I agree with Thomas and Alan. Whatever else Sandia is into (and they are a national laboratory so they have done a lot of defense work) the investigations of alternative energy have been worth while. The solar power device based on a sterling engine is proving to be more efficient than solar cells and this new approach to converting CO2 to liquid fuel is worth a look. It's a new area so the first steps will no doubt contain mistakes but this is a good use of tax money. Once a technology is brought to the point that it can make a profit the private sector can adopt it. For basic research that either will not pay off for a long time or is high risk government support is appropriate. I believe it was in the Raygun years that the pressure was put on the government to fund development for industry by pressure groups at the expense of basic research. This distortion in the roll of government and government supported university research has led to less fundamental research being done and to our living on the accumulated intellectual capitol which at some point will run out. At that point either the basic research capability will have to br rebuilt at considerable added expense or other countries will pass us by scientifically. So I am all for Sandia and the other national Labs that are doing more basic research and leaving the applied for industry.
The advantage of converting CO2 to liquid fuel using solar power is that it stores the power for when the sun doesn't shine and the wind doesn't blow and can power vehicles. Rick Thomas Kelly wrote: >Alan, > At a time when some are considering capturing CO2 and storing it >somewhere (carbon sequestration), it would be nice if it could be converted >into something useful. With increasing demand coupled with decreasing >supplies of liquid fuel, it would be doubly nice if the captured CO2 could >be converted to liquid fuel using solar power. > > "What's exciting about this invention is that it will result in fossil >fuels being used at least twice, meaning less carbon dioxide being put into >the atmosphere and a reduction of the rate that fossil fuels are pulled out >of the ground," Diver says. (Diver is the person who invented the device and >built a prototype). > > While I am somewhat familiar with the biochemisrty of photosynthesis, >in which solar power essentially generates an electric current (similar to >PV cells), the solar powered CR5 appears to generate heat to convert CO2 to >CO, and then possibly used to fix and then reduce the carbon to fuel. > I don't know if the process "solves" one problem only to cause others, >as is so often the case, but I would like for Sandia Laboratories (a >subsidary of Lockheed and funded, in part, by the US Dept of Energy) to >spend more of its budget on Energy Research (including efficiency and >alternate energy) (7%) and less on Defense (47%). > Thanks for the post ..... something to keep an eye on. > Tom > > > > _______________________________________________ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
