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Turning automotive engines into modular chemical plants to make green fuels (discussion: is this a useful tech?) (news.mit.edu)

submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net to c/energy@slrpnk.net

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As per the title, I'm curious of your thoughts on this concept. Methane from landfills are already used as a source of energy in many cases, but according to the EPA, a tremendous amount are not, and contribute 14% to the US's methane gas emissions.

I'm not terribly happy how the inventors of this tech are trying to keep it a trade secret, and their estimate that an installation will cost between 1 to 10 million takes it out of reach a backyard solarpunk from taking advantage of it (though it sounds like it could be DIY'd with enough know-how).

On the face of it, if it makes more landfills become viable as a source of energy to reduce use of fossil fuels, it seems like it could be a useful tool against climate change. The best case scenario would be that a local energy co-op is able to afford the initial startup cost to get it operational, ideally using repurposed engines from used cars.

What do y'all make of it?

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[–] I_am_10_squirrels@beehaw.org 3 points 18 hours ago

My background is chemical engineering. From this brief article, it sounds like a decent proposition. Basically taking a diesel engine and powering it with methane, but feeding it excess methane. Enough methane combusts to power the engine, which also powers the downstream processes. The excess methane is reformed to hydrogen without being fully oxidized to carbon dioxide and water. The nascent hydrogen is fed to some downstream process to create methanol.

This seems like a good way to produce a needed fuel / feedstock without additional energy inputs. I would be interested in seeing a full life cycle analysis of the system.

[–] PuddleOfKittens@sh.itjust.works 11 points 1 day ago (1 children)

"In the future, we’re going to need green fuels because you can’t electrify a large ship or plane — you have to use a high-energy-density, low-carbon-footprint, low-cost liquid fuel,”

Large ships are perfectly capable of being battery-powered. In fact, battery cargo ships might well be cheaper than oil-based ships: https://austinvernon.site/blog/batteryships.html

[–] ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Wow, that is a fantastic article and a terrific resource. @JacobCoffinWrites@slrpnk.net, this might interest you as well, since all I could think of while reading it was your wonderful rendering of a solarpunk sailing container ship. The ideas about offshore cargo hubs to distribute the cargo with smaller electric boats as well is good food for fiction and art, methinks :)

Thank you for sharing it, Puddle!

So that's one use case down, leaving mostly just airplanes where that biofuel would be specifically useful.

[–] myrrh@ttrpg.network 2 points 11 hours ago

...isn't that essentially a port with extra steps?..