂ from combustion, albeit in a circular/renewable process. Now, if the use cases are strictly focused on hard(er) to abate sectors such as marine transport and aviation, then synthetic fuels are far superior to fossil fuels. The issue is whether the volume is there to achieve a price advantage. Because, unless and until synthetic fuels are less expensive than their fossil equivalents, industry will simply continue burning fossils. Air-to-fuels is, at best, a transitory step in decarbonizing those industries.
What are ALL of the byproducts of burning the fuel you are making? i.e. Would it deplete water, air, carbon, hydrogen, etc. from the atmosphere and water bodies at all and if so, at what rate? Would any of the byproducts be detrimental to life?
Its a closed loop cycle. Creating the natural gas takes in water (H2O) and Carbon Dioxide (CO2). The output is Methane (CH4) and Oxygen (O2): (2)H2O + CO2 -> 4H + C + (2)O2 -> CH4 + (2)O2 Burning the natural gas is that kinda in reverse: CH4 + (2)O2 -> CO2 + (2)H2O There aren't really any byproducts and we aren't using up any physical resource (unless you want to add in the manufacturing of these factories)
I guess putting solar on every new home and every new home is mono pitch roof with every square foot covered in solar tied to micro-grid is out of the question. Solar panels generate energy and shade the roof/home reducing heat signature/heat sink characteristics making home easier to cool in summer
Finaly got realise where all this tehnology leads. Didnt understand before but now i am suporting all New tehnolog es. Lets take iniverse for us like we take and concuer New continents. Lets find onother world and expend
I like the ambitious of the late great Nikola Tesla and his wireless free energy device called the Wardenclyffe Tower. He was brilliant and it's easy to think he no clue what he was talking about, but he did invent radar, x-ray and AC electricity which we all use today. So maybe he wasn't so bad after all.
Love the Premise, but Disagree with the Primary Energy choice. I am guessing Nuclear has a better EROI than Solar PV, and also produces Heat which would result in higher overall conversion efficiencies in synthetic fuel production.
" I am guessing Nuclear has a better EROI than Solar PV ...." You are mistaken; solar PV has better EROI both in terms of energy invested and in terms of money invested.
@@calamityjean1525 Your statement is partially incorrect. According to every article I’ve seen written on the subject, Solar PV has the worst EROI when compared to all other commercial alternatives. According to Wikipedia, Nuclear has an EROI around 100. Whereas, Solar PV is around 10. The LCOE of Solar PV is currently cheaper, but this is due to Regulations and Subsidies, and not fundamental Physics and Economics.
the solar adoption forecast will be 99% wrong, if only because we have a fair amount of nuclear and hydro plants that would be a shame to tear down, and we are building a significant number of wind farms that complement solar very well... Most studies show that the best way is a combination of different types of production + energy storage... As for synthetic fuels, the device itself would have to be cheap enough to be worth running for just a few hours a day when the "waste" electricity from the solar panels is available... I don't see a way to achieve that, but I'm happy to I'll let you be surprised... fingers crossed...
Humans has pushed through many social / tech challenges - often the process is very painful - that has progressed society forward - slavery - 8 hr day / 40 hr week - women's rights (ongoing) - child labour - just energy transition (in the process) - extreme exploitation of nature & animals for food & resources (next) The human species is inter dependent with each other awa nature, we ALL need to achieve quality of life and to thrive... irrespective of financial wealth... ... please can someone invent the Star Trek replicator already!
This setup is good on mars for making fuel but on earth it economically make no sense. DAC and green hydrogen both are very energy intensive process and they are also very expensive. His model is great it would definitely do work but the final product will be multiple times expensive than the conventional fuels. So right now this project makes no sense financially.
The problem here is twofold: 1) How cheap is solar without Chinese government subsidies? China isn’t exactly transparent and, rightly or wrongly, Western governments are accusing them of dumping. 2) How is direct air capture going to work? Carbon Dioxide makes up ~0.04% of air. The minuscule change that humans have accomplished by burning fossil fuels is enough to cause problems, but as a matter of separating gases that’s not an easy task.
Regarding your point #2: You are right, Direct Air Capture (DAC) is difficult and expensive. The ocean converts dissolved CO2 into carbonates and bicarbonates, which the US Naval Research Laboratory has discovered can be extracted from seawater much more economically than DAC. I suspect that to the limited extent the process described in the video is used, it will be confined to near seacoasts to take advantage of the natural CO2 capturing by the ocean.
When we do, and will switch over to electrification, there will always be a use for fossil products in some instances. The fossil fuel industry will crash and sustaining long distance pipelines might not be possible. It then might be cheaper to produce synthetic fuel and its products where it is locally needed. ruclips.net/video/l3db6te6Z0E/видео.html
You list Biomass as renewable. That is coming under increasing scrutiny. It is not as renewable as we have been led to believe. Specifically woodchips.
This case is different, rather than pulling geologically stored CO2 up from Wells, this scenario would be effectively recycling the CO2 currently in the Atmosphere. To reverse the last 200 years of damage, we would have to pull and geologically rebury surplus CO2.
Maybe I missed something, but I didn't hear why the world needs this fuel. Why not just store the solar energy from the sun in a battery at a much greater efficiency than converting that solar energy into a fuel. Maybe dedicate your talents to creating a better battery, or a better solar panel. Opportunity cost, and all that.
We're deploying solar wrong. If 70 - 80% people will be living in cities by 2050'ish then solar should be deployed there, not clear cutting swaths of pristine wilderness so energy can be generated in the middle of nowhere, far from where it's needed. Cities should be taking care of its hinterlands by exporting energy, not acting like a parasite on its surrounding areas. Cities need to take advantage of its geophysical assets to create interconnected local minigrids - making everything energy efficient, especially buildings (the less we need, the less we need to generate) - convert existing power stations to work on renewables to take advantage of existing transmission and distribution infrastructure - geothermal, wind (on & off shore) awa ocean power to provide non intermittent energy - solar (cheap but intermittent) - thermal recovery district heating awa industries requiring heat - energy storage (at grid & community scale, V2G) Lots of options becoming available, and more in the pipeline. A small city in India is already 100% powered by renewables, mostly solar Where there's a will, there's a way...
No issue with the points but he spoke like a guy in the 90’s in a nightclub that may have had too many party favours! Slow it down and less clipped if you want to be taken seriously!
What id the % of efficiency? 30%? 😂 Nah, not even close... Its probably like 20% efficient, and then you are burning that fuel again for a 30% efficiency... So a final efficiency of 7%, not even considering loses from PV to consumer. It doesnt make any sense if you compare it to a battery that charges fast and has an edficiency of like 80% or more.
Fake news/ misinfo. Solar plus needed storage or conversion to useful synthetic fuels is still way more expensive. I'm a chemical engineer and this guy is full of crap
Those are pretty easy problems to solve, and I'm not even a chemical engineer. Storage problems? For what? Methane? We already solved that, we do it every day - simply pipe it away to storage facilities. For electricity? Why, when the electricity is going straight into producing methane? Conversion to other fuels is expensive? Good thing we are already phasing out those types of fuels for electricity. As the demand for those fuels fall the demand for synthetic fuels will fall too. The price of methane will fall due to its abundance, and subsequent chemical processes will become cheaper by default. The only fuel that is not in danger of being replaced by electricity at this point is rocket fuel, but it already uses methane as part of its production process, will be cheaper due to cheaper methane prices. So no, there is definitely promise in this idea, especially when supplemented with other sources like nuclear. But in the end, what price is too high for saving the planet? We have to be willing to make sacrifices if we want to survive.
@@gloriouslumi You have no idea what you're talking about. None of the options are economic or within reach of being economic with any current solution or plausible solutions. If you adopt energy that is much more expensive then you destroy our economic system.
@@gloriouslumi just because something is possible doesn't mean that it will be economically viable. Yes, economies of scale can make the price go down, although that takes significant investments, innovation and time.
Has solar gotten cheaper? Or are there a lot of government tax credits and incentives that have gone into solar? Redistributing the cost is not the same as lowering the cost.
Blame the u.s. putting tariffs on solar power manufactured by China isn't a w'ar mon'goring nation. The US is if so the how many wars the US has been compared to China and such? That ar'gument doesn't add up
Nuclear is great and better than fossil fuel, sure, but you still need to store all that nuclear waste after it's been used by the reactor. Not to mention the cost to maintain and train people to run them, which isn't easy.
The LCOE figures of cost already include the capacity factors, and if your fuel production system is able run intermittently with the solar it is on-site with, then there is no firming cost. One would have to compare the cost of batteries vs the lost production of fuel due to downtime. And its not just 'sure it costs more' its horrendously expensive to build a new nuclear plant.
@@darkcrow42 so what if it isnt easy? If the pay is good people will just do it. Being a plumber isnt easy, but the pay is good so people do it. A man (or woman) will do what they need to so they can feed their family. If the ay is worth pursuing then they will study to get the qualifications for whatever nuclear management protocol there is
So let me get this straight: My man rails against nuclear and talks about how carbon emissions are destroying the planet. And his solution is…. More carbon emissions. What a joke.
According to him, they will create a methane with an efficiency of 20-30% and then we burn that methane we will get only 30% (at best) heat which is used and rest are losses. So doing basic math this comes down to Solar generating energy (100) converted to methane (30) converted to useful energy which is a meager 9 points AT BEST. So you are losing 91% of the energy in this process just because you do not want to switch to other means of consuming energy (e.g. electricity directly). Makes NO SENSE to me.
Some things don’t work with electricity. For example, glass production or when you need power far from civilization. I agree with you for cars or heating a home, it does make sense.
The natural gas is primarily for processes that require it and cannot be electrified. Lots of critical industrial processes require chemical feedstock that is currently fed by fossil fuels. Also something like aviation will likely remain chemical-powered barring massive improvements in technology.
If someone wants to waste (what will arguably be a more precious resource than electricity at that point) by burning it to drive a car instead, that is on them.
If the fuel produced can be sold competitively at least ten times more than the cost of the solar, who cares about energy efficiency? The thing will print money.
The reason they are doing this, is because at peak hours the solar engery delivered in a renawble grid is more than collective consumer can utilize. This risks to overload the grid and results in negative electricity price to motivate industrial consumers to raise their demand and match the offering. Now if you have a spot mechanism that can be turned on to consume when the prices become negative with over supply of electricity, like lets say produce synthetic fuels and resell them for a profit when electricity becomes scarce again (night, winter, elsewhere on the globe), you can leverage negative electricity price and resell prices to turn a profit and help balance the grid. Its essentially the same a battery would do but with fuel that can be stored and moved and used as you like and in the form (chemical, thermal, electircal) you like.
I think it will be usefull for some niches applications, like some industrial processes or maybe big machinery in far away region. But not in your car/bus/truck nor for heating/cooling your home.
I’m an energy researcher - to me his economics don’t add up: The US Natural Gas 'well price' (aka Henry Hub) is the world's cheapest at ~$3/MMBTU… or ~$10/MWhr. Even *IF* you could get PV at $10/MWhr, at his 30% efficient process to convert the building blocks back into CH4, you’d need energy at $10kWhr/30%= ~$3.3/kWh electricity.
Perhaps the reactor doesn’t need energy, but the material (element) inputs are NOT free, either:
Current CO2 ‘direct air-capture’ (DAC) is ~$1/kg, and electrolysis H2 production is ~$5/kg Even assuming “dream scenarios” of CO2 DAC @ $0.2/kg and H2 @ $2/kg…. results in CH4 material costs ~$10/kg. For reference, the above Henry Hub well price of Nat Gas is equivalent to ~$0.14/kg per natural gas… 2 orders of magnitude lower!
Furthermore, a couple other slight-of-hands in his pitch: (1) He only showed a very ‘particular’ solar prediction using ‘Class 1’ landscape (ie, the best/hottest deserts in the world) and only the “advanced innovations” scenarios (aka science Hail Mary breakthroughs), not the other standard projections. Secondly, to get low cost electrolysis Hydrogen production requires very high ‘capacity factor’ (% of hours in a day)… requiring >90% for good economics. Solar can reach 20~25% but requires mechanical tracking to do so (thus, moving parts). So to get solar >90% capacity factor requires either storage/battery backup or grid-connections to achieve… greatly increasing the cost beyond the scenarios he shares.
I truly want them to win. And cold-fusion. And the stuff I work on. And another 100x Cleantech breakthroughs… the world does indeed need them. It’s just that energy economics are truly *brutal*… and we need to be HONEST about what it takes. “Hot air” has gotten us into this climate crisis… more of it isn’t going to get us out! ;)
My question to him is, if solar becomes extremely cheap, why not just use the energy directly rather than jumping through all these hoops to make gas, which will then be burnt and used at 25% efficiency in many cases, making the whole exercise pointless. The most efficient use of natural gas is for heating homes and water, being up to 96% efficient, but if energy is basically free, why not just use resistive heating, or better yet, heat pumps?
@@xeridea Cause battery tech isn't sustainable yet.
@@xeridea For some things you need the specific energy density of synthetic fuels over batteries.
It is simply not possible to make batteries light and energy dense enough for commercial airplanes.
Or even Rocket Fuel for that matter.
very well put
@@xeridea Yes, agree this is a good point. Here's my 2 cents: Our *current* Nat Gas (from the ground) is indeed $10/MWhr for industrial customers and is between for homes and commercial building is between $35~$50/MWh. However, at the home, electricity costs are generally $100~$150/MWhr. So even tho electric water heating is close to 100% efficient, it is *cheaper* for many home/commercial customers to heat with gas. Especially so for Industrial applications (which often need very high temperatures). Likewise, for grid operators, when solar resource drops down, it's cheaper to ramp-up Nat Gas "peaker" plants to fill in the nighttime gap and/or variability.
To his defense, I think there *are* many markets which need an energy-dense "fuel" which can store energy to bun at any time... and creating Syngas, Ammonia, H2 for these reasons has merit. And I since went to his website, and he's cleverly able to skip some overhead Capex b/c of his direct usage... I'm just curious about his economic claims given he requires "dream scenarios" of (1) PV, (2) carbon direct-air capture *AND* (3) H2 electrolysis to accomplish it. I definitely DO wish him luck and all the best!!
We're big Freethink and Casey fans (check out our doc on his tech, some footage from it was used in this!)
Subbed!
9:22 I think if everybody was motivated by this cause and works toward a solution to the biggest problems on earth, the way that our grandparents worked to solve the big problems of their time (like WW 1&2), we as a society would progress a lot faster towards a higher stage of civilisation.
It is only when mankind stands united, that we achieve the impossible.
So go wander into the world with the intention of making it a better place.
We just did it with COVID. If only the world could cooperate on climate change the same way. By the time the same immediacy as that of a global pandemic becomes apparent it will be far too late.
If we could see the danger as clearly as they saw it, maybe. But we are watching videos.
Using this we would only transform 20% of the solar energy captured into vehicle motion. If you use a battery then at least 90% of the solar energy is transformed into vehicle motion. The way this makes sense is for long term energy storage to offset seasonal variations in solar energy capture, however, even then, there are far more efficient promising options being developed like iron air batteries, direct hydrogen storage, compressed air storage. This is simply green washing of ice vehicles, suggesting you don't need an EV as tech like this makes an ice car part of a cyclic system, when in reality this is to just prolong a market for fossil fuels.
There are some applications mentioned that could make sense. Like rockets and commercial airliners. Combustion will be required for those for sometime to come (especially rockets). However, we'd still need such a surplus in solar energy generation that it'd make more financial sense to created these fuels rather than extract them. I'd like to understand more of the economics of this guys thesis.
@@chZubka There are certain industries that will always require fossil fuels, but there will always be cheaper methods of obtaining them. We can electrify perhaps 95%. Perhaps this tech would be useful in the year 2070 or something.
20% is very generous. This is at best 30% efficient, times a generous 30% efficiency for ICE cars, giving 9% efficiency, which is downright awful.
you are too indoctrinated, 10% is lost just to charge the battery, another 10 on average is lost at discharge (less with a new battery and more with old batteries, in cold weather or at high discharge rate), and then just 85% of that is transformed into mechanical energy (according to Tesla) so, just about 70% of the energy at the charging point gets to the wheels. But you said that from the solar energy meaning the energy produced by the solar panel. To reach the car the energy nust be converted from DC to AC then to HVAC then again to low voltage AC then to DC again at the charger. All these conversions and the transport lines have losses so the loss is at the minimum another 20% so in fact the energy that is transformed into vehicle motion is around 50% which is only a little better than a diesel.
Besides that there is another source of loss due to the fact that the solar energy is intermittent and most of the cars are charged overnight. So, if you want to use solar energy during the night you need a grid storage meaning batteries or pumped storage. Both of them lose around 30% of the energy which makes the final efficiency around 35% which is comparable to a gasoline engine and inferior to newest diesel engines.
On the other hand all that matters are the money not the energy. With the money you can put a solar field in uk or germany or canada and the money needed for grid storage and the money needed to recycle the batteries one can put a much larger solar array in sahara for instance without grid storage. Also due to the fact that there the sun is much stronger the production per panel is about 3x more so , even if there are losses in the production of the fuel the total energy produced by the panels can be around 5-6x or more greater than in uk for instance for the same money (because you don't waste money on grid storage so you can put more panels and the wages are smaller in Africa and there are less technical problems due to corrosion, hail and so on) resulting in about the same energy at the end without the need of batteries and without the variation summer-winter that increases the losses.
At first, I was like "This guy is just repeating the same old talking points 🙄". Then he started discussing his tech and that caught my ears. Very interesting 🤔
There is a Chanel called “S3” that did a longer interview with this guy at his shop and its fascinating . Definitely worth the watch
Did you happen to catch how much energy does it take to make a hydrocarbon in that magical reactor?
@@DesignForAdventure I went and watched it. That is a HORRIBLE interview. I also wish I could have earned $100 for each time he invoked "Elon Musk" 🙄. Short interviews works to his advantage right now.
@@NS-km7ek
ruclips.net/video/i5SqwSU8ns4/видео.html
ruclips.net/video/GzjpmmtGBqU/видео.html
But if to answer question.
1L Diesel has 11kWh, here was mentioned 20-30% efficiency. meaning within the same energy, you would get 200-300mL of Diesel.
Fresh water is the big issues. It is becoming increasingly scarce around the world as our population and industry grows. This increasing shortage is going to create societal instability. Both the hydrogen economy and this tech depend on fresh water currently as the technology is not available to create sustainable, economic hydrogen from brackish / salt water due to the corrosive nature of the salts in this type of water on the catalyst that split the water into hydrogen an oxygen. I think we may see effective battery tech long before a solution is created.
The More Steps You Add, The More Efficiency You Lose In A System...
The world runs on (jumbo jets and cargo ships) and they need heavy fuel. A better way is to make fuel from sunlight, which can be done using plants, like seaweed biofuel. And throw the plant residue back, so it doesn't lose the fertility of the coast. (don't be too greedy )
Maybe the efficiency of using hydrocarbons could be dramatically improved if they used fuel cells made specifically for hydrocarbons?
Another option is combustion by a "light engine". They could be upto around 80% efficient: The fuel heats up a gas that emits only one frequency, then the energy is captured by photovoltaic cells that are optimized for that frequency and the efficiency is much much higher than regular solar cells.
What you are discribing is called SOFC "SolidOxideFuelCell". It can produce electricity from carbon monoxide and hydrogen, also called syngas, which ist produced my the partly burning of the hydrocarbons. Problem ist, they need to run at about 700-800 °C, which is problematic for seals, due to the different thermal expantion of the materials used.
All things aside, the production quality is amazing!
I'll give him points for optimism 👍
Same
"use solar - its renewable, unlike fuel!"
this guy:
Is there a word for the opposite of existential dread? Because this makes me feel that way.
Thank you.
wind turbines are much more efficient. If you cover the desserts with solar plants, you still end up with a huge infrastructure problem to bring the energy to where it is needed.
I think they only want to sell a good story whithout considering the cons... Conversion also makes no sense due to the low efficiency. Industry has to switch. Only the parts that require it might need a system like this. But keep in mind, that this tech is not unique and that there are other companies as well doing exactly that which are already on the market.
Hence, the idea is far from new and in most of the cases it is also not advisable to do it. To focus on solar is questionable as well. They treat the topic like it is the only renewable energy out there.
Deserts won't be covered in PV panels for the exact reason you mention; transmission expense. PV panels can go *anywhere*. Rooftops, over old coal mines & landfills, over parking lots (Google "solar carport") and other places closer to where the electricity will be used.
You are also correct that the fuel produced by this process will always be too expensive for almost all ground transportation, which will be 99+% battery electric. Synthetic fuels will be used exclusively by rockets and maybe airplanes.
Good on him for pointing out the efficiency, but it begs the question, why go through all the effort of making gas at 30% efficiency, and high cost, then burning it at 25-40% efficiency, giving about 7-12% of the energy back, when you could just use the energy directly. Fuel stoves are much less efficient because most the heat goes around the pan instead if into it. This would give cars about 10% efficiency vs like 80-90% for electric. Heating your house would make no sense, requiring 10x the energy, not even counting heat pumps.
The only potential use is for energy storage, but then, it is significantly worse than even hydrogen, which has a horrible round trip efficiency, IIRC about 25%, but that is much better than 10%. I think battery, and thermal energy storage make much more sense. This is an interesting idea, but it requires 100% of the energy grid to be beyond dirt cheap on solar, which we are no where even close, and no other good options, which there are plenty.
I am 100% for solar, wind, hydro, and nuclear, but don't buy too much into these hype ideas that make little to no sense on paper. Hydrogen will never become mainstream, and this, though interesting, has little chance of taking off at scale.
Putting a wind turbine on rooftop of car but a vawt one with max height of 1 ft , converts drag experienced into lift
Your tske please. ¿ @xeridea
Hydrogen storage is horrible, from many perspective. I really like his blog, but the question really arises, if you need that, when batteries are ridiculously inexpensive.
Makes so much sense putting solar panels on parking lots keeping cars cool while making energy
Genius. Let's do it.
It's super dumb 😂😂😂 Damn, you need to think about this a little bit more
@@Hansulf seriously? You think using the power of the sun is dumb?
@@johndaugherty4127 Throwing it away by losing 70% in inefficiencies to use it as a fuel that also loses another 70% in inefficiencies, is pretty dumb. Even more considering charging batteries is almost 90% efficient.
And what is the EFFICIENCY of burning? 10-20%
Batteries and electric motor is +80%.
Soon there are VERY cheap sodium batteries.
They've been saying that for decades mate
You are right. His point is a more economic one, if one can get the price of 'solar' methane down to below market price, then one could just participate at the market and earn money. At the same time, it would displace fossil methane from the market, which would be a win. I think it can only be part of the solution, but we have places where it is very, very difficult to replace liquid fuels like in aviation, there it could be a useful alternative.
Great stuff Dude
Bio-ethanol/methanol route is way cheaper than this convoluted method.
You could still suck out CO2 from atmosphere with solar PV though.
The end consumer will definitely notice because it's much more expensive to run a gas burner on synthetic fuel than to simply use the electricity directly. Synthetic fuels have a future in aviation, orbital rockets and hard to decarbonize industries. But it makes no sense to cook and heat your home with synthetic fuels.
Unless energy becomes so cheap that splurging on e-gas amenities (gas stove, ICE car) is a luxury that people can choose to afford...
Interesting points. The problem with e-fuels:
a) They're inefficient to produce and inefficient to burn for fuel if again using in internal combustion
b) Still pollute our city air carcinogenic toxic emissions: NOx, SOx, CO, particulate matter (PM2.5) and other volatile hydrocarbons. It's a major part of the sickly yellow-brown smog that hangs over all the major urban centers of our planet. Go visit some dense Asian cities for a face full of the stuff all day long.
c) Although e-fuels will be net-zero carbon, we actually need to *reduce* the carbon in our atmosphere so net-zero may *not* provide sufficient ramp down since the carbon crisis is dire.
Specifically for natural gas methane (CH4), it exists as a light-weight gas that absolutely wants to escape any vessel its contained in. CH4 has 80X the greenhouse effects as CO2! Methane leaks everywhere during production and transportation. It's called the "fugitive emissions" problem.
One overlooked grid-scale storage solution is thermal storage: Use large, enclosed volumes of ceramic blocks and use embedded electric heaters to heat the ceramic up with solar, wind and other non-fossil fuel energy. Ceramic blocks are cheap as chips and easy to make. The heat can be used directly in industrial applications (steel, concrete) and it can be turned back to electricity using good old steam turbine technology as needed.
Also: The emissions problem can be overstated. Its maybe possible that e-fuels market can be created, but a consumer will have a great of trouble trying to register his/her e-fuel vehicle. Emission standards are getting more strict, not less strict.
It's amazing really that we've let it go on as long as it has. Because internal combustion pollution is traced to respiratory illnesses, cancer and even dementia through nano-sized particulate emissions of unburnt fuel and metal shavings being found in the prefrontal cortex of urban people and their pet dogs too.
The graphics are crazy. 👏👏👏👏
And this is the first step in Dyson spheres. Type 1, here we come
Nah
Unfathomably equator-centric takes :D Our world is one of extreme gradients. In Northern latitudes, annual sunshine hours drop off steeply, while heating requirements go up.
Synthetic fuels would for the first time unlock indefinite / seasonal energy storage, which is the make-and-break topic for sustainable living and stability.
Just because a concept is compelling, doesn't mean that all competition should be eliminated. Batteries have their place, and synthetic fuel likely has a place (at least for 50 years or so) used in heavy machinery, aircraft and perhaps space vehicles. Eventually, I expect even materials such as thorium may be synthesised. Think of electrons as small centrifuges that store power, with more electrons using larger diameter spheres for their spin determining power stored. We're part way there with synthetic hydrocarbons. Look beyond, and then look even further!
Love the idea but am I missing something? Regardless of how you make methane, is burning it still not producing CO2 into the atmosphere despite taking it from the atmosphere to start with? I am not sure how this helps the big picture.
That would make it carbon neutral.
First, leaving the fossil fuels in the ground.
Second, carbon neutral, as mentioned before.
Third, it still has carbon in the system when it comes to building solar panels.
Overall, this would help because what he is talking about is investing in a system that would last longer than a fossil fuel platform.
Co2 is a miracle chemical compound, just like water, that allows life to exist. 95% of its emission are made by nature, but the are captured back, so there is a natural cycle. And people are now brainwashed so badly (repeating phrases without actual understanding how it all works and why co2 is problematic) they think it's some kind of poison that needs to be eradicated. The Earth would become dead if that happens. Humanity should join that natural cycle and balance it instead of demonizing things all the time.
methane is still worst for global heating than co2
@@CharlieZenenour depletion of the magnetic field and solar activity is the worst for climate change.
Batteries
if you're using solar to create synthetic fuels that would reduce the need for batteries
@@grimaffiliations3671 I guess, and it would also suck up co2 from the atmosphere.
But I wonder how much energy it takes to get to liquid fuel(gasoline/kerosene) from methane and how clean that process is for emissions reasons.
Also is there any other substances required for the chemical conversion
@@grimaffiliations3671and what us the efficiency of burning? 10-20%.
Batteries and electric motors are +80%.
@@grimaffiliations3671 Costs multiples of normal gasoline or nat gas. No way to get it below, just too process intensive.
@@michael2275 Because we don't have enough scale, yet. Solar panels were also expensive af.
Lazard’s Levelized Cost of Energy does not include externalities such as grid update and energy storage. In reality PV panels are significantly more expensive than what is said in this documentary.
But keep in mind the grid is *shared* resource. It's used by other energy generators like fossil, nuclear, hydro, etc. So you can't pile on grid expense solely on solar.
Note though residential and commercial rooftop solar _can_ bypass the grid! Those rooftop watts are both generated and used locally in situ. No other energy production can really do that effectively as urban solar with its quiet solid-state electronics.
And, yes, storage is separate. That's why there's a separate measure for LCOS. So we'll eventually will need to consider both levelized cost of energy (LCOE) and levelized cost of storage (LCOS). But both are heading down dramatically. New forms of non-lithium based storage made specific for stationary grid-scale energy storage is coming up. They'll be fractions the cost of lithium several times the longevity too while using more common materials.
@@beyondfossil all the grid necessary for nuclear is already installed. Renewables require onerous new installations. The person speaking in the film was making a spurious comparison with nuclear energy, suggesting that it was more expensive. But if you include externalities from renewables and calculate the cost of energy throughout their entire lifecycle (not 20 years as Lazard does) the result is very different.
@@salahidin The entire world uses a some 620-exajoules of energy and only some 100-exajoules of it is electricity. Can quickly see the grid needs to be expanded to offset this huge amount of fossil fuels in use. Extremely slow to build and expensive nuclear will barely put a dent in that amount.
You cannot just construct nuclear anywhere. Operation of utility-scale nuclear power plants requires large amounts of water (millions of gallons a day at up to 2700 L/MWh electricity production). Most people don't want to be within a hundred miles of one. You get NIMBY to the extreme with nuclear power construction.
Even considering externalities, commercial nuclear power still stupidly expensive. It will also still be woefully inadequate with extremely upfront high capital cost all while producing 0 watts while construction takes 5 to 15+ years. Investors hate that. But renewables can be built in fractions of the time and power comes on incrementally as they're being built. Much less risky investment.
According to UN IPCC, the next 10- to 20-years will be critical to mitigate the worst effects of climate change. Yet it takes that amount of time to online a single utility-scale commercial nuclear power plant. If commercial nuclear power didn't fail us so badly, we wouldn't be so far down the climate change hole as we are now. Now something much bigger, faster, cheap to pick up the huge slack where nuclear failed.
Nuclear power is a fantasy that never lived up to its promises in the 1950's with electricity "too cheap to meter". It is cool tech but it's clearly the wrong tool for the job of grid power: too slow, too small in collective scale, and too expensive. Nuclear is important for smaller-scale endeavors where it excels: military, scientific, nuclear medicine and eventually deep-space exploration. Those are important fields too but, for the grid, commercial nuclear is simply the wrong tool for the job.
That's just some of the unique problems with commercial nuclear.
@@salahidin The entire world uses a some 620-exajoules of energy per year and only some 100-exajoules of it is electricity. Can quickly see the grid needs to be expanded to offset this huge amount of fossil fuels in use. Extremely slow to build and expensive nuclear will barely put a dent in that amount.
You cannot just construct nuclear anywhere. Operation of utility-scale nuclear power plants requires large amounts of water (millions of gallons a day at up to 2700 L/MWh electricity production). Most people don't want to be within a hundred miles of one. You get NIMBY to the extreme with nuclear power construction.
Sure, the comparison looks bad if the plan was to make methane and then burn that to create grid electricity. But the entire point of this venture is that you don't NEED a grid because the output is energy storage for non-electrified applications.
Methane, synthetic or not, is a greenhouse gas more significant than straight CO2. Creating methane when it's readily available is unnecessary. Methane is currently produced and expelled as a waste product in some cases. This is not the right way.
Hydrogen by itself is a great energy product, although it can also have its own issues. Figure something else out to replace methane.
Burning methane from crust adds more carbon to atmosphere disbalancing the natural cycle of co2. Methane made form air does not do it, unless you leak it all instead of burning it.
wow i really loved that 💖
Reserve fossil fuels for the heavy machinery. That's my 2 cents. Expand every city and home with each geographically viable energy source. Wind or Water turbine. Solar. Whatever the individual can come up with.
Maybe fossil fuels for heavy machinery for a little while during a 100% wind, water, solar energy transition, but look at the research by Mark Jacobson and it is clear we can get there for all power needs including heavy machinery before 2050, if we act soon and decisively. No Miracles Needed is the book.
Love Casey man.
Dear, you are educated and intelligent people, stay away from promotion, marketing and propaganda under the pretext of “no moving parts”. Because it has become known to everyone that what consumer companies call “moving parts” are the best, most efficient, most effective and reliable methods.
that wouldn't solve the problem of gas leaks like methane. So it's not really an option since it would probably still emit more CO2 equivalent than it takes out of the atmosphere :)
As stated, there are losses in the cycle. That means carbon that isn't being converted into fuel, which leads to cleaner fuels, and less net carbon in the air. Essentially it's built-in carbon sequestering.
Hmm no. The Elon jacket doesn't work on him.
A few things, I respect the centering of the global poor and lifting them out of poverty as the goal and not powering AI servers for the west. Two, electrolysis already exists and because methane is dense and transportable, people are looking at geothermal as the energy source for wide spread green natural gas. Natural gas from solar isn’t that viable. The low hanging fruit with powering industrial processes is to generate heat. This can be more efficiently generated via solar thermal and refrigerants located in close proximity to the energy source.
The bigger issues I see is that economics is driving co location of industrial processes not environmental conditions. Example, clothing manufacturing in SE Asia because of cheaper labor as opposed to locating it in Jordan and creating the polyurethane via solar heating. That’s not the best example but the point is the wrong metrics are being used to justify building manufacturing “zones.”
Imagine turning 1/7 (he says this as if it is an insignifcant fraction, lol) of vast deserts, including the Sahara, Great Australian, etc., into solar fields, eviscerating these natural landscapes. There are no, or very few, roads that traverse these expanses. Even extracting and combusting bigenous, sedimental carbonized remains to produce energy seems more appealing.
I like your vision, butttt, as long as there are jobs that need manual labor such as maids and sewer disposal cleaners there are going to be poor people that have to do them. The rich people will just raise the price of everything that you need to live so that sooner or later somebody will be down in the sewer working. Kinda like the oil companies raising the price of gas now by shutting off the drilling rigs. If you've been watching, the rig count is down for the second month because the price of oil is down. They need more of your money! That is why JD Vance is crying about being forced to buy an EV. To make you say, NO! I have to have gas! More GAS NOW!!! But it's a lie! The gov't isn't going to force you to buy an EV anytime soon. The oil company will just raise the price and everybody's happy. No money for extras but happy.
Definitely not a good argument for ICE powered cars - get a BEV! But for all the ways we use methane today (home & water heaters, stoves, industrial processes), we may more quickly move towards carbon neutral via this approach compared to electrifying all those end-use devices. We'd need infrastructure to move the methane from the solar farms, but that may be less costly than the upgrades to the grid we'd need to move electricity. We could also used PV-produced methane (or even better hydrogen) as a feedstock for fertilizer production.
In the bigger picture, this is a form of civilization building. The technology is not the limiting factor. Irrational and parasitic behaviors, increasing cost of living via the need for security is a drain on the efficiency that is otherwise possible.
The solution is a radical intermingling of cultures and geographies such that factions do not develop, evolutionary forces which would result in specialization, do not take hold and cause division. This is a monumental challenge because of differences in traditions, religions, and perceptions.
Financial incentives alone, are not sufficient to spur necessary changes because not all efforts are profitable even when significant benefits could result. An example would be a cure for an exceedingly rare condition that would cost far more than the returns. So there needs to be a broader umbrella to cover such situations. Apologies for the highly philosophical comment, I'm trying to look at the big picture here.
@OP: The vid's overview could have been phrased better to make it clear that they were talking about the potential roles this new technology could be used for ... it was NOT presented as THE final solution to the fossil fuels crisis. It was presented as an idea/option for using surplus solar (that exceed local demand and storage capacity) to generate fuel instead of reducing output (aka downthrottling ... which is functionally the same as throwing that unusable renewable surplus energy capacity away.)
That would enable any/all solar installations to continue outputting at 100% even if it exceeded demand and if their storage capacity was full (or non existant). It could also be adapted as a bolt on option for other types of renewable power plants to eliminate their need to throttle down their output (to match demand) if the surplus exceeded local storage needs.
This is something that only makes sense in conjunction with a renewable power source that outputs more power than current local demand and storage can handle - so instead of throttling down, they generate useful methane.
Been hoping to get some updates from them on their progress. They used to have monthly blog updates. But not really this year.
Freethink don't think so much....
ENERGY DON'T must be categorize by NON renewable and renewable BUT in 3 parts:
1) Polluting fossil fuel ones
2) clean and green
And maybe this 2) further in
2a) nuclear, clean but not renewable, natural
2b) renewable, natural
He could have said any number and I would still have had no idea how much it is!
7:30 nope, it doesn't mean that as they are not the reverse reaction of each other. Efficiency of a combustion engine is 30 percent because of its cold and hot temperature difference. Ideally it is possible to get equal amount of energy converted to fuel!
I'm usually onboard with topics about which Freethink creates content. However, this isn't one of those cases. The opportunity cost of not using 100% of the primary energy generated via solar to decarbonize electrical grids is simply a cost that we cannot afford; nor the delay doing so would induce.
Taking 1 Joule of solar energy to create 0.3 Joules of chemical energy, then burn that fuel to yield 0.09 Joules of work is about the worst well-to-wheel proposition ever! On top of that, you get the all of the greenhouse gas emissions associated with methane: fugitive methane, plus CO₂ from combustion, albeit in a circular/renewable process.
Now, if the use cases are strictly focused on hard(er) to abate sectors such as marine transport and aviation, then synthetic fuels are far superior to fossil fuels. The issue is whether the volume is there to achieve a price advantage. Because, unless and until synthetic fuels are less expensive than their fossil equivalents, industry will simply continue burning fossils. Air-to-fuels is, at best, a transitory step in decarbonizing those industries.
What are ALL of the byproducts of burning the fuel you are making? i.e. Would it deplete water, air, carbon, hydrogen, etc. from the atmosphere and water bodies at all and if so, at what rate? Would any of the byproducts be detrimental to life?
Its a closed loop cycle.
Creating the natural gas takes in water (H2O) and Carbon Dioxide (CO2). The output is Methane (CH4) and Oxygen (O2):
(2)H2O + CO2 -> 4H + C + (2)O2 -> CH4 + (2)O2
Burning the natural gas is that kinda in reverse:
CH4 + (2)O2 -> CO2 + (2)H2O
There aren't really any byproducts and we aren't using up any physical resource (unless you want to add in the manufacturing of these factories)
Methane breaks down within 3 years so no negative effects
The exact same as burning regular gasoline: CO2 and other carbon molecules.
I guess putting solar on every new home and every new home is mono pitch roof with every square foot covered in solar tied to micro-grid is out of the question. Solar panels generate energy and shade the roof/home reducing heat signature/heat sink characteristics making home easier to cool in summer
We have the tools but can we combat fossil fuel industry greed and populace ignorance?
Quite surprising not to hear anything about CSP (concentrated solar power) in this video. Solar panels are just part of the solution.
Finaly something good
Finaly got realise where all this tehnology leads. Didnt understand before but now i am suporting all New tehnolog es. Lets take iniverse for us like we take and concuer New continents. Lets find onother world and expend
Energy must be transportable. Without pipes or lines.
It's not. Welcome to reality
@@michael2275 Not technically. Tesla invented wireless transmission of power a century ago. It sucks that we stuck to wires
@@gloriouslumi The losses are huge, there's a reason we use wires.
I like the ambitious of the late great Nikola Tesla and his wireless free energy device called the Wardenclyffe Tower. He was brilliant and it's easy to think he no clue what he was talking about, but he did invent radar, x-ray and AC electricity which we all use today. So maybe he wasn't so bad after all.
fresh water is a scarce resource
Love the Premise, but Disagree with the Primary Energy choice. I am guessing Nuclear has a better EROI than Solar PV, and also produces Heat which would result in higher overall conversion efficiencies in synthetic fuel production.
I mean, both would be ideal.
" I am guessing Nuclear has a better EROI than Solar PV ...."
You are mistaken; solar PV has better EROI both in terms of energy invested and in terms of money invested.
@@calamityjean1525 Your statement is partially incorrect.
According to every article I’ve seen written on the subject, Solar PV has the worst EROI when compared to all other commercial alternatives.
According to Wikipedia, Nuclear has an EROI around 100. Whereas, Solar PV is around 10. The LCOE of Solar PV is currently cheaper, but this is due to Regulations and Subsidies, and not fundamental Physics and Economics.
the solar adoption forecast will be 99% wrong, if only because we have a fair amount of nuclear and hydro plants that would be a shame to tear down, and we are building a significant number of wind farms that complement solar very well... Most studies show that the best way is a combination of different types of production + energy storage... As for synthetic fuels, the device itself would have to be cheap enough to be worth running for just a few hours a day when the "waste" electricity from the solar panels is available... I don't see a way to achieve that, but I'm happy to I'll let you be surprised... fingers crossed...
Humans has pushed through many social / tech challenges - often the process is very painful - that has progressed society forward
- slavery
- 8 hr day / 40 hr week
- women's rights (ongoing)
- child labour
- just energy transition (in the process)
- extreme exploitation of nature & animals for food & resources (next)
The human species is inter dependent with each other awa nature, we ALL need to achieve quality of life and to thrive... irrespective of financial wealth...
... please can someone invent the Star Trek replicator already!
So to keep petrol cars, we'd need about 8 times as many solar panels compared with using EVs...
This setup is good on mars for making fuel but on earth it economically make no sense.
DAC and green hydrogen both are very energy intensive process and they are also very expensive.
His model is great it would definitely do work but the final product will be multiple times expensive than the conventional fuels.
So right now this project makes no sense financially.
Please retire the vintage measure BTU, and present your data with the modern standard of measure the kw/kWh.
The problem here is twofold: 1) How cheap is solar without Chinese government subsidies? China isn’t exactly transparent and, rightly or wrongly, Western governments are accusing them of dumping.
2) How is direct air capture going to work? Carbon Dioxide makes up ~0.04% of air. The minuscule change that humans have accomplished by burning fossil fuels is enough to cause problems, but as a matter of separating gases that’s not an easy task.
Regarding your point #2: You are right, Direct Air Capture (DAC) is difficult and expensive. The ocean converts dissolved CO2 into carbonates and bicarbonates, which the US Naval Research Laboratory has discovered can be extracted from seawater much more economically than DAC. I suspect that to the limited extent the process described in the video is used, it will be confined to near seacoasts to take advantage of the natural CO2 capturing by the ocean.
The Problem is that the Huy around the corner pays people not to do it and we all know wich guys these are the problem of them is Money and Greed.
I'll believe you if you show me a solar panel produced exclusively by solar energy including mining and shipping
In development are solar panels that produce hydrogen.
Biodiesel from algae or ducks weed is the superior option.
Give the editor a hike, what the heck
When we do, and will switch over to electrification, there will always be a use for fossil products in some instances.
The fossil fuel industry will crash and sustaining long distance pipelines might not be possible. It then might be cheaper to produce synthetic fuel and its products where it is locally needed.
ruclips.net/video/l3db6te6Z0E/видео.html
You list Biomass as renewable. That is coming under increasing scrutiny. It is not as renewable as we have been led to believe. Specifically woodchips.
So the solution proposed here is to keep burning fuel????? Isn’t that what we’re aiming to avoid?
This case is different, rather than pulling geologically stored CO2 up from Wells, this scenario would be effectively recycling the CO2 currently in the Atmosphere. To reverse the last 200 years of damage, we would have to pull and geologically rebury surplus CO2.
Maybe I missed something, but I didn't hear why the world needs this fuel. Why not just store the solar energy from the sun in a battery at a much greater efficiency than converting that solar energy into a fuel. Maybe dedicate your talents to creating a better battery, or a better solar panel. Opportunity cost, and all that.
I wonder how long it'll be before this company goes under and he goes to jail.
We're deploying solar wrong. If 70 - 80% people will be living in cities by 2050'ish then solar should be deployed there, not clear cutting swaths of pristine wilderness so energy can be generated in the middle of nowhere, far from where it's needed. Cities should be taking care of its hinterlands by exporting energy, not acting like a parasite on its surrounding areas. Cities need to take advantage of its geophysical assets to create interconnected local minigrids
- making everything energy efficient, especially buildings (the less we need, the less we need to generate)
- convert existing power stations to work on renewables to take advantage of existing transmission and distribution infrastructure
- geothermal, wind (on & off shore) awa ocean power to provide non intermittent energy
- solar (cheap but intermittent)
- thermal recovery district heating awa industries requiring heat
- energy storage (at grid & community scale, V2G)
Lots of options becoming available, and more in the pipeline.
A small city in India is already 100% powered by renewables, mostly solar
Where there's a will, there's a way...
Started strong emphasizing the economics but then never mentioned money again
Why is producing fossil fuel from the air instead of the ground going to help?
Nuclear is the Future!
Damn great Idea! Ever heard of Elon Musk? Should call him some time!
I cannot wait for greenland to lose its ice so i can go and live in the new temperate land.....
What about that phytoplanktons that eats co2 and releases O2 that was bioengenired to solve this issue
Elizabeth Holmes-esque.
That is a loss of 2 molecules of water, or am I wrong?
A new way to pollute the air
This needs to be in a wider aspect ratio /s .....geez
Sun to hydro combustion? Short sighted. Also, for some reason, I don’t trust this guy.
No issue with the points but he spoke like a guy in the 90’s in a nightclub that may have had too many party favours! Slow it down and less clipped if you want to be taken seriously!
What id the % of efficiency? 30%? 😂 Nah, not even close... Its probably like 20% efficient, and then you are burning that fuel again for a 30% efficiency... So a final efficiency of 7%, not even considering loses from PV to consumer. It doesnt make any sense if you compare it to a battery that charges fast and has an edficiency of like 80% or more.
But who created this proverty that you are going to save us from? was it a natural occurance like hurricanes or unnatural like enforced rules?
Anything but nuclear right?
I am.
Raw material is water and CO2? Where do we get the water from
The ocean?
Fake news/ misinfo. Solar plus needed storage or conversion to useful synthetic fuels is still way more expensive. I'm a chemical engineer and this guy is full of crap
Those are pretty easy problems to solve, and I'm not even a chemical engineer.
Storage problems? For what? Methane? We already solved that, we do it every day - simply pipe it away to storage facilities. For electricity? Why, when the electricity is going straight into producing methane?
Conversion to other fuels is expensive? Good thing we are already phasing out those types of fuels for electricity. As the demand for those fuels fall the demand for synthetic fuels will fall too. The price of methane will fall due to its abundance, and subsequent chemical processes will become cheaper by default. The only fuel that is not in danger of being replaced by electricity at this point is rocket fuel, but it already uses methane as part of its production process, will be cheaper due to cheaper methane prices.
So no, there is definitely promise in this idea, especially when supplemented with other sources like nuclear. But in the end, what price is too high for saving the planet? We have to be willing to make sacrifices if we want to survive.
@@gloriouslumi You have no idea what you're talking about. None of the options are economic or within reach of being economic with any current solution or plausible solutions. If you adopt energy that is much more expensive then you destroy our economic system.
They are not going to store the electricity. They are making the machine cheap enough that they can be profitable even if they don't run it at night.
@@gloriouslumi just because something is possible doesn't mean that it will be economically viable. Yes, economies of scale can make the price go down, although that takes significant investments, innovation and time.
Nice AI generated presenter.
dude, was 2.31:1 for this video really necessary?
What city is shown at 8:46
I used Google Lens and it said the city was Zurich, Switzerland. You're welcome.
BTU - British thermal unit shit..... Can you use MWH or units can be understand by 6,3 billion people from 7 ????
Has solar gotten cheaper? Or are there a lot of government tax credits and incentives that have gone into solar? Redistributing the cost is not the same as lowering the cost.
They had gone cheaper alot
It's dropped 90% since 2009. That's not due to government programs, it's due to scale that government programs have helped achieve.
The cost comparison graph at 2:15 between solar and nuclear says "Lazard (2023). Estimated levelized cost of energy WITHOUT subsidies."
Blame the u.s. putting tariffs on solar power manufactured by China isn't a w'ar mon'goring nation. The US is if so the how many wars the US has been compared to China and such? That ar'gument doesn't add up
@@andrewreynolds912Your use of apostrophes doesn't add up.
why the aspect ratio like this
Big if true.
But it's full of lies
nuclear has like 4 times the capacity factor of solar sure it costs more but its wayyy better value solar has a storage problem nuclear doesnt
Nuclear is great and better than fossil fuel, sure, but you still need to store all that nuclear waste after it's been used by the reactor. Not to mention the cost to maintain and train people to run them, which isn't easy.
@@darkcrow42 Nuclear is the only way to replace base load cost effectively. Nuclear waste is a fake issue.
The LCOE figures of cost already include the capacity factors, and if your fuel production system is able run intermittently with the solar it is on-site with, then there is no firming cost. One would have to compare the cost of batteries vs the lost production of fuel due to downtime. And its not just 'sure it costs more' its horrendously expensive to build a new nuclear plant.
@@darkcrow42 so what if it isnt easy? If the pay is good people will just do it. Being a plumber isnt easy, but the pay is good so people do it. A man (or woman) will do what they need to so they can feed their family. If the ay is worth pursuing then they will study to get the qualifications for whatever nuclear management protocol there is
@@themogget8808 It's expensive because of over regulation, not because of the physics of the real world. Big difference.
So let me get this straight:
My man rails against nuclear and talks about how carbon emissions are destroying the planet. And his solution is…. More carbon emissions. What a joke.
You managed to fit 2 lies that are a total opposite of what was in the video in such a short sentence. THATs a far more impressive joke.
Oh ffs.