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Page added on October 19, 2012
The scientists who turned fresh air into petrol
A small British company has produced the first “petrol from air” using a revolutionary technology that promises to solve the energy crisis as well as helping to curb global warming by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
Air Fuel Synthesis in Stockton-on-Tees has produced five litres of petrol since August when it switched on a small refinery that manufactures gasoline from carbon dioxide and water vapour.
The company hopes that within two years it will build a larger, commercial-scale plant capable of producing a ton of petrol a day. It also plans to produce green aviation fuel to make airline travel more carbon-neutral.
Tim Fox, head of energy and the environment at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in London, said: “It sounds too good to be true, but it is true. They are doing it and I’ve been up there myself and seen it. The innovation is that they have made it happen as a process. It’s a small pilot plant capturing air and extracting CO2 from it based on well known principles. It uses well-known and well-established components but what is exciting is that they have put the whole thing together and shown that it can work.”
Although the process is still in the early developmental stages and needs to take electricity from the national grid to work, the company believes it will eventually be possible to use power from renewable sources such as wind farms or tidal barrages.
“We’ve taken carbon dioxide from air and hydrogen from water and turned these elements into petrol,” said Peter Harrison, the company’s chief executive, who revealed the breakthrough at a conference at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in London.
“There’s nobody else doing it in this country or indeed overseas as far as we know. It looks and smells like petrol but it’s a much cleaner and clearer product than petrol derived from fossil oil,” Mr Harrison told The Independent.
“We don’t have any of the additives and nasty bits found in conventional petrol, and yet our fuel can be used in existing engines,” he said.
“It means that people could go on to a garage forecourt and put our product into their car without having to install batteries or adapt the vehicle for fuel cells or having hydrogen tanks fitted. It means that the existing infrastructure for transport can be used,” Mr Harrison said.
Being able to capture carbon dioxide from the air, and effectively remove the principal industrial greenhouse gas resulting from the burning of fossil fuels such as oil and coal, has been the holy grail of the emerging green economy.
Using the extracted carbon dioxide to make petrol that can be stored, transported and used as fuel for existing engines takes the idea one step further. It could transform the environmental and economic landscape of Britain, Mr Harrison explained.
“We are converting renewable electricity into a more versatile, useable and storable form of energy, namely liquid transport fuels. We think that by the end of 2014, provided we can get the funding going, we can be producing petrol using renewable energy and doing it on a commercial basis,” he said.
“We ought to be aiming for a refinery-scale operation within the next 15 years. The issue is making sure the UK is in a good place to be able to set up and establish all the manufacturing processes that this technology requires. You have the potential to change the economics of a country if you can make your own fuel,” he said.
The initial plan is to produce petrol that can be blended with conventional fuel, which would suit the high-performance fuels needed in motor sports. The technology is also ideal for remote communities that have abundant sources of renewable electricity, such solar energy, wind turbines or wave energy, but little in the way of storing it, Mr Harrison said.
“We’re talking to a number of island communities around the world and other niche markets to help solve their energy problems.
“You’re in a market place where the only way is up for the price of fossil oil and at some point there will be a crossover where our fuel becomes cheaper,” he said.
Although the prototype system is designed to extract carbon dioxide from the air, this part of the process is still too inefficient to allow a commercial-scale operation.
The company can and has used carbon dioxide extracted from air to make petrol, but it is also using industrial sources of carbon dioxide until it is able to improve the performance of “carbon capture”.
Other companies are working on ways of improving the technology of carbon capture, which is considered far too costly to be commercially viable as it costs up to £400 for capturing one ton of carbon dioxide.
However, Professor Klaus Lackner of Columbia University in New York said that the high costs of any new technology always fall dramatically.
“I bought my first CD in the 1980s and it cost $20 but now you can make one for less than 10 cents. The cost of a light bulb has fallen 7,000-fold during the past century,” Professor Lackner said.
27 Comments on "The scientists who turned fresh air into petrol"
Arthur on Fri, 19th Oct 2012 11:14 am
This is energy storage, not an energy source. There is only one real criterium with which to judge this process: EROI. So far the best way of storing electricity from renewables is conerting it into potential energy by elevating water up into a reservoir behind a dam in the mountains. Efficiency: 80%. I really doubt that this chemical process will perform better, almost sure it will not, due to thermal losses. Maybe it can be used on a small scale on remote islands indeed, but not much more.
dsula on Fri, 19th Oct 2012 11:38 am
Arthur: It doesn’t matter how efficient it is. If you can hook it up to your small solar station at home and make your own fuel, EVEN AT AN ENERGY LOSS, it’s still useful.
TIKIMAN on Fri, 19th Oct 2012 11:58 am
Hey I’m a scientist looking at big shiney pipes with safety glasses and writing something on a clipboard I must be solving our ebergy problems!
Wow they plan on creating a TON of petrol a day within 2 years?! HOLY SHIT Our problems are solved!!!
NOT!!!!!!!!
Vipp on Fri, 19th Oct 2012 12:00 pm
This is actually pretty cool.
Although I doubt it’s efficiency.
And only 5 litres from August?
Arthur on Fri, 19th Oct 2012 12:41 pm
Dsula, that is what I said in my post: small scale application, yes.
BillT on Fri, 19th Oct 2012 1:41 pm
Dream on…and pass the joint! ^_^
Dragos on Fri, 19th Oct 2012 2:06 pm
The Navy Works On A New Source Of Abundant Fuel: Seawater
http://www.fastcoexist.com/1680728/the-navy-works-on-a-new-source-of-abundant-fuel-seawater
Earthprojects.info on Fri, 19th Oct 2012 2:15 pm
Any new energy system takes 15-30 years to roll out. We are in the Peak Oil Plateau Era and have the Peak Oil Price Spike Era coming circa 2015 with $400/pb oil.
After that fiasco hits we have the Declining Oil Production Era Circa 2016 with $200/pb oil. Finally the Post Petroleum Era circa 2030 with $0/pb oil cause there won’t be any.
This technology does nothing for the current or next Era. This could become a military application that will not care for EROEI if they need oil at any cost to keep things moving in the Post Petroleum Era, which means they get caught with their pants down energy-wise. Not likely to happen, but who knows?
I can see it being used in the Post Petrol Era to make gas for running vintage 1960s Mustangs at classic car rallies when not a drop of gas can be found on the planet otherwise and most people live on the moon or mars.
Arthur on Fri, 19th Oct 2012 2:16 pm
Here are the slides of the operation with zero reference to efficiency of the proces.
http://www.slideshare.net/fullscreen/AFSFuels/air-fuel-synthesis-cleantech-investor-2012/3
Their main selling point seems to be carbon capture, not efficient energy storage.
Arthur on Fri, 19th Oct 2012 2:29 pm
Ah well, it is the good old debunked hydrogen economy all over again:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/fuel/9619269/British-engineers-produce-amazing-petrol-from-air-technology.html
The electricity from renewables is used to produce H2, which is known for it’s low efficiency. Go to the wikipedia page for “Hydrogen economy” to see that overall efficiency for the conversion of electricity to mechanical energy in the car is a meager 25%. No wonder they try to sell it as a carbon capture tecnology. If you have to use your renewable electricity for driving, you better charge the battery directly (86% efficiency).
Rick on Fri, 19th Oct 2012 3:57 pm
Now I’ve heard it all, BS!
Newfie on Fri, 19th Oct 2012 4:03 pm
Puff, puff, puff. Man, that is some good stuff. Puff, puff….
Sidd on Fri, 19th Oct 2012 4:05 pm
Please stop posting articles that contradict our beliefs about our unavoidable apocalypse which we know is coming. No matter how much positive information you feed us we will still be convinced that we are right and that the end is nigh. Our minds are closed to solutions that don’t fit our preconceptions – so stop wasting our time with possible alternatives. We know they can’t ever be real because they run contrary to our views. Thanks.
CJ on Fri, 19th Oct 2012 5:18 pm
EROEI. I bet it’s negative.
Welch on Fri, 19th Oct 2012 5:48 pm
” We… have the Peak Oil Price Spike Era coming circa 2015 with $400/pb oil.
Highly doubtful.
Arthur on Fri, 19th Oct 2012 5:50 pm
Sidd, that is a joke, right? Please post on all sorts of energy topics, bring us the hopefull, bring us the doomers alike, in order to sharpen our wit, so someday we can bluff our way into energy consultancy and make some money, so we can appease our better halves when they complain we spend too much time behind the screen.
Arthur on Fri, 19th Oct 2012 5:51 pm
CJ, nobody claims it’s positive, not even the Watsons who came up with idea.
Welch on Fri, 19th Oct 2012 5:52 pm
Sidd –
Well, said. Yes, we are facing an uncertain energy future, but the doom and gloom and lack of an open mind around here is over the top. The world is not going to end. We will adapt. Some of the doomers around here will be sorely disappointed.
Beery on Fri, 19th Oct 2012 6:28 pm
Welch, we will indeed adapt. We will adapt to use about 1/5th the energy we use today. We will also adapt to have about a fifth of our current population. It’s the process of adapting to the new energy reality that’s the problem. Our ability to adapt has never been the issue, but some of the more gullible of us seem to think we’re going to be able to adapt without billions of people dying.
If you (or Sidd) know of any major fuel source that can, on a permanent basis, equal or exceed what oil does for us, at the same cost, let me know, and I’ll become a happy cornucopian.
kervennic on Fri, 19th Oct 2012 7:45 pm
The independent is a conservative newspaper, as such it will herald any research projects that goes into the direction of keeping car civilisation going.
What is this project ? The guy says that CD cost could go dowb eventually. But CD is not oil. There also thousands of counter example of technologies that never went to application because of expansive chemicals or catalysts that cannot be scaled up.
What is the process, what kind of catalyst do they use, how much energy ?
The only thing is that you get a pretty picture of pipes and a guy that says trust us progress is there for sure.
We can already produce oil from CO2 and even pure ethanol, and much cheaply, with corn.
With these guys we should have have had a martian base in 1980. 30 years letter we are still sending small robots there.
kervennic on Fri, 19th Oct 2012 7:47 pm
But where are thy going to find fresh air, it does not exist anylonger.
DC on Sat, 20th Oct 2012 12:32 am
Smells like a lot of hot air to me…
LT on Sat, 20th Oct 2012 1:26 am
Let’s do a little math, here:
A typical 125 Watt solar panel cost USD $140 or more. There are 36 – 4″x6″ cells per panel, which make up an area of 6sq-ft (square feet).
As such, 1,000 sq-st solar array would give an amount of power of:
1,000 sq-ft x 125W/sq-ft = 20,833 Watts.
1,000 sq-ft * 1panel/6sq-ft = 166.7 = 167 panels.
And a gallon of gasoline contains 129 MJ (Mega Joules). Therefore, it would take the 1000sqft solar array an amount of time, Tc, to produce that 129MJ. And that Tc is:
Tc = 129MJ / 20,833J/S = 6192 Second = 1hour 43 minutes.
And the cost of 167 panels is:
167 panel * USD $140/panel = USD $23,380 !!!
Conclusion: One would need 1,000 square feet solar array and almost two hours in order to generate enough electricity to synthesize just ONE gallon of petro using the process in the article, assuming 100% efficient process!
And a typical mileage of a passenger car is from 18 to 28 miles per gallon.
And how many gallons of gasolines does a typical family need a day?
GregT on Sat, 20th Oct 2012 7:48 am
LT,
You are kidding, right?
Arthur on Sat, 20th Oct 2012 8:03 am
Again:
iPad = 3 Watt
Good isolated fridge = 50 Watt
Laptop = 60 Watt
60 Watt light bulb = 60 Watt 😉
37 inch flatscreen TV = 150 Watt
Av. European car (Opel Astra) = 75,000 Watt
From this you can easily deduce that we can have a reasonable comfortable localized life with a renewable energy base *without the car*, but with an ipad – heeeehaaaa – so in 20 years time we can exchange pictures from the times we boarded airplanes.
These Brits did invent nothing new, except the catch phrase “petrol from air”, which is a lie, since they leave out the most essential ingredient from their scheme, namely generating hydrogen from water using green electricity. But this is the old idea behind the hydrogen economy, a concept not even Greenpeace is promoting, because of the notorious low efficiencies. The hydrogen economy was the idea we could have a plug-and-play economy: carbon out, H2 in. But we are not going to have this economy and certainly not a smooth transition.
LT on Sat, 20th Oct 2012 4:23 pm
GregT,
No, Sir. I was neither kidding nor serious! 🙂
I was just curious, because, according to thermodynamics, perpetual machine does not exist (energy out is higher than energy in).
Gabriel Adagiri on Mon, 22nd Oct 2012 11:13 am
The headline portrays great innovation. Good, no one can deny that, but the economic derivatives of the process rule. When consider in this direction, it might just be an academic exercise at least for now and in the next many years to come.
What the whole thing is all about, is storage of electrical energy in chemical energy form, which I doubt if it will be more efficient than in elevated water system (potential energy form). It is just like conversion of graphite to ornamental diamond