East coast fuel shortage

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Sinned
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Re: East coast fuel shortage

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Coder, over here the timescales are rather imminent. ur government is planning on banning the sale of petrol and diesel cars from 2030 [0], so that leaves 8.5 years to accelerate the development of alternatives AND put in the infrastructure to support the alternatives, whether electric, hydrogen or whatever. I would put serious doubt as to whether these timescales can be achieved. But we will see.

[0] 2035 for hybrids.
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Re: East coast fuel shortage

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It is always best to have high hopes and low expectations.
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Re: East coast fuel shortage

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BBC Radio 4 had a long article in a science programme about a 'carbon capture' exhibition in the Science Museum in London.  Great detail about how much oil it generated (not much), about a crowd of protestors making a fuss because the research was being done by an oil company, even about the size of the apparatus - but not a mention of how much energy it used or how much carbon dioxide the generation of that energy released into the atmosphere.  Carbon capture seems to be the modern equivalent of the perpetual motion machine.
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Re: East coast fuel shortage

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pelmut wrote: Sat May 22, 2021 11:40 am Carbon capture seems to be the modern equivalent of the perpetual motion machine.
I think it will be hard to come up with a system of carbon capture better than photosynthesis. Photosynthesis works well.
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Re: East coast fuel shortage

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Jim wrote: Sat May 22, 2021 6:51 pm
pelmut wrote: Sat May 22, 2021 11:40 am Carbon capture seems to be the modern equivalent of the perpetual motion machine.
I think it will be hard to come up with a system of carbon capture better than photosynthesis. Photosynthesis works well.
It's had the longest development time and is the most widespread -- but -- the resulting products have a relatively short life before they return to being carbon dioxide.  Either they catch fire and become CO2 or they degrade biologically and give off methane - which hangs around as a greenhouse gas for a few years and then eventually becomes CO2.

The way to permanently trap carbon in trees is to prevent the dead ones from having access to oxygen by burying them in disused coal mines or under water.  Alternatively, they could be used in a wood-converting gasworks to recover some of the hydrocarbons for the chemical industry, but not for fuel.  Then the resulting charcoal could then be buried or waterlogged to prevent fire.
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Re: East coast fuel shortage

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So we dig out coal which is mainly carbon so we can put in its place dead trees which have a high proportion of carbon. Seems about swings and roundabouts to me. And as for the oil, I have a theory that the oil acted as a lubricant to the various strata so they could move easily. By removing the oil the stresses have to build up to a higher level before movements can take place hence the earthquakes are more violent. I have not done any study in this so I could be simplistic and I could be completely wrong. But stranger theories have been proposed.
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Re: East coast fuel shortage

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There are essentially two purposes to carbon capture. One is to use carbon as energy storage to create fuels to drive mobile appliances. For this photosynthesis is pretty crappy with less than 1% efficiency and takes up valuable land. There is technology available that can convert CO2 in the air to fuel at a cost of $4/gallon which is much better.

Secondly we want to remove the CO2 from previously burnt fossil fuels form the air. There are more options here, for example you can simply grind up rocks and the exposed minerals will absorb CO2 from the air. But burying logs underground would do as well.

The problem is not that we don't know how to do it, we do. There is a lack of political will to make it happen. Fortunately there are plenty of private enterprises making a go of it and trying to make a dent in the problem. But until there is the political will to seriously scale this up it won't matter.
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Re: East coast fuel shortage

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Sinned wrote: Sat May 22, 2021 10:06 pm So we dig out coal which is mainly carbon so we can put in its place dead trees which have a high proportion of carbon.
You've got that back-to-front.  We have already dug out the coal and burnt it, which is partly why there is too much CO2 in the atmosphere.  By burying dead trees or charcoal in the existing coal mines we would be putting a proportion of the carbon captured by the trees back where it came from.  

If we don't do something like that, what is going to happen in 100 years time?  The excess of trees that are being planted now will die and begin to decompose, giving off masses of methane which is far worse for the environment than the CO2 they have captured.  It is fine to plant trees because we appreciate woodland and forest, it is pointless and dangerous to plant them for virtue-signalling if we haven't got a way of dealing properly with the dead ones.
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