[ExI] Sandia and energy

[Eugen Leitl]

On Sat, Dec 19, 2009 at 02:46:10PM -0800, Keith Henson wrote:

> It's only when you have solved and oversolved the energy source
> problem that making liquid fuels from CO2 makes sense.  The energy
> source is what's important, not the well understood chemistry of
> making liquid fuels.

Energy is a given, but you need good scrubbers, mild conditions,
preferrably electrochemistry or photochemistry to drive the
water+carbon dioxide reaction, catalysts and such. And of course
if you make, say methanol, you need stable, cheap catalysts for 
the inverse reaction. There are certainly encouraging noises
being heard in that direction, but it's all pure research for now.

The problem with practical processes and plants out there doing
them is plenty of time and money. We don't really have the time
anymore, and we pissed away the money as well. Nevermind the skills,
good chemistry people are extremely scarce now as the discipline
has gone out of fashion.

-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
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