Will Reverse Combustion Help Solve The Energy Question?

Not sure what yield they'd get or how cost effective it would be...presumably not too bad once the plant is built (but that's a big outlay). I s'pose what is is doing is making the solar energy transportable in liquid form!

Del

PS. I believe tail chasing is the perogative of small yappy d*gs .

That's what I want to see - smoke in, trees out.

So what about the energy needed to collect and purify the CO2 to be used in this machine?

The article says they started looking at electrolysis of water to produce hydrogen; I think that would be a better way to go, this just seems to add extra complexity to the whole thing.

An off topic comment; if Sandia is supposed to be a nuclear research institute, why are they looking at this? Where is the nuclear connection?

Sandia is a research institute.

Sandia is a US government sponsered research lab that engages in research and technology development around energy. They were primarily an nuclear weapons lab at one time, now they do all sorts of energy related research from fusion to wind power to solar power.

Sandia will research any hare-brained idea that can be put forward as long as US government dollars are put into the coffers. This is why the US is falling behind the rest of the world in technology. Money goes into worthless research!!

And guest, until you actually do the research how do you know if it is worthwhile, or worthless? Hare-brained or brilliant?

What is research?

research is worthless...........until its found a use.

Oh I see, its an investment in the future.

If you have no kids and if you plan to die in the next 10 years, then everything related to energy sources research and environment conservation is worthless to you...

by basicly creating CO, are there not already factories creating this gas?

We are building catylzers to change CO to CO2 now?

Pardon this dumb question. How do you take CO and change it to gasoline, diesel or any other type of fuel?

Pardon this dumb question. How do you take CO and change it to gasoline, diesel or any other type of fuel?

Known as the "Water Gas Shift Reaction", carbon monoxide (CO) reacts with water (H2O) to form hydrogen gas (H2) and carbon dioxide (CO2). Carbon monoxide, just like elemental carbon, can strip oxygen atoms from water and various other oxides.

CO + H2O ---> CO2 + H2

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_gas_shift_reaction

This reaction occurs at practical rates only at high temperatures, but concentrated sunlight can easily provide the required heat.

I thought H1 was hydrogen and H2 was dueterium.

If H1 is a lone proton and H2 is a proton and a neutron, then I believe you are correct.

(waiting for someone to burst my bubble......)

The symbol "H2" denotes a molecule consisting of two covalently bound atoms of hydrogen (H). The symbol "H-2" denotes deuterium -- the hydrogen isotope whose nucleus consists of one proton and one neutron (the number after the hyphen specifies the total atomic mass, where protons and neutron have masses of 1 unit each).

More accurately, instead of "H2" we should write "H₂" when the text editor allows for subscripts.

Hi Svengali,

Yep that is what I thought.

Was not aware of the hyphen convention, but it makes sense, otherwise how do you know if someone is talking about molecular hydrogen as opposed to deuterium?

Many thanks for the clarification.

Have a great '08 !

CR5 in a CR4 thread; I wonder will CR3 comment?

In my humble opinion, I think it is a good observation and I think it will be the way of the future. When I thinks of CO2 in the atmosphere, I am inclined to think of it just being carbon, a single atom, floating around, I'm not good at chemistry, along with a few other things, but I do like this as a solution for the future.

Regards JD.