Jones Beene wrote:
Don't laugh yet <g> but "get-wind" of this new-and-improved eco-scheme:
Yup - nitrous oxide - is a potential fuel with some unusual benefits,
especially if combined with wind energy into a total package. Certainly,
among the most attractive of those benefits is that the raw materials
are free...
Free-is-good... unless, that is, you are in the oil-patch.
First and foremost, there may be no other scheme on the planet which is
as ecologically sound as this one (in theory). Why ? Air-2-Air-2-Air
using air-power is the basic manufacturing and conversion situation !
How cool is that?
At room temperature, N2O is unreactive with most substances, including
alkali metals, halogens, and even ozone. IOW is safer to store than
gasoline and easily liquefied.
It is therefore widely used as a propellant in aerosol cans in place of
the CFCs which can damage the ozone layer. When heated sufficiently,
however, N2O decomposes exothermically to N2 and O2.
If this reaction occurs in the combustion chamber of an automobile, 3
moles of gas would be produced from 2 moles, providing an extra psi
boost to the piston, more torque - as well as liberating more heat. It
also has a number of other benefits including the oxygen content which
provides more efficient combustion of fuel, and the latent heat of
vaporization of the N2O reduces the intake temperature allowing a higher
compression ratio. It is win-win (except for $$) and therefore N2O is
injected into the intake manifolds of racing cars and dragsters to give
more power and unsurpassed acceleration.
One question that comes immediately to mind is how much NO comes out the
exhaust pipe? I seem to recall that's one of the pollutants folks are
concerned about -- contributes to acid rain, maybe? -- and it seems like
a likely successor to N2O in this scheme, assuming the dissociation
process isn't perfect.
Without getting too much into "echo-ecology" (as in repeating oneself) -
let me reiterate that in past postings (if anyone reads them), I have
related this persistent vision of a fleet of offshore, drift-floating,
large catamaran wind-farms (of the ladder-mill or improved
Winged-Ferris-wheel variety) which use wind energy to make liquid air
(or preferably O2-enriched liquid air, where the O2 content is 40% or
more, of the end-product).
In this scheme, this liquid fuel/oxidizer would be picked up
periodically from the floating wind farms by cryo-tankers, and
transported onshore - to be used in regular gas-fired electric plants -
to increase the efficiency of combustion and reduce hydrocarbons by as
much as 1/3 for the same kWh. There is still too much CO2 in this scheme
for the Sierra Club-
Actually I don't see how this reduces the CO2 emissions at all.
In fact, if it improves the efficiency of the combustion process, it
might increase CO2 emissions, by making combustion more complete and
replacing some CO which would otherwise be produced with more CO2. Off
hand I'd guess that CO, being highly reactive and hence less long-lived,
is less destructive to the environment than CO2 (or maybe it's about the
same, if it tends to turn into CO2 -- whatever).
> ... so that there is a net gain at the gas-fired-plant
from "just" the expansion of the liquid
In global-warming terms, is this not the primary gain, if not the only gain?
Certainly for reducing CO2 emissions it seems like this is the only
positive effect. The rest of the energy in the turbines is still just
coming from combustion.
