There's nothing sacred about using CO2 for fracking. In fact, water is
typically used now. There could be other choices of gasses. Using CO2
does produce some incentive for CO2 producers to compress and sell their
waste. But it still eventually goes back into the atmosphere. It would
be better to not produce the CO2 at all. But it isn't being produced
for use in fracking; it's produced as a byproduct of producing energy.
Go do the research on biofuels and such. I think you'll find out that
it's better to use the electricity directly than to generate synfuel
with it. Similar argument as to fuel cells - better to use the
electricity directly than to generate hydrogen at a huge net loss.
Is something not clear, here?
Peri
------ Original Message ------
From: "Ben Goren" <[email protected]>
To: "Peri Hartman" <[email protected]>; "Electric Vehicle Discussion
List" <[email protected]>
Sent: 21-Dec-14 1:01:38 PM
Subject: Re: [EVDL] PNAS report cites study that EV's pollute more than
gascars.
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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