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Climate change thought experiment.

jimbo said:
If there is a solution forthcoming, the people with an understanding of the energy market and the bucks to research and market will undoubtedly be the ones to find it.

Government, while it has the big bucks, lacks the understanding of the market.
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Audi has already proved the concept, It is just a cost function now.
Any improvements in efficiency will only drive down the ceiling price of oil, the point where
there is more profit in the refinery making it's own feedstock.
Also there could be a path for solar homeowners, where instead of getting paid for their extra power,
they get credit for putting gas in their car. The power being traded directly with the refinery making the fuel.
 
CLAX1911 said:
Or poeple much better a bull****ting. How do you know? Math is very easy to check. It isn't very complex.
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Math would be the easy part. How would you know if the current reported volume of all the oceans or the mass of all the ice on dry land is correct? I guess you would need to write a calc equation to account for the changing perimeter of the shoreline as the sea rose X feet over Y lbs of ice melting. Butt, that wouldn't be all that hard if you had a map giving the values of all the elevations along said seashores.
 
longview said:
Firstly "dirt cheap" is not a quantifiable number, where fossil oil actually is, as is the cost of making hydrocarbon fuels from scratch.
The current published efficiency from Audi is 70%, this means that the 36.6 Kwh contained in a gallon of gasoline
would take 52.5 Kwh of electricity to produce.
The Acquisition Cost of a barrel of crude oil is currently at about $44, of which 35 gallons of fuel can be produced.
Wholesale electricity is about $.05 per Kwh, so .05 X 52.5 X 35= $92
When the Acquisition Cost of the oil is greater than the cost of making their own feedstock, great moral character be damned,
the greater profit will be in making their own feedstock.
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I agree, but 100% efficiency in the transfer of chemical energy to thermal energy isn't physically possible with our current known materials.

The oil companies (maybe we should call them energy companies, as they sell energy, not oil)
are the best situated to utilize the technology, as they have paid for refineries, and an existing distribution infrastructure.
It would be somewhat ironic that the oil companies that have been so demonized, will also be the ones that
produce a functioning solution.
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Forgive me I still don't quite understand the solution you proposed. You want to use CO2 as a fuel gas? I don't really know if that is possible because CO2 doesn't burn, so how would it be used?
 
calamity said:
Math would be the easy part. How would you know if the current reported volume of all the oceans or the mass of all the ice on dry land is correct?
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I would go by what is already done. If you don't believe that math, you would have to disprove it. Information is at your finger tips.

I guess you would need to write a calc equation to account for the changing perimeter of the shoreline as the sea rose X feet over Y lbs of ice melting. Butt, that wouldn't be all that hard if you had a map giving the values of all the elevations along said seashores.
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You don't think anybody has ever done that before?

I used info that was already complete for volume of water, volume of ice on land and so forth. I cross referenced it. If there were liars that made up their own math to skew the results as much as you said i did, than the numbers would be off. I avaraged my sources.
 
CLAX1911 said:
I agree, but 100% efficiency in the transfer of chemical energy to thermal energy isn't physically possible with our current known materials.
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The process is 70% efficient, so 30% of the energy is lost in creating the hydrocarbon fuel.

Forgive me I still don't quite understand the solution you proposed. You want to use CO2 as a fuel gas? I don't really know if that is possible because CO2 doesn't burn, so how would it be used?
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To make gasoline (roughly C8H18) you need 18 hydrogen atoms and 8 carbon atoms.
The hydrogen comes from water electrolysis, but the carbon in a carbon neutral cycle would come from
atmospheric CO2.
The refinery would buy wholesale electricity, Split hydrogen from water, and split carbon from CO2.
The olefin processing would assemble the atoms into olefins, and the downstream processing would assemble the olefins
into what ever liquid fuel they needed.
Sorry for my poor description, I am not a PChem guy, Here is Audi description.
Audi e-gas project > Product > Sustainability at Audi > AUDI AG
and the Naval research labs
https://www.nrl.navy.mil/media/news-releases/2012/fueling-the-fleet-navy-looks-to-the-seas
 
longview said:
Audi has already proved the concept, It is just a cost function now.
Any improvements in efficiency will only drive down the ceiling price of oil, the point where
there is more profit in the refinery making it's own feedstock.
Also there could be a path for solar homeowners, where instead of getting paid for their extra power,
they get credit for putting gas in their car. The power being traded directly with the refinery making the fuel.
Click to expand...

That's generally how the market works.

We no longer use horses for transportation because of the efficiency factor. In the process we got rid of a lot of pollution.
 
longview said:
The process is 70% efficient, so 30% of the energy is lost in creating the hydrocarbon fuel.
Click to expand...
Are you meaning CO2 when you say hydrocarbon or are you talking about some other gas.


To make gasoline (roughly C8H18) you need 18 hydrogen atoms and 8 carbon atoms.
The hydrogen comes from water electrolysis, but the carbon in a carbon neutral cycle would come from
atmospheric CO2.
Click to expand...
So you are talking about breaking a molecular bond. Thay isn't easy.
The refinery would buy wholesale electricity, Split hydrogen from water, and split carbon from CO2.
The olefin processing would assemble the atoms into olefins, and the downstream processing would assemble the olefins
into what ever liquid fuel they needed.
Click to expand...
So basically you are talking about molecular alchemy? If this was really realistic we could end all material based woes world wide.

I still think it would be far cheaper to refine fuel out of substance that contains it than to build it on a molecular level.


Sorry for my poor description, I am not a PChem guy, Here is Audi description.
Audi e-gas project > Product > Sustainability at Audi > AUDI AG
and the Naval research labs
https://www.nrl.navy.mil/media/news-releases/2012/fueling-the-fleet-navy-looks-to-the-seas
Click to expand...
I'm not either, I'm just really sceptical. My brother was a chemist.
 
CLAX1911 said:
I want to propose a thought experiment. For this to work we have to assume that anthropogenic climate change is occurring and that it is detrimental to the globe. If you can't accept that, than this thought experiment isn't for you.

So human activity is causing a climate change. And in a hundred years there will be a significant shift in climate.

In order to avoid this catastrophe what do we do? If you have a thought please explain how it will be implemented realistically.
Click to expand...
Not a thought experiment for me.

Optimum living regions of the globe will change, if all they say is true. People will relocate.
 
CLAX1911 said:
Are you meaning CO2 when you say hydrocarbon or are you talking about some other gas.


So you are talking about breaking a molecular bond. Thay isn't easy.
So basically you are talking about molecular alchemy? If this was really realistic we could end all material based woes world wide.

I still think it would be far cheaper to refine fuel out of substance that contains it than to build it on a molecular level.


I'm not either, I'm just really sceptical. My brother was a chemist.
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I was skeptical at first, this all started as a thought experiment at Fraunhofer University, as a way to store
surplus summer solar electricity for winter heating.
https://www.fraunhofer.de/en/press/research-news/2010/04/green-electricity-storage-gas.html
Nature it seems has evolved the best way to store energy for long time scales, Hydrocarbons.
The refineries have been into building at the molecular level for over a century,
Back when gasoline was a waste product, they were running steam crack units to make extra kerosene.
By breaking oil down to olefins, they can reassemble whatever fuel is in demand.
Just last month Oak ridge national labs stumbled across an easy way to make ethanol.
New Process Discovered to Convert CO2 to Ethanol |
So people are working on these ideas.
 
longview said:
I was skeptical at first, this all started as a thought experiment at Fraunhofer University, as a way to store
surplus summer solar electricity for winter heating.
https://www.fraunhofer.de/en/press/research-news/2010/04/green-electricity-storage-gas.html
Nature it seems has evolved the best way to store energy for long time scales, Hydrocarbons.
The refineries have been into building at the molecular level for over a century,
Back when gasoline was a waste product, they were running steam crack units to make extra kerosene.
By breaking oil down to olefins, they can reassemble whatever fuel is in demand.
Just last month Oak ridge national labs stumbled across an easy way to make ethanol.
New Process Discovered to Convert CO2 to Ethanol |
So people are working on these ideas.
Click to expand...

Yeah but the added step of stripping hydrogen from water and then carbon from hydrocarbon can't possibly be cheaper than not doing it
 
CLAX1911 said:
I would go by what is already done. If you don't believe that math, you would have to disprove it. Information is at your finger tips.

You don't think anybody has ever done that before?

I used info that was already complete for volume of water, volume of ice on land and so forth. I cross referenced it. If there were liars that made up their own math to skew the results as much as you said i did, than the numbers would be off. I avaraged my sources.
Click to expand...

Yeah, what's already been done shows a sea level rise of 200-250 feet, if all the earth's ice melted, not 6. :roll:
 
longview said:
You misunderstand, even if temps rose 7C by tomorrow, the 7 C would have to be in the T-Max to have any effect,
and the high temps would have to stick around for 1000 years to melt all the ice.
So take 7 C and add it to the diurnal temp of antarctic
Antarctica Climate data and graphs, South Pole, McMurdo and Vostok
+7 C might get evening temps over freezing for 2 months out of the year.
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Delta 7 C would be what...about a 12 degrees F shift. Yeah, that would raise the global average up into the upper 60's. I imagine that would easily melt all the ice.
 
CLAX1911 said:
Yeah but the added step of stripping hydrogen from water and then carbon from hydrocarbon can't possibly be cheaper than not doing it
Click to expand...
It is not free, but neither is finding, extracting and shipping crude oil.
Besides, these are numbers that have been validated, the early numbers were around 60%, now they are at 70%.
So 52.5 Kwh to make a gallon of gasoline including the inefficiencies.
That is about $2.65 per gallon wholesale, and about $3.50 per gallon at the pump.
Everyone still makes a profit, Taxes get paid, Gasoline has been that high before, and we all survived.
The Government could encourage home solar, through a gasoline credit program.
something like each 100 Kwh of surplus gets the homeowner a 1 gallon credit.
 
calamity said:
Delta 7 C would be what...about a 12 degrees F shift. Yeah, that would raise the global average up into the upper 60's. I imagine that would easily melt all the ice.
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You are clearly missing the point, the summer low average in Antarctica is below freezing.
Adding the 7C might bring it above freezing for two months a year, but any melting would be from
the small difference in temperatures and very slow, with zero melting and accumulation, in the other 10 months.
 
CLAX1911 said:
I want to propose a thought experiment. For this to work we have to assume that anthropogenic climate change is occurring and that it is detrimental to the globe. If you can't accept that, than this thought experiment isn't for you.

So human activity is causing a climate change. And in a hundred years there will be a significant shift in climate.

In order to avoid this catastrophe what do we do? If you have a thought please explain how it will be implemented realistically.
Click to expand...

Nuclear and more nuclear. Look for ways to filter carbon out of the air. Develop hydrogen (from water) more.
 
longview said:
You are clearly missing the point, the summer low average in Antarctica is below freezing.
Adding the 7C might bring it above freezing for two months a year, but any melting would be from
the small difference in temperatures and very slow, with zero melting and accumulation, in the other 10 months.
Click to expand...

If the average on the planet is 7 C, it could be 12 C at the poles. I'd have to see how that works, especially Antarctica since it relies on dry thin air for its cold. Once the air moisture increases and the heat gets more readily trapped, it might turn into a 50 degree F paradise.
 
calamity said:
If the average on the planet is 7 C, it could be 12 C at the poles. I'd have to see how that works, especially Antarctica since it relies on dry thin air for its cold. Once the air moisture increases and the heat gets more readily trapped, it might turn into a 50 degree F paradise.
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If that is what you think AGW says, then the data apparently does not care for the theory ether.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata_v3/ZonAnn.Ts+dSST.txt
The 90S to 64S numbers have moved around some since 1880, but not much warming,
and way less than the global number.
 
longview said:
If that is what you think AGW says, then the data apparently does not care for the theory ether.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata_v3/ZonAnn.Ts+dSST.txt
The 90S to 64S numbers have moved around some since 1880, but not much warming,
and way less than the global number.
Click to expand...
If this is the actual trend, get ready.
201601-201605.gif
 
longview said:
It is not free, but neither is finding, extracting and shipping crude oil.
Besides, these are numbers that have been validated, the early numbers were around 60%, now they are at 70%.
So 52.5 Kwh to make a gallon of gasoline including the inefficiencies.
That is about $2.65 per gallon wholesale, and about $3.50 per gallon at the pump.
Everyone still makes a profit, Taxes get paid, Gasoline has been that high before, and we all survived.
The Government could encourage home solar, through a gasoline credit program.
something like each 100 Kwh of surplus gets the homeowner a 1 gallon credit.
Click to expand...

But that is an exorbitant price. I paid $1.78 last fill up.
 
CLAX1911 said:
Carbon or carbon dioxide?
Click to expand...

Just easier to say carbon. But stuff like this.

Scientists Accidentally Discover Efficient Process to Turn CO2 Into Ethanol

cientists at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee have discovered a chemical reaction to turn CO2 into ethanol, potentially creating a new technology to help avert climate change. Their findings were published in the journal ChemistrySelect. [Go here for a new in-depth interview about the findings with one of the lead researchers.]

The researchers were attempting to find a series of chemical reactions that could turn CO2 into a useful fuel, when they realized the first step in their process managed to do it all by itself. The reaction turns CO2 into ethanol, which could in turn be used to power generators and vehicles.
Click to expand...
 
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