On Dec 21, 2014, at 1:46 PM, Peri Hartman via EV <[email protected]> wrote:

> PH: you're assuming that there isn't some other gas that could be used - 
> perhaps compressed air or compressed nitrogen or whatever.

Nitrogen is its own element; there's no carbon in nitrogen. And there's less 
than a tenth of a percent of CO2 in air; you'd have to process a few thousand 
cubic feet of air just to get one cubic foot of CO2.

> Also you're assuming the CO2 has to come from a coal plant rather than simply 
> be extracted from the atmosphere or some other source.

Coal plant emissions are the richest common source of CO2 we have.

> Third, the reason we extract CO2 (actually coal) from the ground isn't to 
> produce CO2, it's to produce energy.  Even if the need (in fracking) for CO2 
> went away, we would still extract coal.

That's exactly my point: we're going to keep mining coal, whether we like it or 
not. That carbon's coming out of the ground. But why throw it away after a 
single use?

> PH: true. So what?  Pump petrol or dig coal.  Either way, it's more efficient 
> to directly use the electricity.

Good luck fueling an airliner with electricity, or running a tractor-trailer 
rig across the country with electricity, or operating your combine harvester 
with electricity.

The only way we know to do those things with electricity, even in theory, is to 
use the electricity to make syngas from CO2 and then refine the syngas into 
various petroleum distillate equivalents.

Which is what I'm proposing.

> When we've eliminated all the coal plants and diesel generators, then we can 
> start doing what you say.  Until then...

Until then, most diesel isn't used in generators to make electricity; it's used 
to move stuff from point A to point B. If diesel were primarily used to 
generate electricity, I'd be with you. But it's not, so I'm not.

Cheers,

b&
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