PeteMorris Posted October 19, 2012 Author Share Posted October 19, 2012 Really? Your very first post seems to doubt that as you raised the previous thread up. You said that this was as good as running a car on fresh air - if that's not starting a scientific debate I don't know what is. In the inimitable words of Monty Python "Well I didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition" You then decided, post #12 btw, when the consensus was against you to engage in a little bit of attack on my integrity and credibility, which you continued in post #15 and then in #21 decided that it's just best to start the abuse for real. I believe you were the first with 'proper' insults in calling me a pratt! Oh and then you start the I'm much cleverer than you tack and suggest I go and read a book! So I'll say it plain. You are acting like a spoilt child, throwing his toys out all because someone doesnt agree with him. It's pathetic and demeans you. You could have chosen to engage in the debate and gain a better understanding and appreciate how this process may be useful, but instead you decide it's finger in the ear, this is oh so hard for me. So, in other words unless I agree with your superior knowledge, I should go away and crawl back under a stone. I try to be understanding and non abusive in this forum, but your superior attitude makes it very very difficult, and anyone else who has had to endure your "I'm cleverer than anyone else on here...and I'm always right" attitude will no doubt agree with me. Your loss. Just remember that mediocrity is a vice of the doomed. Yet another insult! You still didn't answer my question. Why is the company in the link bothering, if it's such a worthless project? I'm sure with your superior brain you should be able to answer! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Obelix Posted October 19, 2012 Share Posted October 19, 2012 And I'm sure if you'd stuck around in the debate you might have found out. The answers already been given though if you care to look for it. I've just read through - no one anywhere called you a prat until you started throwing the abuse. Perhaps you'd like to revise that? And while we are at it what have you invented lately? Just so we know... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cavegirl Posted October 19, 2012 Share Posted October 19, 2012 I suppose we currently get petrol at zero cost to get it to the petrol pumps then? Doesn't it take energy to extract it from the ground, pump it to wherever it's got to go. Tansport it on a vessel which uses oil to propel itself, pump it into the refinery. The refinery uses energy to convert it, the petrol tankers use energy to transport it, and we fill our cars with it. So don't tell me it's always going to take more energy than it will ever produce. There aren't any figures to substantiate your claim! I'm afraid Obelix is absolutely correct in this matter Pete. We are in the midst of an energy crisis and you need to understand the oil industry to understand why. Putting it in simplistic terms, when oil is first discovered it literally gushes from the ground and it's simply a case of building infrastructure to collect, transport and refine the oil. This means oil is plentiful and cheap (until 2007 it averaged about $20 a barrel, today it's close to $100) and that it has a high EROEI (energy return on energy invested), perhaps something like 100,000:1 barrels. This means you get 100,000 barrels worth of energy out for every 1 barrel of energy you invest to collect it. However, as a field depletes the oil no longer gushes and must instead be pumped out. The industry uses EOR (Enhanced Oil Recovery) techniques in order to do this, such as drilling down to the edge of the field and pumping in CO2 gas to force the oil up to the surface. Of course this becomes much more expensive, creating oil price spikes/ rises, and dramatically reduces the EROEI value, perhaps to just 1000:1. Globally, this is the stage we're in now, new oil field discoveries have been declining since the 1960's and our super giant fields, such as those in the Saudi Arabia, are all subject to EOR techniques today. When the EROEI gets too close to 1:1 the field is no longer commercially viable and is abandoned and often there is no money left to repair the environment and remove the old infrastructure. You must remember that oil is fossilised energy that was created and accumulated millions of years ago over hundreds of thousands of years and we globally use 74 millions of barrels every day resulting in the fact that we've used more than half of it in just 100 years. I think this adequately describes the extent of the problem. Many new technologies are being hyped at the moment, but consider them on this scale and I'm sure you'll realise that techniques such as air Fuel Synthesis will never replace oil/ petrol at anything like the amount required to make it cheap enough to produce commercially to sustain our oil addicted lifestyles, the EROEI value will never be the equivalent of a gushing super giant oil field composed of practically free fossilised energy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeteMorris Posted October 19, 2012 Author Share Posted October 19, 2012 And I'm sure if you'd stuck around in the debate you might have found out. The answers already been given though if you care to look for it. I've just read through - no one anywhere called you a prat until you started throwing the abuse. Perhaps you'd like to revise that? And while we are at it what have you invented lately? Just so we know... I suggest you re-read post 43 by your goodself! Now I suggest you drop the attitude and stop looking like a prat. If you want to debate a scientific point, when you have no apparant appreciation of the underlying science you are only ever going to end up with egg all over yourself. I havn't invented anything lately....did I say I had? You havn't answered the question of why a whole company full of scientists, engineers and technicians are wasting their time on a such a worthless project! "Just to get funding?"....why would anyone be convinced enough to provide funding if it was so obviously and demonstrably a non starter? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Obelix Posted October 19, 2012 Share Posted October 19, 2012 Read it again Pete... You said "I believe you were the first with 'proper' insults in calling me a pratt!" I said "I've just read through - no one anywhere called you a prat until you started throwing the abuse. Perhaps you'd like to revise that?" Ergo I was hardly first. Now since you appear to be descending even more into name calling and have abundantly no interest whatsover in debating the point I'll leave you to it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
metalman Posted October 19, 2012 Share Posted October 19, 2012 The company are obviously talking it up like mad because they need the investment to build their next scale-up plant, but if I was going to invest I'd want to see more details of the chemistry involved in their CO2 + hydrogen reaction. Normally if you're going to make fuel like this in what is basically a Fischer-Tropsch reaction you would start off with synthesis gas, which is CO and hydrogen which in turn comes from methane (i.e. natural gas). Unless you've got a very efficient way of splitting water to get hydrogen, and a very efficient way of capturing CO2 and then reducing it to CO, I can't see this really working with any great advantage, so I'm with Obelix on this one at the moment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeteMorris Posted October 19, 2012 Author Share Posted October 19, 2012 I'm afraid Obelix is absolutely correct in this matter Pete. We are in the midst of an energy crisis and you need to understand the oil industry to understand why. Putting it in simplistic terms, when oil is first discovered it literally gushes from the ground and it's simply a case of building infrastructure to collect, transport and refine the oil. This means oil is plentiful and cheap (until 2007 it averaged about $20 a barrel, today it's close to $100) and that it has a high EROEI (energy return on energy invested), perhaps something like 100,000:1 barrels. This means you get 100,000 barrels worth of energy out for every 1 barrel of energy you invest to collect it. However, as a field depletes the oil no longer gushes and must instead be pumped out. The industry uses EOR (Enhanced Oil Recovery) techniques in order to do this, such as drilling down to the edge of the field and pumping in CO2 gas to force the oil up to the surface. Of course this becomes much more expensive, creating oil price spikes/ rises, and dramatically reduces the EROEI value, perhaps to just 1000:1. Globally, this is the stage we're in now, new oil field discoveries have been declining since the 1960's and our super giant fields, such as those in the Saudi Arabia, are all subject to EOR techniques today. When the EROEI gets too close to 1:1 the field is no longer commercially viable and is abandoned and often there is no money left to repair the environment and remove the old infrastructure. You must remember that oil is fossilised energy that was created and accumulated millions of years ago over hundreds of thousands of years and we globally use 74 millions of barrels every day resulting in the fact that we've used more than half of it in just 100 years. I think this adequately describes the extent of the problem. Many new technologies are being hyped at the moment, but consider them on this scale and I'm sure you'll realise that techniques such as air Fuel Synthesis will never replace oil/ petrol at anything like the amount required to make it cheap enough to produce commercially to sustain our oil addicted lifestyles, the EROEI value will never be the equivalent of a gushing super giant oil field composed of practically free fossilised energy. I appreciate what your saying, and (surprisingly for some) understand. At least you don't have that holier than thou attitude! What still puzzles me though is why bother researching, if it's clearly and patently and obviously not viable? Anyway, I think Obelix has effectively killed the thread anyway. Maybe that was the idea! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alcoblog Posted October 19, 2012 Share Posted October 19, 2012 Although this process is very much in its early stages, I really like this idea. It's pretty easy, using stuff we know, to pooh-pooh this idea ... it can't work. I remember reading that when electricity was first produced, people said it had no use and it was just used for amusement purposes. How wrong they were! Also (without Googling), I remember the work done by professors Pons and Fleischmann (sp?) in the 70's or 80's (?), where the claimed to have discovered controlled nuclear fusion at room temperature, using very simple apparatus. This experiment gave out more energy than was put into it ... it was free energy. Although they were made to look very foolish at the time, I believe there is now much work going on regarding this process ... people are taking it seriously. If the Pons and Fleishmann experiments were combined with the 'turning water and air into fuel', the fuel'd be practically free! However, if you could produce free electricity, you obviously wouldn't need to turn it into petrol. So, I wouldn't dismiss this experiment out of hand ... it's new technology and very much in its infancy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
truman Posted October 19, 2012 Share Posted October 19, 2012 I appreciate what your saying, and (surprisingly for some) understand. At least you don't have that holier than thou attitude! What still puzzles me though is why bother researching, if it's clearly and patently and obviously not viable? Anyway, I think Obelix has effectively killed the thread anyway. Maybe that was the idea! Lots of companies research lots of things that never become viable...at the moment this company is looking for investment so that it can continue it's work..maybe that's why it's being "bigged up" just now.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
metalman Posted October 19, 2012 Share Posted October 19, 2012 That's a very big if there, Alcoblog. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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